" It's mid-term week here in Thailand, meaning that I have no lessons and plenty of time on my hands. I'm half way through my placement so what better way could there be to begin than to publish a mid-term report?"
Well 3 weeks on and I'm completely in the home straight of my first teaching contract. Please find below a rundown of my opinions of each class I teach.
Currently I'm teaching at Pathum Ratchwongsa School, situated in the town of the same name in the province of Amnat Charoen. It really is in the arse end of nowhere, but lets leave that until another post.
Today I will be concentrating on the kids. All of whom I adore..
There's about 1,300 kids in the school, of which I teach just over 200. As I'm the only 'farang' teacher at the school my sole concentration is on the top set of each year. A collection of the brightest kids in the district and those who have parents willing to pay the fees. Very much like Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys (but substitute fees, for sly backhander to the council to 'bump up' little Johnnie's 11+ results so that he can wear a nice uniform whilst he's eating his crayons).
It seems in Thailand parents are a lot more willing to invest in their daughter's education, or it might just be a case of the boys being undervalued or lazy. Either way, you will notice that the majority of my students are girls, with a high representation amongst the boys being of the lady variety (again saved for another post).
So here goes, in ascending order, let me introduce:
M6 (Ages 17-18)
When I was told I was going to be teaching top grade 6th years I thought I'd be way out of my depth.
On my first day I was introduced to David. He asked me about my views on the First World War, the Cold War and the War of the Roses.
Luckily it turns out David, although being.... by quite some distance... the brightest 'English' student in the school, owns a certain amount of bravado and is fond of asking foreign teachers difficult questions..... without being able to follow them up.
Instead of floundering badly and using phrases such as "you might want to look this up",
Episodes of Blackadder as factual evidence and "that's just my prespective from a western point of view" to defend my own ignornace, I should have just come out with something like:
"Well, the War of the Roses was between the the Cadbury family and some invaders from Mars. The Mars invaders were hoping to be victorious resulting in many Celebrations. However, Cadbury's had a lot more....eeeer cadbury's..... so they sent in some Heroes. This left Mars beTWIXt a rock and a hard place. Their Snickers were in a Twixt, much to the opposition's Turkish Delight. The Cadburys had put Mars in a Fudge.
Mars repsonded by putting out a Bounty......"
and so on and so forth (please feel free to send in your suggestions. I will happily edit them in).
Back to the subject matter:
M6 are a difficult class to make progess with. Mainly because, over half of them are never there. Out of 36 students on the register, I only ever seem to have 12-15 students in front of me... only 8 of which I can recognise on a regular basis.
The reasons are justified as they are busy studying for their finals or attending university interviews. English with some 'first-time job in teaching chancer' isn't top of their priorities. In addition. their dependance on David as a translator completely defeats the purpose of having a native speaking teacher at all.......In his defence he is only trying to help his friends.
I was dreading the mid-terms with M6, but to their credit that took my cheat sheets and learned the hell out of them... apart from 'Q' a legend in anyone's life.
She turned up with a list of her own questions for teacher. Her pronouciation is horrific but her ability to engage people is amazing.
A well deserved 'A'.
M6 will be my first class released into the wild. I'm worried how some of them might make the transition from sleepy PR to the 'plain fcuking scary' world of BKK (or university life in general).
Good luck kids :-)
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