The KISS method to language acquisition

When Bunny was here her method for learning Thai was to either copy whatever she'd heard (leading her to believe that the phrase for "fried rice" was in actuality the phrase for "how much") or to invent crazy sentences that were fun to learn, like "Rebecca's boyfriend's dog can't swim." (regardless of the fact that no, I don't have a boyfriend, if I did he probably wouldn't have a dog, but if he did the dog would almost certainly know how to swim). To her credit, Bunny can say "Are you eating cookies behind me?" in Mandarin, and "Your eyes are delicious." in Greek.

Now I'm not going to say her method of learning new languages is *wrong* per se. but that it's probably more entertaining as a linguistic exercise than actually helpful when trying to survive in a country that speaks that language. While she seemed to understand a great deal more Thai than I could, judging by our success in restaurants, my Thai was more easily understood.

This is also the approach I take in teaching. Communication is more important than showing off.

Here are two examples from the test I gave on Saturday. The instructions are "Write about what you are doing next weekend. Say what you are doing / where you are going and why."

1. Next weekend, I'm going to Central with my friend at Bangkok. We're shopping. We will buy something When we need And we will buy the Book. And on Sunday come back to Rayong. We going to the beach at Pattaya. I want to play spreed boat. I love Bangkok and Pattaya. And I love to shopping. *

2. Next weekend I'm going to buy a new book at the bookstore because I want to read a new book.


Guess who got a 10 out of 10?


TAG: Code Watermelon



*for the love of Pete, I don't know how many times I've tried to teach the phrase "go shopping"

Dirty Old Men Business English Class

My Dirty-Old-Men-Business-English class is drawing to a close. This is one of my favorite classes. They are not actually dirty-old-men, but they do tease me, and each other quite a bit. For example the time I had them play the "Don't say yes or no." game. Basically someone sits at the front of the room and the rest of the class fires yes/no questions at them while, as the name of the game implies, they try to say anything other than "yes" or "no". Well, the oldest and quietest of the students got up to the front and the guys started with the questions:

Q "Do you love your wife?"
A "I think so."
Q "Do you have a girlfriend?"
A "Sometimes."
Q "Are you wearing underwear?"
A "A G-string."
Q "Do you have a condom?"
A "Used last night."

I was laughing so hard I was crying, occasionally pulling myself together to correct questions
" 'Do you like ladyboys.' not 'Is you like ladyboys?' "


I've been teaching them since October... possibly September even, and next week will be the last class. They'd finished the book well early and for the last three classes I had pulled together activities from supplemental Business English books. But today, after spending about three hours searching through half a dozen resource books for something interesting and relevant to teach them, I gave up and decided to have a little fun.


I found an activity for writing a love story. It was, like most of my improvised lessons, a bit of a dud... but I think some of the guys had fun with it. At one point I was walking around looking at the students' papers when one covered his up and said... "Don't look, it's dirty, dirty." Given that the subject was romance I feigned a little shock and said "Oh no! I don't want to read it if it's dirty." While one of the students seemed to understand me, the original student didn't so I asked "What do you mean by dirty." and he pointed out different places where he'd scribbled out words and rewrote them in the margins etc. I explained that in America, "dirty" can also mean "very sexual." and he responded "oh no no... not like that". The first student however turned to me and asked "Why is that? Why do you say 'dirty' for sex?"


Oh man. This is why you should never joke around with your students! How exactly do you explain America's hypocritical and puritanical attitudes about sex in two minutes or less using only Elementary English? I chose to go with a historical /geographical approach- briefly discussing Victorian England, the Puritans, the Bible belt, the rural/urban dichotomy of morals, and interestingly, the Mormons. I used the phrase "crazy" a lot. They understand "crazy." He just looked at me like I was speaking nonsense. And I was. As a culture, our attitude towards sex makes no sense at all.


At one point he said "But you don't think that..." Gah! This is not a conversation they prepared us for on the CELTA! I went with "Actually, I was raised that way." and told him that my sister's wedding (at a Baptist church in North Carolina) they were not allowed to kiss during the ceremony. But then I reassured him that my city was pretty liberal - you could stay with your boyfriend if you wanted to, you could be gay, anything was pretty much okay. That seemed to satisfy him, so I quickly extricated myself and continued on with the class.


I'm going to miss this class. They are easily my most fluent students, and the most fun. But I am probably not going to miss the surprise personal questions about my moral upbringing!


TAG: Code Sticky Rice

August is insanely busy for me, 30+ teaching hours a week is pretty brutal. I've already had five 12-hour days this month, and more to come. CALGON TAKE ME AWAY!

Oh wait... that's right, I don't have a bathtub.



Or hot water.



=/

Rebel stikes fear in the hearts of men.

There are few better ways to get established in a neighborhood than to become a teacher. Every month I start new classes (and finish older ones) and get to spend a few months interacting with people on a friendly if not especially personal way. I have met literally hundreds of people since coming to Rayong. Do I remember all of them? Not by name, no. But I do recognize faces I see around town and can generally remember where they worked and/or which class they were in.


Yesterday I was hanging out at the mall when I bumped into a former student from one of my Elementary classes. Usually when I see a student outside of the school I try to at least greet them in Thai, but this time I was so surprised to see him that I just automatically said "Hi! How are you?" The poor guy snapped to attention and replied by rote "I'm fine thank you, and you?"* I smiled and said "I'm good, I'm good!" And then every bit of English he'd ever learned fell right out of his brain "You...where ... do.... wha..." I waited a couple seconds to see if he could get a sentence out, but it just wasn't gonna happen.


It was like I'd sprung a pop quiz on him right there in the middle of the mall. I mean, he looked like he might actually faint. "It's okay, it's okay." I reassured him, and we both just burst out laughing. While he wasn't the strongest student in that class, I knew he could do better than that.** And certainly he can understand more English than he could produce on the spot. So I told him I was going shopping then 'bai gin kow' (go eat rice) because at last some Thai popped into my brain, then said good bye and put him out of his misery.


It was just funny. I had no idea that my mere presence could be that intimidating.










TAG: Code Watermelon


* He did not learn this from me, but rather from the Thai teachers he would have had growing up in school. I make it a point to teach my students, during the first or second class how to answer the question using "I'm: good, ok, so-so, not so good, not good" and for more advanced students "bored, tired, busy, in a good mood/bad mood" and whenever necessary "I have a hangover."

** I promise, I do make them do role-plays in class, but most of the questions we cover at his his level are of the introductory variety "What's your name? What's your job? Where do you come from? Where do you live?" Perhaps I need to start doing role-plays for 'running into Teacher outside of Starbucks'. ;)

Saturdays

Oh man. Have I mentioned how much I hate Saturdays?



So a couple of weeks ago I had some parents come in to my class. I've had parents visit before but I'd had some advance warning and one of the Thai staff came in to translate as I chatted with them. This time - nothing. So I did the best I could, made some very general off the cuff remarks about the students and asked if they had any questions. One of them did so I answered them and that was that. Later that day I got a talking to by the Head Teacher (Nicole) - apparently one of the parents complained. Of course I have no clue what the actual complaint was having gone from the Thai parent to the Thai staff to Nicole to me. "Wasn't what he was expecting." was the best I got. Grrrrrrr! And I was informed that the parents are invited to come any time we finish a 30 hour course... and apparently I won't get any more forewarning than that.



No problem! I can roll with the punches. So last week my other class finished 30 hours so I knew that the parents would be invited today. I sat down and thought through what I would say to them, had a whole outline done about the grammar we'd covered in the previous course, and what would be covered in the next. I had specific suggestions for what the students could work on and even thought up a couple of generally-specific comments about the students - just BS to make the parents happy.



Today I was setting up the classroom and as my students came in I noticed they were alone "Are your parents coming today?" They looked at me like I was crazy. NOT A SINGLE PARENT SHOWED UP! Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!



But I shouldn't complain too much. The classes are actually doing much better than when I first started. Both the classes finally have books that are at more or less the appropriate level. The books are boring but solid, there's a little listening, a little grammar - plenty of busy work in the workbook, and the teachers book even has some ideas for projects. So rather than having to come up with 6 hours of material from scratch each Saturday, now I just have to think up one project or speaking activity or game per class to supplement the book. Which is really not all that bad.


Saturdays are still not my favorite day of the week, but I'm surviving. And in fact I've had a couple cute moments. I've got at least one brown-noser in each class and honestly it's refreshing. Everyone needs at least one sycophant in their life! First up is a portrait of teacher done by Pet #1:

Not sure why they think I have a boyfriend, or why he looks like a frog....they got my hair about right though!

And then today I was telling my students that I was learning to read Thai and wrote a word on the board. I thought I was writing "Giant" but in fact I wrote "Difficult" (both pronounced 'yak'). So Pet #2 wrote a few words on a worksheet. I tried sounding it out - I can read several consonants, but none of the vowels so it's kind of a guessing game. I got "k--kr-" from the first word and then skipped to the second and sounded out "suay!" / "Beautiful" so he told me "khun kru suay" basically "Ms. Teacher is beautiful." =)

So I will admit that it's not all bad. No... it could be a lot worse.

TAG: Code Sweet Chili Sauce.

I still hate kids though.

American Girl

I'm back to being the only white girl in town. Not literally... I have spied a white girl or two at the mall. But as far as my day-to-day life goes... just me. Mostly that's fine, I mean, I came to Thailand at least in part to experience what it would be like to be a minority (understanding of course that there is no one 'minority experience'), and to interact with people from a variety of different countries and cultures. I had expected to interact with Thais and expats from other English speaking nations, but something I did not expect was the number of Filipinos I would meet. English is one of the official languages of the Philippines and as a result of this (and the severe shortage of teachers from English speaking countries) a great many English teachers in Thailand are Filipino.


While I was prepared to experience some majority / minority dynamics; I hadn't really expected to experience minority / minority dynamics. It's interesting, and I'll be honest, it's not always pretty. It's hard not to become at least a little racist when living so long away from your own people & culture. All the teachers maintain a professional cordiality, but in general casual friendliness is divided along racial boundaries. White teachers joke and hang out with the other white teachers; Filipino teachers joke and hang out with the other Filipino teachers.


When I first arrived in Rayong I was welcomed very warmly by two Filipino sisters, Nicole and Rose. But my initial attempts at friendship never seemed to go anywhere. I went out to lunch or dinner a with Nicole a few times but the conversation was always stilted. And her sister prefered to stay at home watching movies to going out with people. I could never tell if it was a difference in personality or a difference in culture, but given the lack of English speakers in Rayong, I was highly motivated to make friends, at whatever level, where ever I could.


But although she's an English teacher, even calling Nicole an 'English speaker' is a bit of a stretch. Yes, she speaks English, but she speaks her own particular brand. She tends towards a rather unique sentence structure and often chooses a more formal word than is called for in a given situation. She'll say something like "I made an arrangement to consult with a doctor." Instead of "I have a doctor's appointment." Combined with her accent and a non-native rhythm, half the time I can't figure out what she's trying to say. And it's bizarre because I have a LOT of experience communicating with non-native speakers and usually I do just fine. The other Filipino teachers are much more fluent and casual, both in the style and substance of their speech.


But that didn't make it any easier for us to relate. I spent several lunches with them as they discussed low carb diets and Hip Hop Abs - the latest workout DVD. If the conversation ever went beyond these banalities, they did so in Tagalog**. It's a disconcerting experience to be sitting in the teachers lounge of an English school and not be able to understand what my fellow teachers are saying "Hi...wlkoiuch girl, lakdul a lkcolut allkdoau aag sex scandal alkdlfay adlfka eaiok adfy weekened adlkafy adlk dsfy Hip Hop Abs ewradfl yoeq no problem gyaoiueq qlpuvhou girl!"



Some conversations though, I was meant to understand. One day at lunch we were talking about being homesick and Daisy very pointedly commented "Yeah Thailand is okay. But I miss being around my own people, my own culture. I just want to speak my own language. I get so tired of speaking English all day." She looked right at me, and her tone left no room for interpretation. I'd never before had my ethnicity insulted to my face and had no clue how to react.


This was just a taste of the underlying tension between the Filipino teachers and teachers from other English speaking countries. I've also picked up on it in comments about the difference in salary for Filipino teachers. But nowhere is it clearer than in online forums for English teachers in Thailand. The Filipino teachers often complain about the unequal treatment of equally qualified teachers from the Philippines. Unfortunately their complaints are often so filled with typos and awkward syntax as to prove *why* there is a different pay scale for non-native speakers.


But I feel for them, I do. Most of the Filipino teachers are here out of necessity, not out of a sense of adventure. They work hard - often two jobs at a time in addition to private students and take their work seriously. Filipino teachers are more likely to stay with a school long term. And I've never seen or heard of a Filipino teacher rolling into work late on Monday hung over from a weekend of partying on Ko Samet.*** So I do think that if a particular teacher is fluent in English and has solid teaching skills then nationality shouldn't matter. Especially given how widely the quality of English, American and Australian teachers varies. But nevertheless, the tension is there... on both sides.



While Bunny and Bobby were here we kept an unconscious distance from the Filipino girls. Or maybe they were keeping their distance from us. I'm not sure. But now that Bunny and Bobby have gone, I've made a little more of an attempt to be friendly again. I still feel a bit isolated when they come into the teachers room and after a brief "Hi, how's it going?" launch into extensive conversations in Tagalog. But I'm trying.


The other day Amy, a part time teacher I've never said much more than "hello" to, was sitting there and we both had about an hour to kill between classes. We started chatting about work. She just started a new day-job, and she likes it a lot better than the old one. She explained that she just can't make the same kind of money back home, and she regularly sends money to her family. She talked about how the cost of living was so much higher there, and how that makes it even more difficult to be poor. If you don't have money you just can't eat. At least in Thailand you can get a full meal for 35 baht (about $1) and road side stands sell chicken drumsticks for 15 baht and little packets of rice for 5 baht.


She talked about all the other challenges she's had working here. Her old school refused to sponsor her work permit so she was working illegally. And without a work permit she was unable to get a non-b resident visa. This meant she had to leave the country and do a border crossing every two or three months. Each time she had to hope and pray that they wouldn't question her too thoroughly and just let her back in as a "tourist".


Now, fortunately, her new school is willing to sponsor her work permit and visa application, but it's going to take some time. It turns out that she's been in Thailand about as long as I have, but knows she can't go back to the Philippines until all the paper work gets sorted out. She's worried that they're going to look at all the border crossings in her Passport and call her out for working illegally. And if she goes home for a visit before everything is finalized, she risks losing her job and the relatively good situation she has here. We commiserated about homesickness and she told me how much she missed her family. "I just want to go home." she said with a smile, but in her voice I heard her 'homing beacon' go off and I got a very profound sense of exactly how far from home she was. It may not be as far away as I am when measured by miles, but in terms of situation... the distance is overwhelming.






TAG: Code Watermelon


* I can't remember what nicknames I gave them in the beginning and am too lazy to sort through all the old posts to figure it out. =P

** Or Filipino or any of about a hundred different dialects spoken in the Philippines - I have no way of identifying between them... half the time it almost sounds like Spanish. =/

*** I made it to class on time!

Have you ever....?

My intensive class is going reasonably well. On the up side, it turned out I only need to teach the first three units... not five. That makes a big difference. And three hours with adults just flies by. I swear with the kids, I'm checking my watch and digging deep for activities, but with these adults I can barely get through the material I usually do in a 2 hour class. It's not that they're slow per se, but they ask a LOT of questions. I've noticed the same thing in my new Intermediate level class. In the lower levels that I usually teach, I guess they don't have the language confidence to ask me why we say this or that.


One error I've been noticing more and more is "I ever go to Bangkok." "I ever go to the movies." Weird. The first couple times I heard it I thought the students were trying to say "I never go..." which is something we teach in the starter class. But no... I've been hearing the misuse of the word 'ever' in more and more contexts and finally called a student on it. We were going through adverbs of frequency -never, occasionally, sometimes, usually, always- and had the students give me sentences. When "I ever go to Bangkok" came up I corrected him and told him he could say "I went to Bangkok. I've been to Bangkok. I occasionally go to Bangkok." etc. But not "I ever go to Bangkok."


Then I went to the board and illustrated that we use the word "ever" in questions only (I'm sure there's an exception) and most often with present perfect: "Have you ever been to Bangkok?" but never in the short answers "Yes, I have." / "No, I haven't." or in the positive form of the sentence "I have been to Bangkok." or in the negative forms of the sentence "I haven't been to Bangkok." / "I've never been to Bangkok." Most of the students were diligently copying down notes, like this was actually helpful information for them. But one student kept throwing examples at me.


Student: "Can I say 'I ever been to Bangkok'?"
Me: "No."
Student: "Can I say 'I ever had...'?"
Me: "No." pointing up at the board where I've clearly shown that we only use 'ever' in the question form.
Student: "Can I say 'I ever do...'?"
Me: "No!"
Student: "But, I hear people say it a lot."
Me: "Me too! And it's not correct!"


Ugh. I can appreciate that he's trying to work out the rule for himself. But this particular student seems far more interested in testing me, and showing off how much English he thinks he knows, than in actually learning. And it's tough because there are six other students in the class who are willing to trust that I speak English well enough to be an authority on the subject. I don't like leaving them to watch me go back and forth with the other student. I haven't yet figured out how to do it.


I feel like this tangent, although it took a fair amount of time, was worth it to the student's overall understanding of English. But I've got to be careful... they've only got two weeks of class... then they're going to Singapore. I want to focus as much on things that will actually help them. Not, like the other tangent where the student wanted to know if it was okay to say "10 grand" instead of "10 thousand" and "why? why? why?" Arg!!!! Just fucking say "ten thousand" because that's what the book says and you're not in a fucking gangster movie!!!!


I ever need a drink.







TAG: Code Sweet Chili Sauce




*In the middle of this post I started to write "It's like the first time they'd ever heard of it." FUCK. I never think of the exceptions until like a day later. =/ Now I'm debating whether or not I should teach them "The first time I ever..." or if that would just confuse them and get them back to saying "I ever go to the market." etc.

Curse you English Language and your endless exceptions!!!

Oh yeah... and I teach too.

I posted a link to my "So you wanna go to Thailand" posts on Daves ESL Cafe and someone suggested that I talk a bit about my teaching experience as well. Which makes a lot of sense because that's a large part of why I'm here anyway! Here are just a few of my thoughts and experiences thus far.









The CELTA (Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults)

Prior to coming to Thailand, I had no real teaching experience, and only general experience working with foreign students. I decided to get a qualification before trying to get a job. I looked into the online courses, and some of the short courses that I could take, but after reading about the CELTA online and talking to people who'd taken it, I decided that for me it would be worth it. You can get a job with different (or in some cases no) qualifications... but the CELTA does seem to be the gold standard - at least in Thailand.


However, that's saying practically nothing. Four weeks, however intensive they may be, is just not long enough to learn how to teach. But it gave me classroom experience and *extensive* feedback about what I was doing well and what I needed to work on. I also learned a number of games and activities that I used right off the bat when I got into my first real classes. Overall my experience with the CELTA course was really positive and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about teaching abroad. It's by no means comprehensive, but it gets you familiar with the text books and gives you an opportunity to practice with real students. The down-side of the CELTA is that all the feed back teaches you to be incredibly critical of yourself... not that I needed any help. So every time I teach a class I compare it to what would have been expected on the CELTA and I feel bad about myself. But I think this has more to do with my own psychological issues than the CELTA course per se.




Working at a Language Institute

I was offered a job through the same company that ran my CELTA course and because I was too lazy to actually do any job searching, I took it. I'm sure I don't have the best job possible in Thailand, but it met my requirements - I teach 90% adults (I don't like kids), I'm near the beach, and I get enough hours/salary to get by on.


1. The schedule - I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with my schedule. I love that I only teach about 25 hours a week, and there will be times when I can spend several hours in the middle of the day sitting at a coffee shop reading, or an occasional mornings when I can go to the beach before my evening class. But mostly I hate that it's so arbitrary and unpredictable. I have some students who work a rotating schedule (3 day shifts, 3 swing shifts, 3 night shifts) and my schedule rotates accordingly. I also hate that I only have one day off a week. I never really feel like I teach too many hours (see coffee-shop/beach scenarios above), it's just that my 25 hours a week seem to be scheduled in such a way as to create the maximum disruption to my life. For example, I might have class until 7pm on Saturday, Sunday free, then one class on Monday from 10-noon... then nothing else that day. So I might have had a full 2 day weekend but no... one stupid 2 hour class means the difference between hanging out at a coffee shop all day and going to Bangkok overnight.


A 'typical' week for me:
Monday -
5pm - 6:30pm private lesson, 1 teen, pre-intermediate
6:30pm - 8:30pm private lesson, 2 adults, elementary

Tuesday -
9am - noon private lesson, 4 adults, elementary
6pm - 8pm private lesson 2 adults,elementary

Wednesday -
5pm - 6:3pm private lesson, 1 teen, pre-intermediate
6:30pm - 8:30pm private lesson, 2 adults, elementary

Thursday -
10:30am - 12:30pm private lesson, 4 adults, elementary
6:30pm - 8:30pm business English class, 10 adults.

Friday -
5pm - 7pm private lesson, 2 adults, elementary


Saturday - aka 'hell on earth'
9am - noon young learners class, 6 students aged 11-13, arbitrary and meaningless level
1pm - 4pm young learners class, 3 students aged 12-13, arbitrary and meaningless level
5pm - 7pm private lesson, 2 adults, elementary

Sunday - aka 'get me to the beach before I kill a small child'
day off


I get my schedule at the beginning of the month, but it should really be viewed as more of a blueprint than an actual schedule. I think this is what I ended up teaching, there are always cancellations /reschedules and fill ins. In February I had about 11 cancellations / reschedules and two added classes. In January I had 14 canceled / rescheduled classes and four added. You really just have to go with the flow. For example in January Saturday & Monday were my busiest days. In February I had three 'day and a half' weekends so I went to Ko Samet each time.


2. The pay / perks
I get paid 320 baht per teaching hour, more for business classes or off campus classes. I have insurance (don't really know what it covers) and that's about it. We get Thai holidays off, but no paid vacation time at all. I'm allowed to take sick time, but don't know if/how it will show up on my pay. We do not get paid prep time. I get paid twice a month, 10,000 baht on the 25th and the remainder (a much larger check) on the 25th. The school did my Thai taxes for me. =)



3. Conditions / Resources
There are maybe a dozen air conditioned classrooms, each has a white board, a cd player, and desks or a table & chairs, but that's about it. There are no overhead projectors or computers or anything like that. Just me, my books & my markers. Oh, and none of us have our own classrooms, so you have to cart your stuff to and from the classroom every day. We don't have our own books or CDs, they're kept in a big cupboard in the office. If you want to take a book home overnight, technically you're supposed to sign it out, but usually you just ask the office staff and they say 'ok, sure'.


There's a copy machine (which usually has paper), a couple computers and one black & white printer. There are a lot of supplemental grammar and activity books. We're a bit slim on dictionaries though which always amuses me... not as much as the fact that we have a whole VHS video series to supplement the kids books and not a single TV or VCR in the place. Whatever.




Actually Teaching

There were good and bad things about the way I got my feet wet in the language institute. On the one hand, I didn't have a lot of hours to start with, so I could spend as much time as I wanted to prepping (worrying). But on the other hand I did a LOT of fill in classes (substitute teaching) for the first couple of weeks. I was constantly walking into a room full of strangers and having to teach something for the very first time. It was terrifying. I honestly can't think of many situations I would dislike more than that and when I think back on it, all I can remember is playing a LOT of games.


I swear, if the CELTA did nothing else for me, it gave me a lot of time-filler games which have saved my ass on numerous occasions. Pretty much everything else I learned on the CELTA went right out the window by my second class. All the things they taught about 'concept checking' and 'instruction checking' just confused my students more than if I just repeated the instructions a couple of times slowly and clearly. And the whole division of lessons into grammar based / skills based... I just don't bother. I go straight through the book, they get a little reading a little writing, a lot of listening and a fair amount of speaking. I feel guilty about not giving my students enough 'freer practice', but generally just do the activities suggested in the teachers manual. I'm starting to get a little bit better though. I pull activities from different text books, or the supplemental books for my classes, and it keeps things from being straight from the book.


I spend more time 'planning' than most of the other teachers, although I'm not sure how productive I am. I'll get to school maybe an hour before a class starts and read through the pages I'm going to teach. I look at the activity pages in the teachers' manual and decide if I'm going to use it or not. Most of the activities work best with 6-12 students, but they can be really hard to use for individuals, pairs and trios. So I try to figure out the activity - will it work for my students, is there anything I can change etc. And If I feel like they need a review I'll check the work book for an appropriate page.


My usual teaching routine - come to class, exchange pleasantries with the class just to warm up. If they know the past tense, I ask them what they did this morning (yesterday / over the weekend). In my starter class, I ask what they ate today ("Eat rice yet?" is a Thai small talk question). Occasionally, if I think they need to review what we did last week I'll hand out a worksheet for them to start on, or if I'd assigned a worksheet for homework we go over it. Then I dive right into the book and we do the activities as written. Sometimes I'll tweak one of the exercises ... I end up writing a lot of stuff on little squares of paper for the students to move around into different columns or to put together in sentences. Lots and lots of little bits of paper.


I joke about not using the CELTA, and I really don't teach like I did on the course, but I did pick up a few things. I always highlight the grammar on the board and drill the marker sentences. I'll highlight pronunciation and sometimes show the phonetic symbol if I think it will be helpful (or the teacher's book says to ;) ). We do one language focus (2 pages) in about an hour & a half, then we do the communication activity from the teacher's resource book. Or, if I didn't like the activity, maybe I found a similar activity from a different book. Or, we play a game to review vocabulary. Some classes like extra homework, some won't do it no matter what. So I give it sparingly. My students all have jobs (or the kids have school full time) and families etc. and this is just an extra language lesson, we want it to be fun and not a burden.




Students


As I mentioned, I have about 90% adult students mostly in private lessons. This is probably the opposite of what most teachers have - 90% kids in a school, and a couple of private lessons on the side. With the exception of the kids, all of my students are there because their companies pay for the classes. While some of the students are very motivated to learn and practice English, it's not the same as when you have to pay for your courses yourself and you want to get the most out of them. I'm not sure how the company chooses who gets to go to English classes, or if there is any financial bonus for completing the course. There seems to be a wide range of interest and ability.


Mostly though, the students are polite and fun and willing to do whatever silly activities I ask them to do. I really enjoy the adult classes (and even the teenager) because I can just talk to them (at an appropriate level of course) and we can joke around a bit. With my kid classes, they don't want to be there and it's painfully obvious. I've really got to drag them through each activity and they don't want to give me anything. They just want to sit and talk to each other in Thai or read their comic books or whatever. If I come up with a fun activity they'll get into it, but as soon as we're back to grammar I lose them. Often there is one student who's at a higher level than the rest who understands my instructions (I really really try to grade my language appropriately) and translates for the rest of the class when they are confused. This is enormously helpful.


My students give me presents, and I really like that. I've gotten chocolates, cookies, a company-logo day planner, a silk coin purse, and a hand woven scarf. I'm spoiled!




Administrative


Each class has a card, and at the end of the lesson you write in what you covered that day and sign off on it. This is critical because when you teach so many different classes and some will cancel for a week or more, it's impossible to remember where you were in the book and what activities you've done. It's also important for when someone has to take over your class. Some of the classes I inherited when I started had excellent notes and it was clear what I needed to do in the next class. Some of the classes had horrible notes and I had to make a guess at where in the book they'd stopped and where to pick up again.

At the end of each course (usually 30 hours) I give the test. These are prepared tests, so I just need to make copies. Then I grade them and do the progress reports. All the teachers complain about the progress reports even though, compared to other jobs, we have amazingly little paperwork to do. I think the thing everyone hates is that it can take a few hours but we don't get paid for it. Plus it can be hard to think of specific and motivating things to say to each of your students. After all, the progress report is as much a marketing tool as it is educational feedback "I would encourage you to take our next course...." blah blah blah.

Then of course there's the most important piece of paperwork - the time sheet - which I fill in meticulously so I am sure to be paid properly!

We also occasionally have meetings where the head teacher passes along 'information' (complaints) from the staff & manager and we send our complaints right back through her.

Other Teachers

We've got a pretty good bunch of teachers at my school. Some have been teaching for years. Most are willing to help if I have a question or need to talk through a grammar point. There's no mentoring or anything like that. But in general all of us get along well enough to sit in the teachers room together and a few of us hang out outside of school. The tough part is that our days off don't match up, so it's hard to plan anything. Anytime we go out drinking *someone* has to work the next day. And that just sucks, but I guess it's good that I have coworkers that I *want* to hang out with after school.

And that's about it. Language institutes are known as fast-food English, and I don't disagree. It's far from an ideal situation from the teacher's standpoint with lots of different classes and an inconsistent schedule. And it's not that great for the students either - teachers come and go every six months or so, often stopping in the middle of a course. But I'd like to think that the students will get out of it what they put into it.

I hope you find this helpful. Let me know if you have any questions, or if there are other topics you'd like to see me cover. I've been here just long enough for the shock and awe to have worn off but by no means claim to be an expert. =)

50 first dates

Except not with Adam Sandler. =(

I've been teaching for a week and I've had 6 different classes. Each one feels like a blind date. I do my best to get ready, but I never know what I'm getting into. I get just a few notes from the previous teacher about what they covered in the last session, and I have to figure out where to go from there. I never know how much English they'll know, I never know how old they'll be, how many men vs. women (although, so far all of my students - with the exception of two girls and two boys in the Supertots class - have been men). Since I'm the new teacher, I've been doing a lot of substitute teaching for teachers who've left or who went on a visa run or whatever. And I'm never quite sure what I'm supposed to be doing, and I have no idea if I'll ever see those students again. I'm holding on to the thread of hope that once I get my real schedule for October I'll start feeling more comfortable with my classes, and I'll have some idea of how to pace my lessons. But who knows?


Yesterday I was feeling pretty good because I had one class scheduled for tonight - with students I'd already taught once. I planned out a lesson and had intended to spend the day at the beach. But as I was getting dinner last night I got a call. The American teacher, Mr. J had gotten into a motorcycle accident and they needed me to cover his class. Actually they wanted me to cover two of his classes... but I knew that was too much for me, so I agreed to take one, from 3-5pm. But there went my trip to the beach. =( Also, Mr. J hadn't listed what page numbers they'd covered in the previous lesson, so again, I'm clueless about what to cover. I think I'll just do some review, then skip ahead to the next module.


I hate being a crappy teacher. I really want to feel like I'm actually teaching something... but it hasn't happened yet. =( So, again I'm sitting here just a ball of anxiety with no clue what's going to happen in class tonight. And I can't even imagine what it's going to be like in October when I start teaching full time. I only had 16 hours of teaching this week, I'll have 25 when I go full time. Why am I doing this again???


TAG - Bananas

$23 well spent!

Yesterday I had my phone interview with the CELTA program in Thailand (who knew it would cost that much???). I've been accepted to the program!! I guess there wasn't much of a chance that I wouldn't get accepted, but still... it's good to have that part done. I still need to actually pay for the course... then there's the pre-course assignment, and all the recommended reading. It's just one more step in the path to "This is really happening!"

Of course, now that I've been accepted into the Thailand CELTA , I just got a call to interview for the CELTA program in San Francisco. I applied to that one like three weeks ago and they never got back to me.... in fact when I called to ask when I would hear from them about the interview they just gave me a non-answer. So it's funny how things work out.

You know, I had all these plans for how I was going to spend my time unemployed. I really tried to get into the mindset of "New Rebel" vs. "Old Rebel". But so far the only difference is that New Rebel makes the bed in the morning. New Rebel has also become a major night-owl. I've been staying up until around 2pm or later... which was unheard of when I was employed. My bedtime should be closer to 11pm.... or at the latest midnight. It's not that I'm actually doing anything, I just watch TV until midnight, then take my time getting ready for bed, and then I pick up a book. Part of me feels that this is a real problem... you know since it means I don't actually get up and out of the house until the next afternoon. But then, Thailand's time zone is about 14 hours ahead, so I guess it couldn't hurt to start resetting my internal clock.

Not to much else going on right now. I'm working on some crafty projects right now... but nothing I can photograph right now.

Loopy

Well, for the last few days I've been out of sorts to say the least. But I've sorted some things out, there is a CELTA course offered in San Francisco, where, conveniently, a former roommate now lives. I'm looking into the program and have already requested additional information. I also spent a good long time at Powells books yesterday and picked up a couple books:

Getting Out: Your guide to Leaving America - Mark Ehrman
Teach Like Your Hair's on Fire - Rafe Esquith
Ganbatte Means Go For It!: or How to Become an English Teacher in Japan - Celeste Heiter
Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women who are Changing the World - Holly Morris


The book about teaching in Japan is a little too Japan specific, but it does bring up some things I'll need to think about... and there were surprisingly few books about teaching abroad, but maybe I wasn't looking in the right area. Getting Out has really good information about the paperwork involved in moving abroad, and overviews of the most popular countries for ex-pats. There are a lot of personal accounts from people who are living abroad. If nothing else, these should keep me inspired until the next opportunity to get certified comes up.


Ok... but to the title of the post. I took three days off work getting my head together (as much as possible) and mostly taking a breather from work. I spent a lot of yesterday working on the trash to treasure quilt. I decided to use this as an opportunity to practice meander quilting, and things were going really well...for the first few rows. It got more challenging towards the middle of the quilt (yes I know I'm supposed to start from the outside in - sue me!). Anyway It went well for the first spool of thread, but when I ran out & refilled the bobbin & spool - it went all wonky in the back. Of course it looked fine on the top, so I didn't notice until I ran out of thread from the second spool and went to change the bobbin again.


I wasted an ENTIRE spool making this mess. Obviously I can buy more thread - but it took me a good hour or more to pick out all the stitches. Dang.

So with the quilt misbehaving, I decided to go back to work. ;)