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!