School Trips

Three school trips in one week. By Saturday (today) I was exhausted! But it was all a lot of fun. I already talked about the kindergartners and the trip to the market in the last post, so lets dive straight into Thursday and the trip to Wat Traimit.

Coming along on this trip were the 2′s, 3′s and 4′s, 180 students all told. Around 10:30 everyone piled into the buses and we set off. The Wat was in Bangkok and it took about half an hour to get there. Once there and unloaded, everyone sat in the main reception hall where each year group was given their guide. I was to stick with the 4′s.

Obviously everything was in Thai, and although there were signs and stuff in English, for the most part my role was supervisory, rather than reading through everything. With any luck I can go back, staff will recognise me and I’ll score a free tour in English. But I’ll include what little I did manage to pull together and hope that it’s enough.

First we went to the top of the Wat, where a very large golden Buddha was sitting. I later learnt this was the most valuable Buddha image in the world. It was very impressive, but I was a little surprised because I have seen much bigger. As we walked around outside at the top there were bells and chimes and all through this the tour guide was giving the students lots of information which they frantically wrote down in little note books.

Then we went downstairs to a movie room. The movie seemed to be a history about the Buddha image, which was moved from it’s original place (somewhere… I don’t know where) to Bangkok. After the movie there was a short museum with lots of information about how the image was made, how it was moved and why it’s the most valuable image in the world.

Next up we went through another museum section, this time all about the growth of China town in the early twentieth century. The Wat is located on the edge of china town and it was a pretty cool museum, first you walk through a boat with TV screens in the ceiling, making it look like you are below decks, then into the growing streets of China town. There was a model city of the main street which did a day and night cycle with cars with headlights and it was very cool.

After this final section we headed downstairs. Everyone sat outside and we waited for the bus to take us back to school. I actually really enjoyed it.

The next day, Friday, was the zoo. We went with the kindergartners again, and the 1′s. I was with the eldest group of kindergartners. We left first thing in the morning and it only took half an hour to reach Dusit Zoo.

We did a walk around, not really stopping too much, but you could see the various animals as we walked past their enclosures. We went into what we thought was a fully walk through reptile house, in fact it only had one doorway. We got to the end with all the kids (and another school of kids) before we all had to do a big turn around, which was chaotic. It took about fifteen minutes to regroup.

An hour and a half in and we got lunch, the massive dinning room was located along a large bird enclosure with pelicans and all manner of other big birds. I didn’t really have time to take pictures here, as you can imagine, keeping all these kids eating and not running out it a bit of a job!

After lunch we walked around some more, eventually getting a ‘train’ ride (one of those car train things) around the whole zoo. It took about twenty minutes but we saw a lot. Afterwards we were sitting waiting on word for where to go next. We headed into a penguin park which was pretty good, then we headed back to the buses. I didn’t get back in time to teach my first afternoon class, but I was able to teach the second.

I was completly shattered when I got back to school, but there was a good hour break which I used wisely and recharged to give the final lesson (with the 4′s, who are always great) a real blast. Then I collapsed in the air-conditioned staff room. Then I headed home.

It was a great, but tiring week and needless to say today has been a pretty lazy day, if you don’t include the outside gym I was shown and had a go at, and the swimming. But fun times.

I’m also going to make a real go at getting the vlogs up to date, I have four or five to get up, luckily they aren’t all ‘part 1′ this and ‘part 2′ that (except the first two, sorry about that!). I’ve gotten them all ‘built’ (edited and put together) but I only have one compiled (ready to upload). So I’ll try my darndest to get caught up, and I hope we will have fresh stuff for you all to enjoy by next weekend.

Until next time, goodbye!

Fun on the bus

Wat Traimit

Pile in

Golden Buddha

Chimes

Next to the Wat

Carvings

Model Cars

Lanterns

Goodbye!!

Lunch time

…and nothing comes…

Seriously… what’s wrong with me?? Why has it been two weeks since posting?! Mad times. Let’s fix this.

School

It’s good. Classes are still going well, having lots of fun still. The young ones are still challenging, the middle ones are still amazing and the older ones are still, well like me and this blog, a bit lazy. But it’s all good. Nothing major to report.

Today we took the kindergartners out to the market. Ninety children, four and five years old, a line of destruction, practically knocking people over, taking things from stalls, madness really. But fun. Can’t deny it was fun.

Got a school trip tomorrow (Tuesday) with the 5′s and 6′s to… somewhere. Been asked to come along. That’ll be fun. And going to somewhere with animals on Friday with the 3′s and 4′s on Friday.

Social life

I still have one. Been drifting from Mai as her uni stuff keeps her pretty busy and she went to Jordan and back up north to Chiang Mai.

There is a family who lives in my building who are very kind. They are nearly always downstairs in the lobby when I finish work, the mother’s English is really good and she helps me out a lot if I need help translating or talking to someone about something. They invited me out with them traveling up the river sometime. Looks like it’ll be next weekend. So that’ll be fun.

Met a guy from the UK who’s working out here in like, supplying and marketing of some kind, and does teaching on the side. He’s got me looking at a place that I could do private tutoring sometime maybe. See what that’s all about.

Going to add more stuff to this in other segments below.

Learning Thai

It’s coming along really nicely. Lot’s of random words and phrases. All sticking in my head, still recognise more than I can remember (If that makes any sense?).

Dates

For those who follow this, maybe you remember a while back (a long while back) I mentioned meeting someone on a night out but I never wrote a follow up. I felt kinda bad writing one because the ‘date’ (if you could call it that) was pretty crap.

I’ve been on a few and for the most part, they’ve all been, just not good (rather than bad), for one reason or another. I always sit down and think to myself, how much detail should I go into?? when I write these things. I won’t really go into much with this sidebar yet past saying I had two dates this weekend and they both went well. Both have some great points, but also some major negatives. So just see really what happens.

Coming home, and back again

An honestly unrelated note, since I don’t think I’ve mentioned coming back on here yet… I got my flights home. Going home end of September and staying for about 1 month, until the end of October. It’s the school holiday then. I’m really enjoying it out here and want to finish the school year.

I’m starting to get random offers to go and work in other schools and at this point I’m saying thanks, but no (obviously). But it’s nice to know that having a job out here won’t be something I’ll ever struggle for if I decide to stay any longer.

Still really want to do Japan, that’s still in the back of my mind and during my second stint here I’ll be doing some serious research into it.

I think that’s everything…

If I’ve missed anything… sorry! I can’t think of anything else I need to remember to include. So there is your update as I try and find the passion to keep writing! This is the longest period of being un-arsed to write since I’ve started this. Ah well.

See you guys… who knows. Soon hopefully

Losing the Passion

Another week has passed with no update. It’s not that I haven’t got anything to say, I’ve got plenty. Loads going on in school, still half half the classes to write about, science days, plays, a market in school. Loads going on outside school, Thai lessons, more tutoring, nights out, a few new friends.

My ‘lost the passion’ is more about the constant updating, picture taking and filming. I haven’t taken a picture outside of school for a long time now. I haven’t gone out with the intention to film a full episode for the vlog, I haven’t felt compelled to write up about everything.

I read a fair few blogs, friends blogs, other Twitter people blogs, random blogs and the kind of posts I hate are the ones that leave me with a bitter taste or a depressed feeling. I hate writing these posts, but I still feel an update is needed.

So let’s try and improve on stuff.

Coming home soon. About six weeks. Still working on flights. October is the school holiday and I’m coming back here to finish the year. I’ll be home for October. Knowing it’s coming, starting to feel homesick, the bacon sarnies, a bit of Jeremy Kyle, friends, family, the Xbox, my PC (so much geek in those last two, but I DON’T CARE!!). So there’s that.

Found a Sony store. That sells the stuff for my camera I want. I want the microphone, they sell it here. About the same price. Waiting to see my final flight prices before I make the investment (actually, it’s not much of one, it isn’t too expensive). The real investment I want to make in is the alpha lens adapter for my camera. It has dropped in price dramatically. And new firmware will make it fully automatic.

Currently I have two lenses, the 18-55mm lens that’s fully auto that the camera came with, and a 55-200mm lens I got that I got an adapter for that’s only manual. My manual abilities suck and it just puts me off carrying it around when I have my camera. E-fit lenses (for my camera) are insanely priced. The alpha ones are a lot better. More research is needed but that’s my next investment I hope.

Need something to kick me up the backside to bring back the passion to keep record. Let’s hope it hits soon!

Playing catch up

It’s been two weeks. I have catching up to do! So, let’s catch up.

Ang Thong

Went there. Stayed in the volunteer house, went for a big lunch, had a good time. Did some card tricks for the kids. Taught the teachers how. Good times. Then went to a pre-funeral funeral. Didn’t know I was going. The next day, went to the funeral. Didn’t realise the thing before wasn’t the actual funeral. Was actually interesting and pretty different to western funerals. To steal a line from The West Wing, it was more of a celebration of life than mourning death.

Overall was a nice getaway weekend without anything to really worry about.

Week 1

Not a grand amount to report, the usual shiz niz really. At school it was exam week so I didn’t have much to do, hence why there is little to report this side of things. All my students came out of the English exam saying it was easy, so that left me feeling pretty happy.

Went out a couple of evenings, had a good time. Met some new people. Tried to meet up with someone I met in Chiang Mai but a massive storm, a canceled boat, flooded parts of the city and being stranded on a newly made island ruined the plans. Set up some private tutoring though.

Last weekend

Private tutoring started. Working with two kids, one much older than the other. But the younger kid understands it all. Working on some phrases and more complicated and detailed answers, as well as grammar in far more detail than I do in class. Really enjoyed it to be honest.

Saturday night went to the railway market with Mai. It’s like a car boot style market that also has bars that are just like, collapsible and put up in a matter of minutes. Really liked it actually. Also got myself an angry birds bathroom rug for about two quid. Quality.

I’m sure I did something Sunday. It’s eluding me right now. Though I could’ve slept off the previous week. I definitely did something. I’ll come back to that.

Last week

Again, the usual stuff. Back to teaching and it was more playing catch up again, but as always, good classes and fun stuff. Went out for dinner with various people on various evenings and went into the city a couple of times. Friday was the queens birthday, so we had the day off. It was designated mothers day. On Thursday we had some celebrations, actually it was ridiculously cute and I got some great footage. Still playing catch up with the vlogs, my internet has decided it doesn’t like staying on over night, so my uploads keep failing since that’s pretty much the only time I can put them up.

This weekend

As I said, Friday was off. I spent the day sleeping to be honest. I felt pretty whacked from a week of nothing followed by a solid week of classes. Early evening I headed out, there were light celebrations for the Birthday across the city, then I managed to meet up with some people for a few drinks. Which turned into a lot of drinks, which turned into a bit of a crazy night. Good times.

Saturday morning I had tutoring again. The family are very friendly. They pick me up from my building and bring me to theirs. We settle down and I work with two girls. First I thought they were sisters but they aren’t. Only one of them lives there but I think they are related, maybe cousins. Today (this weekend) we concentrated more heavily on grammar. English grammar is shockingly hard, and really hard to explain when there is a language barrier. Things you just say and the way you construct a sentence is just easy, you don’t even think about the rules. Like, explain what the difference is between ‘some’ and ‘any’ and when you use them. It’s all positives and negatives. I can just about explain it in English. But I really like the challenge. And because it’s just the two of them, you can take time to explain it, change the way you’re teaching if it isn’t working but it’s just a lot easier. When the teaching is over they feed me and take me home with fruit. Last week I had Chinese noodles and this week Cow Pat (fried rice with seafood) and…. ice cream!!

In the late afternoon/early evening I went to the cinema, saw Captain America. Awful film.

The next day I went to the mall with Lin and some of her family, we also went to the cinema, saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Really enjoyed it. Loved all the throw backs to the old films. Afterwards we went to a concert in the mall. It was all in Thai obviously, but it was fun. Not really my style of music but your there for the company and just to experience new stuff. I had fun. Came back later than planned and went straight to bed.

And now we are caught up! More teaching stuff is a coming!

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Year three are awesome

The three’s are awesome. Seven and Eight years old, they don’t mess around too much at all and they aren’t shy (unlike the three’s at my volunteer school). The two classes are a little different here though, with one just not quiet as smart and more prone to distraction than the other.

3/1

Maybe it doesn’t help that the windows here aren’t glass, they are bars, to let in the breeze and the air and keep the room cool. The windows let in all the sound of what’s going on outside. And what’s going on outside during this lesson is P.E. with the kindergartners. Which is basically singing and dancing. Bring out the loud speakers and lots of songs. Drowning out me pretty easily during a loud part of a song.

Oh well. It is what it is, can’t change anything. So these guys enjoy the work we are doing right now because they love getting out of their seats and ‘doing’ something. We have been working on verbs and making sentences out of the verbs. First you learn the verbs. Watch, listen, go and seven others.

“Watch!” I call out, and everyone stands up, puts their hands above their eyes like they are looking for something. Some of them stare at each other, but there is a real energy behind it.

“Buy!” They jump up, pull out their money, and start handing it over to their friends for books, pencils, pens, rulers, whatever is sitting on the table. The seats are all ‘paired’ seats and those who don’t sit next to anyone normally run up to me. I take their money, give them a pen, then pocket the money and tell them to sit down, taking back my pen. It’s all a good laugh and when they sit down I give them their money back.

To make up the simple sentences is pretty easy and we can make it just as movement based as just the single words. “I call my friend.” ‘I’ and everyone thumbs in at themselves. ‘Call’ and everyone pretends to have a phone. ‘My’ and palms are placed on their chests. “Friend” and they spin around pointing at their friends.

3/2

Slightly different. There is no music going on in the background and I have fewer problems with this group (not that I have many with 3/1). These guys like to jump around and ‘do’ the words as much as the other class, but these guys also love playing games. New words, new sentences, whatever it is, about ten or fifteen minutes into the lesson the girls at the front start whispering “Teacher…. play game!” If they are behaving (which is always) we play a game with the new words or sentences.

Competitive games. Splitting the class into two or three teams. Normally involves bringing one player from each team, and seeing who can either act out the word I say or say the word I’m acting out, first. The first minute the rest of the class has to stay silent. If someone shouts out, the team losses a point. The first few games were just the smartest kids in the class shouting out the answers. Quickly establishing the rule of stay silent or you loose a point for your team, they stopped. If after a minute they don’t have it, I turn towards the class and they shout it out. No points are given because by now all teams know the answer and they do it around the same time. I turn back to the whoever is up, and make sure they know what the word or action was I wanted.

The scores are always close and it varies which team wins and losses each week.

In both classes I know if the work we are doing is starting to push them just a little bit harder, there are two or three kids I can call on to see if they understand. If they do, I know I can work with the rest of the class and keep pushing, if they don’t then what I’ve picked is too hard for them and it’s time to do a quick rethink.

These kids are super cute and a complete pleasure to teach. They are young enough for the work to be simple yet easy to push them, they aren’t too young that I need to spend hours working out each lesson to make sure I can stay in control of the class, and they aren’t too old as to have the work being difficult to set up or to, as you shall read, start pushing the boundaries of ‘everyone is having a good laugh and fun’ to ‘now you’re just being rude and taking far to long to calm down’.

Along with this post, there is a video to go with it; this is 3/2

Hope you all enjoy! See you next time.

The terrible twos

The terrible twos. No title is more fitting.

This about sums it up nicely

This is the class that I just have to grit my teeth through, the one I have to teach so I can teach all the others. What little terrors, little monsters. It’s not like the ones, it’s not just because they are so young. They are testing the boundaries of what they can and can’t get away with. How long they’ll do this I don’t know.

They are very similar to the ones with what does and doesn’t work, what they do and don’t like. They can concentrate a little longer though and be left just watching for a little longer, meaning short games are possible. Chanting and learning new sounds as well as words is doable, as long as we move on quickly to something new.

They love bingo. Love it. I have bingo ready and set up for the lessons, but we don’t always play. I set up the bingo so they can see we might play, the games are based on new words and sounds we learnt either last lesson or will learn this lesson. If they mess around though, if they can’t behave we don’t play. This has worked reasonably well in the last couple of lessons.

What are we actually working on with these guys?

Words, more difficult words, words with two to four syllables, also new sounds. Can they say and make the sounds needed for the word. It’s a struggle between too much over-exaggeration and just not enough for them to pick it up. A lot of sounds in English are a lot more subtle then you realise. To teach what that sound is you need to amplify it, but then they have learnt a sound that doesn’t sound right. This is fine with the older kids because we can bring it back down easily. But these guys will just keep doing the exaggerated version.

The difficultly a lot of the kids have is with the ending of a word, the sound at the end, very few Thai words and phrases I’ve learnt have especially ‘hard’ sounds at the end. When they say ‘mouth’ and ‘mouse’ they actually just say ‘mow’ and leave the final sound out. We exaggerate the final sound, with these examples an exaggerated ending isn’t a problem really. But with other words it is.

Tall. Fast. Long.

Tall. L. the ‘ell’ at the end is very subtle. Teach the ‘l’ sound and when they put it together we end up getting the word ‘taller’.

Same for fast (faster) and long (longer).

We also work with some basic questions and answers. How old are you? What’s your name? Stuff like this.

These guys are smart and the work is simple and can be fun, but keeping them all listening, working, concentrating is difficult and drains me on a Tuesday, when I have both the classes on a single day (just like the ones).

Teaching year one

I’m going to start a series of posts going into more detail about the teaching. Links with the list of all the classes will be put on each post to easily navigate to the others as each one is done. I get a lot of questions about the teaching, how it’s going, what exactly I’m doing and I’ve realised I haven’t talked about it much. So let’s correct that!

Today we start off with the ones. I’ve talked about these guys before and how difficult they are. The more I work with them, the easier they get and the more fun they are. At five and six years old, they really just want to play. Work is simple, we are doing basic words and still getting the ABC’s down.

The chaos that is year one

So what doesn’t work with these guys?

A lot. They need to all work in a big, single group, that doesn’t leave anyone out for even a few minutes otherwise you loose them quickly. So standard stuff can’t be done. They quickly grow bored of chanting words and the alphabet and the normal games we play will normally focus on two or three people for a couple of minutes before moving onto the next few people. You’ve lost half the class in just ten minutes. Raising your voice, shouting or anything like that doesn’t work when you’re trying to get them back. Half of them will just shout with you and the other half will ignore you. You can’t spend your time trying to ‘tell off’ the kids who aren’t listening, because then you loose everyone else.

What does work?

They respond well to works they know really well, they love shaking hands and high-5′s. As I said before, everything needs to include all of them, all participating. The class sizes are around 35, that’s a lot to have playing one game, on one (maybe sometimes two) teams all at the same time. What I’ve been working on recently is giving every kid a letter, and using some letters (like E and A and other common letters) two or three times. Then we go through the alphabet quickly. This can take less then a minute, each kid knows they will get a chance very soon to stand up and shout their letter and they concentrate. Then I have sentences written on the board, made up of the words they know. We have the kids with those letters come up to the front. Everyone is involved because they are trying to work out if their letter is there, I don’t help them. A couple of trial and errors and many hours of planning has got me the words I need, the short sentences and everything that makes sure all the kids get to come up often.

This works well, they really enjoy it and I rarely loose them now. But when I do, getting them back is getting easier. The kids who are paying attention get a “Good morning!”, hand shakes, high-5′s and “Very good!”‘s. They all love this and they know now I’m giving it to the kids who are sitting quietly and not messing around. This works great and has been a life saver (and a voice saver!)

These kids are very young and a real handful. My biggest problem is that I have one class straight after another. If something didn’t work with the first class, it is very difficult to prepare for the second. But it’s really starting to come together.

Outside of class I really like these kids. They always come up to me with good morning, good afternoon, hand-shakes and the like. They are very cute and just generally good, fun kids.