Practice Teaching

Practice co-teaching on the last day

Going over rotations on clothing

Classroom in Bangkok- Please note no windows or AC

It is so interesting the concept of details in this country. I am truly learning to go with the flow and have a more cool heart. This concept was truly tested with the limited details we were given about the five day teaching in Bangkok. We were told they would be middle school children in 7-9th grade level English and that we would be teaching for two hours with a ten minute break. Besides that we could teach whatever we wanted however we wanted. Now I know this sounds like a dream, but they are such a wide array of topics in TEFL (teaching English as a Foreign Language) from greetings to colors to verbs, etc. How do we pick topics to cover in just five days to maximize these kids time with a native speaker? The answer to this response is “don’t worry about it” or “don’t look so stressed”.To make a long story short, my co teacher and I decide to spend the first day evaluating our kids and their knowledge of vocabulary and dialogue in order to make our lesson plans for the following week. We ended up teaching about food, food taste, how to order from a menu, numbers, clothing, and greeting- topics we thought would be most useful to these children in the poorer part of Bangkok.

Another interesting aspect of Teaching in Bangkok was the lack of resources. And when I say lack of resources I mean nothing- no books, no paper, no pencils, no tape. We were just lucky enough to get the one classroom with a whiteboard rather than a chalkboard. My co-teacher and I split the cost of some f the necessities in order to teach. We had our students create flashcards from the room which we used throughout the entire week, and cut paper in fourths for their assignments and projects. Surprising the kids were really engaged when they had to draw pictures which is a huge bonus with TEFL because how else do you communicate what something is in English when you are told not to speak in the mother tongue of your students.
The icing on the cake of teaching was the lack of air conditioning while in business attire. The classrooms had four large green shudders that opened to the outdoors and the two doors opened to the hallway which was also outside. This set-up created a half decent cross wind, but I still got to points when I would be running around the classroom during a dialogue activity drenched in sweat.

Through all these obstacles I absolutely loved the experience! When you saw a student’s eyes click when they understood a concept or said something in English for the first time their truly was a magical moment. Over the five days we were able to loosen the kids up so they could loudly speak out in a very simple dialogue with better pronunciation. There are a few kids I think will use this experience as an encouragement to continue their English practice, and that is all I can ask in five days.