[Mid Term Break]

Finished the first 8 weeks of teaching in the university. And I am a bit run down. Its still surprises me just how much extra work there is to teaching on top of the actual lessons; besides lesson preparations there is research, photocopying (and how that can take so much time), printing, creating/editing spreadsheets, discussions with teachers and students, marking papers & homework and so on. Not having worked for awhile, working in a new profession, working in a foreign country, not speaking the local language (much) and classes at 8am have added to the difficulties.

The pay is little but I love my job, mostly. Offcourse like any large organisation there are complaints about it- like- why does it take more than 3 weeks to get the CD player in my class room to work? But I truly love working with the students.

Class sizes up to 38 students have really challenged me in class room management. I have had to experiment with different ways in presenting lessons in order to engage so many students and keep them focused and interested at the task at hand. But monitoring individual student speaking abilities and progress is still a daunting task. I felt I have surely grown as a teacher in the last weeks.

One thing I realise more clearly is that I pretty much hate teaching in the standard teaching model. That is, teacher speaks, students do their work and listen; students sometimes ask questions if they don’t understand. Otherwise, teacher speaks, students listen.

I am very much a facilitator- that is- the students need to interact and teach themselves as well as the class through my guidance. And especially in English- it is after all a practical subject that requires student participation.

And this is a bug bear all Western teachers face here. Traditional Thai education is strictly the old teachers model. Ask the class a simple question like “who likes football, raise your hand” and I would be lucky to get one hand up out of 38. They are just not experienced with interactive education. Respect your teachers, don’t ask questions.

So I am getting them up out of their chairs as often as possible to either speak directly in front of the class, to brainstorm with the class on the black board, to correct student grammar mistakes or to role play etc. They are getting use to me and I must say I was duly impressed with their recent oral presentations. No one read from a script, many brought in creative costumes and props and their presentation skills, even though it was in a foreign language for them; impressed me.

Now they are on exams so I have a short holiday. :-) I tell you I need them. I was on a downward spiral. Not sleeping well and going to work tired. Then going to bed tired, not sleeping well again and going to work the next day even more tired and so forth…

I am back at Uni on the 4th August when I have to watch them sit their English exams and then; the dreaded marking. Some 160 papers, not paid mine you! And soon thereafter classes resume. Actually the time just slips away, must mean I am enjoying it :-)

A classic first day of teaching...dont you just love the chalk board and the blank looks on their faces, oh how true that is! See-


Video

A Typical First Class in English

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