Visit to a secondary school

Two of my uni colleagues invited me to one of their lessons at a secondary school today. As I have only been teaching primary students during this Thai prac, I thought I'd pop my head in to see what it's like to have secondary students.

There are about 50 students in this grade 12 class. 

Team-teaching in threes (Steph, myself and Kathy)

The cheeky and rowdy boys at the back. They're the ones who surprises me the most when they do make the effort to answer questions because in actual fact, some of the ''naughty'' ones are pretty bright.

Cheese :)

Wai Kru Day (Teachers' Day)

Day Two at Phrachapibal Primary School

Expectation
Throughout this practicum experience, my team-teaching partner (Kim) and I will be teaching grade 3, 4, 5 or 6 students. We're expected to teach two classes from different grades each day and to have an hour with each class (reason being is the students have their lessons in Thai for the rest of the day).

First Teaching Lesson - Grade 3 and 6 
Note: We followed the same activities for both of the grades.

Introduction
- Introduced ourselves as Ajan (Teacher) Linda and Ajan (Teacher) Kim.
- Told the students where we're from and displayed images of Sydney's tourist attractions on the whiteboard (The Centre Point Tower, Harbour Bridge and Opera House) and labelled each of them.
- Broke down what is found or what people generally do in each place with appropriate actions and sound effects e,g:

You can eat food, go shopping and look at buildings at the Centre Point Tower.

There are cars (vroom vroom) and trains (chug-chuga-chuga) on the Harbour Bridge. 

People play music in the Opera House. Some people play the guitar, violin and piano or some people sing in the Opera House too. 

Body 
- Introduced six of the Australian animals - Kookaburra, kangaroo, echidna, emu, platypus and koala.
- Read out the names of each animal and asked the students to repeat the words.
- Identified and demonstrated the actions and sound effects that each animal does. Eg:

A kangaroo hops.
An emu pecks.
A koala climbs.
A platypus swims.
An echidna crawls.
A kookaburra flies.

- Asked the students to stand up to imitate the actions, sounds and name of each animal.
- Handed out face masks of each animal and instructed the students to label each animal and colour them in.

Conclusion
- Played a game that incorporated all of the 6 Ozzie animals which we taught. The images of the animals were randomly attached on the walls all over the classroom and the students had to move towards the certain animal in the same manner that the animal would, after it is called out by myself or Kim.
- Revised the whole lesson by asking students to identify what the pictures of the animals and Sydney's tourist attractions are.


Comments: I realised that when it comes to teaching English to ESL learners, there is a greater focus on teacher-directed learning because it is crucial for teachers to have the students repeat one word after another numerous times.

My favourite part of the lesson was when we were pretending to be animals! I felt so free to be like a wild clown and the kids loved it.

Kim and the grade 6 students pretending to be a kookaburra.

The grade 4 students with their animal face masks.

GREEN TEA CORNETTO

I'm such a loyal fan of green tea! So you could've imagine the excitement I was feeling when I came upon this at 7 Eleven! It was very flavoursome, unlike a lot of the green tea gelato ice-creams in Oz.

P.s there are soooo many 7 Elevens here in Bangkok. Probably in Thailand overall.

Day one at the primary school

Sawatdee ka!

Today was our observation day at Phrachapibal Primary School in Bangkok. My uni cohorts, professional experience co-ordinator and I received a formal but warm welcome.  The primary students were cheerful and the teachers were hospitable. I really felt appreciated and treasured because the school treated and served us as if we were royalties. 

I know all of that sounds quite sugar coated and whatnot, but I'm actually writing about the experience for what it really is :) Although, at one stage my team-teaching partner and I were confused when we entered the classroom of grade 4 students. After the two of us introduced ourselves to the students, the teacher said ''Ok, you teach now teacher.'' and we replied with a stunned face ''Oh no. Today we observe only and we start teaching tomorrow.'' So that was cleared.

Some interesting things I discovered today in relation to the primary school:

- Besides wearing the same uniform, all of the primary students also wear the same socks, headbands (girls) and slippers. How did I pick up that they wear the same socks you ask? I'm often an analytical freak when it comes to entering a new place, and so I noticed the students were shoeless and then noticed they all had identical socks.

- Student teachers/pre-service teachers in Bangkok are expected to do their prac in fourth year for one full year, without any pay. I apologise to the criticism in advance but, I feel as if they are being taken advantage of. It's good in the sense that they are gaining experience but I do question the challenge of unpaid labour whilst being a university student. 

- On a brighter note, teachers including us overseas student teachers receive free lunch everyday and students receive free milk every morning, all of which are support from the Thai government! How amazing is that?!

- There are TWELVE Vietnamese students in this Thai primary school!! I was jumping in excitement when the teacher told me this because if you don't already know, my background is Vietnamese. I requested one of the teachers to bring any of them to me because I wanted to speak to them. I haven't felt that appreciation for Vietnamese speakers like that before. It's probably because it has been difficult in terms of communicating with locals during these past few days 

Short snippets of the grade 4 classroom atmosphere:

The precious kindergarten students blessing us with handmade flower garlands (made out of Jasmine flowers, Roses and Pandan leaves - it smelt absolutely beautiful).

 The students drumming away to welcome us into the school.

The school grows, picks and eats from their own vegetable garden. What a superb idea! Talk about fresh produce.

Having their calcium intake.

The main resource used to teach English in Thailand is the text book.

Myself and some of the students from the grade 4 class that we observed today.