Thai Day

Today was Thai Day at school. During this day, the children participated in different competitions: dancing, singing, playing instruments, arts, writing, etc. The school spent the last 2 days preparing for this day, so there were almost no classes. But the result was really nice. The school was decorated, we did some Thai dancing and just made a lot of fun. Thai people know how to party, even at 9am. All the teachers dressed up in traditional Thai clothes, and that included me J

Arts competition

A lot of posing :-)

Ban-ban on stage!

Music competition

This weekend, I finished the story-books and workbooks for my students. But I haven’t been able to use them yet. I hope tomorrow will be a normal school day, because I don’t have that many classes left before I leave and I still have a lot of plans. This Friday, there will be an English competition at our school, and the director decided last Friday that we would participate. So I’m busy practicing with 2 students for the speech. Normally, they would only have to study the speech by September, when there is the big regional competition. I shortened the speeches, because it takes the students a lot of effort to study the text. But they are both very motivated so I think we’ll make it by Friday. I feel a bit sorry for them, as I let them repeat the speech at least 20 or 30 times a day.  Also, apparently I’m in the committee of the competition on Friday, so I will judge the speeches. I can’t promise I will be an entirely impartial judge J

After our schoolwork on Sunday, Pongsuda took me to the ricefields of her family. During the weekend, they often go fishing there and prepare the fish on the "bbq". It was delicious!

Fishing in the mud. Didn't even know fish could survive in there.

Catch of the day.

On the bbq

Yum!

I also visited the “Surin Elephant Village” on Saturday morning. We did the elephant ride and saw the show. The people in this village, called the Suai people, are skilled in capturing, training and raising elephants. They have always used elephants to help them in their day-to-day work (at least, that’s what the travel guide tells me). The village is now an elephant study center.

This evening, I will take my little host brother, Ban-ban, to the cinema. Since he found out I’m afraid of spiders, he always imitates a spider and tries to scare me when I enter a room. So we’re going to see the Spiderman movie. I won’t understand a word of it, as all movies are dubbed in Thai here, but I guess the dialogues will not be the biggest asset of the movie.

Ban-ban, enjoying his octopus snack

School life

Before you would think it’s all food, fun and temples here in Prasat, I’ll give you an update on why I’m actually here: being a teacher.

The school where I assist the English teacher is the Prasat Wittaya School in Prasat, a district of Surin. There are about 300 students in this school, from Primary 1 to Primary 6. 

The students start learning English from Primary 1, when they are 6 years old. That’s quite early, but during the first year, they mainly focus on the alphabet. So from the moment these children learn to read and write, they immediately learn it in 2 different languages and alphabets.

Primary 1 to 3 has 1 hour of English per week, Primary 4 and 5 have 2 hours and Primary 6 has 3 hours. With 2 groups per level, this makes 20 hours of teaching English per week. The school only has 1 English teacher, Miss Pongsuda, who I assist during all the English classes.

Meditation before class: effective way to calm down the students

"Good morning teacher! How are you?"

I arrive at school every day at 7.30. I could walk to school, as it is just across the street from the house I live, but Miss Ja insists on dropping me off with her motorcycle every morning. By the time I arrive at the school, all students are already busy with cleaning the school. All students have their own responsibility: the hallways, the classrooms, the canteen, the playground, etc. The first half hour I spend walking around school, greeting all the teachers and trying to make a little conversation with them and the students. Then I go to the teachers’ office to discuss the classes of the day with Pongsuda.

I try to prepare a little game or exercise for every class to practice the vocabulary they’ve learned, or just to make the class a little bit more fun for the children. So we discuss this, and by 8.00 we go to the football field to attend the daily flag ceremony. The ceremony takes 30 minutes and at 8.30 classes start. There are 3 hours of class during the morning, so at 11.30 it’s lunchtime. In the afternoon there are again 3 hours of class and at 15.30 school is out.

Primary 5, playing the "Occupations game": matching pictures with the right occupation.

Youngest students: Primary 1.

Sometimes it's chaos :-)

Teaching Primary 6 about "Going shopping".

Primary 6

This month, there’s a sporting competition at the school. Everybody is divided into teams: red, blue, yellow or pink. (I’m in the yellow team) The teachers are the coaches of the teams, and the youngest students are the cheerleaders.

Yellow, red, blue and pink cheerleaders!

I suggested Pongsuda that we could organize an “English club”.

3 days a week, from 15.30 until 16.30, I would teach an extra hour of English for all students who were interested in learning more English. During these extra hours, we would mainly play games, do fun exercises, sing English songs or watch short movies and practice vocabulary.
Pongsuda immediately was very enthusiastic about the idea and introduced it to the other teachers. But the other teachers did not like the idea because July = sports month. The students have to join the sporting competition every day, so they have no time for English club.

I was really disappointed when she gave me the feedback from the other teachers. I told her that I believe it is very important and a unique change for the children to learn more English. I am here only for 6 weeks and they should get the most out of my presence. Also, just assisting her during her classes, does not really give me the feeling that I am an added value to the school.
I suggested that maybe we should propose 1 hour of English club instead of 3 and let the students make the choice if they want to play sports, or come to English club. But apparently the teachers take the sporting competition very serious and there’s no way that they would let the children drop 1 hour of sports for some English class.

This gives me the feeling that they don’t find English important enough and it made me think about why they are having a volunteer at their school then. I think the main goal of my presence is really to assist Pongsuda. As she has a very heavy teaching schedule and she can really use my help. She is always very happy and enthusiastic with the exercises and activities I prepare, so that gives me a little sense of added value, but I still have the feeling I should do more. 

Kindergarten students, washing up after lunch

The games or exercises I prepare are aimed at letting the children make the link between the meaning of a word and the word itself. I also want to give every student the chance to answer a question or give a little speech individually, without having the chance to just repeat the teacher or hide behind the smartest students of the class. This is very hard for the students, as they are used to answering questions collectively. But I believe they can really use this challenge to gain more confidence and to learn to speak in front of the class individually.

This week, Pongsuda told me about an English competition in September. All schools in the region participate, so also the Prasat school. There will be 3 competitions: speeching, story telling and spelling bee. Each competition is divided into two levels: Primary 1-3 and Primary 4-6. So in total we will select 6 students to participate. I am very happy to be able to help Pongsuda with this, I offered her to write the speeches and she gladly accepted. During the speeching competition, the jury will give the student a topic to speech about. The topic can be: Myself, My family or My school. Pongsuda told me it takes her a lot of effort to write such a speech, so this is a good way for me to help her. I will also practice the speeches with the students.

Next to this initiative, I’m also busy with creating extra workbooks for the students. A lot of students are not able to buy books for school, as they are too expensive. The school provides most of the books, but sometimes there are not enough books and there still are students without one.
So this week, I went to the bookstore with Pongsuda and bought some English workbooks. I will use these to create some extra books for the students with exercises and games. The local copy shop will enjoy some extra business the coming days J

The students can use these books to practice English in their free time. Whenever they finish a chapter, they can come to me and I will correct their exercises together with them. This is a way to steal some extra time for English anyway, in a more informal way, as my English club did not really get a chance here.  

Pongsuda was very happy with this idea of extra workbooks and she told me the children would be motivated to do the extra work because it's "the book of Kru Mitchal" :-). I also bought 2 stories for the students to read: "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Ugly Duckling". We will read these stories with Primary 5 and 6 and I will copy them so every students can take a copy home. I'm also creating some exercises and games around the stories.

Pongsuda and Primary 5

I am very happy that I have these initiatives, these are things that I can give to the students and that hopefully will motivate them to read and learn more English.

Pongsuda is a very motivated teacher, who constantly tries to find ways to make her students more enthusiastic about English. I actually got the idea for the workbooks from her, as she regularly makes extra worksheets for her students. But to make whole workbooks for every student, is an investment she is not able to make. I asked her if the school would support her financially if she took the initiative to buy extra workbooks, but she told me the school cannot make this effort. It is a pleasure to work with Pongsuda, and she also appreciates my work.

Yesterday Pongsuda asked me in a very serious way: "So, are you coming back next year? Can you do that?". I told her that I don't think that would be possible. She kept asking if I maybe could come back for just a few weeks, 2 or 3 instead of 6, to teach the students and visit the teachers again. It's nice to notice that she also likes to work with me, but it also reminds me of the fact that I'm already halfway here. Time flies, and within 3 weeks I will have to leave the school and the students. Although the teachers were not supportive about all my plans, they make me feel very welcome at the school and they tell me almost every day that they appreciate my work. So I know that it will be very hard to leave my colleagues and students.
But I'm not going to think about that too much now, and enjoy my weekend. I hope you will do the same!

Michèle, eat!

The above command is one I hear many times a day.

From breakfast to dinner, Miss Ja keeps a close eye on my eating behavior. Like yesterday, when I only had a small cookie and some coffee for breakfast, she turned up at my 10 o’clock class with a grilled sandwich and some orange juice. Very sweet of her, sure, but I’m used to deciding for myself how much I eat.

Before I came to Thailand, I thought that this would be a very healthy experience, Thai food contains a lot of vegetables and is low in fat. But the amounts of food they eat here is incredible.
It all starts with the pile of rice you get on your plate 3 times a day. Add meat or fish, vegetables and any sauce you like and you have what we call “dinner” for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everything is delicious, no doubt, but sometimes it’s just too much.

Today, Miss Ja apparently knew that the lunch at school would be very spicy. So this morning she gave me a bag of food to take to school. From what I understood, I had to give this to the other teachers during lunch, as a dessert, as she kept saying “Sweets, sweets! Hmmm, they like, they like”. So after enjoying a spicy, but still OK, lunch, I offered the bag to the teachers.
They told me that this actually was my lunch and that Miss Ja had prepared this especially for me. So today I had lunch twice. Afterwards I really felt a bit sick. The sweet food was very tasty: pink noodles, green rice with coconut, and coconut milk with some colored things in it. I did not eat everything and shared most of it with the teachers. But it still took me at least an hour, sitting next to a fan in the teachers’ office, and using my medicine kit for the first time, before I was OK and no longer felt like weighing a ton.

Second lunch of the day: pink noodles, green rice and coconutmilk with unidentified floating objects... I asked what these were, but all explanation I got was: "Like a potato, but sweet and Thai" :-)

As I said, every dish they present to me here is really delicious. So when Pongsuda told me that her mother wanted to teach me how to cook Thai food, I gratefully accepted. Today was lesson 1: Pad Thai. Not too difficult, and I was kind of proud when I put the dish on the table and Pongsuda’s family enjoyed it. My cooking was officially arroj !
Next lesson will be Tom Yam Kung, a spicy soup with shrimps, and lesson 3 will probably be a green curry, as that is the dish I always order when I go to a Thai restaurant in Belgium. So next time I go out to eat Thai, I’ll be able to be an irritating customer and give the cook some useful feedback after the meal J.

The result: delicious Pad Thai!

Although Miss Ja is very strict on my eating behavior, she is not the best ambassador of Thai food herself. She does not like spicy food and little Ban-Ban does not like to eat rice... Yesterday, I went to the market to buy food for my family. I bought chicken and Som Tam (papaya salad), the same food I had in the house of a colleague this weekend. It was the first time I ate Som Tam and it immediately became my all-time favorite. So I wanted to share it with my hosts.
Ban-Ban went crazy over the chicken, it was gone before I could take a second piece. He donated his rice to the dogs and did not touch the Som Tam. Also Miss Ja did not touch the salad and did not have a chance to taste the chicken. But as I have not yet seen her eat anything until now, I guess she has her own secret stash of food hidden somewhere. So I ate all the Som Tam on my own. My throat was still burning hours after dinner, but I enjoyed every bit of the delicious salad.

Freshly made Som Tam at the market

My colleague Poo, buying the chicken for dinner



Poo and me, enjoying our take-away dinner on Saturday



Juicy, sweet pineapple, my favorite dessert



Friday night dinner: second from the right. Should be pork, but did not taste or look like it.



Ban-Ban, making me an omelet on Sunday

First impressions

Today, I ate an omelet with red ants.
Before I started teaching the first class of today, the teacher told me: "Mitchal, if the children don't listen to you, you can hit them! OK?"
Every day there are several of these moments, that I'm amazed or left speechless by what my colleagues or students tell me. Sometimes it's difficult, or frustrating, but most of the times it's wonderfull and it reminds me of the fact that I have to enjoy every moment I'm here.

Every Thai person that I have already met is really sweet, they all want to help me in every way they can and even if they don't speak English, they come to say "Sawadee" to me every day and just start talking Thai. Today, during lunch, the teacher sitting in front of me took out a small paper with the English translation of the food we had in front of us. That's how I know that there were red ants in the omelet. She even took me with her to the school garden to have a look at the trees where these ants live. How much more local can a dish be?

My host mother, Miss Ja, is a kinder garten teacher here at the school and every lunch, she entertains the other teachers with funny stories about me. Apparently I do something weird every day, which they all find hilarious. Like the fact that I wanted to wear the same skirt 2 days in a row. Here at the school, everyone wears a different outfit every day. On Tuesday, everyone wears a shirt with bright colors, on Wednesday they wear a scouts uniform, on Thursday it's sport clothes and today, on Friday, the children wear their normal school uniform and the teachers don't seem to have a special dresscode. So I asume it's casual Friday today :-). I'll discover the Monday-dresscode next week.
The funny story of today was the story of me being afraid of the huge spider in the shower. Miss Ja even imitated how I was screaming :-). I must say that the spider really was huge. And I already have to cope with 2 small frogs jumping around in the bathroom and the occasional beetle on my shoulder during showering. So the spider just was too much. I tried to drown it, but apparently spiders can breath under water and then I tried to crush it with a heavy bottle of shampoo. By that time, Miss Ja had arrived and she just grabbed and crushed the spider with her hand. I was impressed (the spider was bigger than my hand, so I had not considered this option).

But apart from these "little" inconveniences, the house of Miss Ja is very comfortable. When I first arrived I was a little bit shocked, as the first thing I saw was a car wreck in front of the house and 7 dogs welcoming me. The dogs still irritate me, as they follow me everywhere, but yesterday a teacher told me that the dogs prevent snakes to come into the house, so now I am really gratefull that they are there!

Host mother, Miss Ja, with her students

Correcting the exercises of class 4/1 (10-11 years old)

Front of my house

Living room: actually a covered terrace. People literally live outside here.

Dinner with host mother, Miss Ja and host brother, Ban-Ban

Wednesday is scouts day!

Lunch with the colleagues

Schoolbus

I teach all levels, from Primary 1 (7 years old) to Primary 6 (12 years old), together with the only English teacher in the school, Pongsuda.
Most children have a lot of difficulties with English, but in every class there are some students that are very motivated. Like the girl with the book in the picture above. She and her friends follow me around school with their book and constantly ask me questions in English. "Kru Mitchal, what is your favourite color?" "Kru Mitchal, what is the time?" "Kru Mitchal, what is the name of your dog?". I really enjoy these little conversations, because when I return the question, they are able to answer. This is really unusual, as most students don't understand what they are saying, they just copy their book, or repeat the teacher, without knowing the meaning of the words. So this week, I used my classes to find out the level of English of my students and to see who the motivated ones are. The age of the students doesn't really say anything about their ability of speaking English, in every class there is a very big difference in level of knowledge. The challenge is to keep the motivated students motivated and to talk with them as much as possible, and also to teach the students that can now hardly speak any English, the basics of an English conversation.

Visit to the Buddhist temple in Surin with colleagues Poe and Pongsuda



On Wednesday, I visited the Buddhist temple of Surin, with Poo and Pongsuda. Poo teaches Primary 4 and Pongsuda is the English teacher. They both speak English very well and told me about all the rituals in the Buddhist temple. This was a very interesting and relaxing experience.

It's impossible to write about all the experiences of this week, but I hope to give you a first image already of my life here :-)