Bradley versus the mini Thais: Round 1

Elf is the little guy looking straight at you. My favorite.

 

I wasn’t really nervous for my first day of class. I’d been shadowing other teachers for about a week and it didn’t look that difficult. The kids were rowdy, as expected since they are 3 and 4 year olds, but they looked eager and, dare I say, fun.

So I walked into my first class, filled with energy, smiles and a CD filled with the likes of “The Wheels on the Bus” and “The Hokey Pokey.” The kids have been trained in earlier classes in the traditional greeting for the start of their lesson so I started with that.

“Good morning, class!” I beamed.

Silence.

“Good morning, class,” I said with a bit less gusto.

Nose picking. One girl in the back may have actually snored with her head in her arms on her desk. The Thai homeroom teacher then literally screamed something in Thai and I got a response from a few of them.

My first solo shift at the coffee shop I use to work at ended with the espresso grinder breaking with a line of people out the door. Staring at those kids, all I could think about was how much I would have loved to take on a broken grinder instead of these guys. My lesson plan was full of greeting games that I had thought would let the students see I was this cool teacher they would bond with and love and because they loved me we would have a great semester were they would learn tons and I would be the best teacher they ever had. All I got were crickets.

Luckily Neil, the head English teacher who had been at the school for seven years, had accompanied me to the class for some moral support. He got the kids moving and helped me with the introductions. The lesson plan got thrown out the window and I spent the next thirty minutes trying to pronounce names like “Preaw” and “GuayTeow”. I believe I’ve mentioned before how the Thais can’t grasp the concept of Roman letters so these names are actually pronounced “Prell” and Goodie-ow.” Neil was a lifesaver.

I repeated the same process in all of my classes that day, quickly spotting the star students and the troublemakers. One kid is aptly named “Erk”. He refuses to do anything I tell him and the only English he knows is “Teecha, go away.” Wonder where he learned that one.

Jenna’s day also went something like this. She is teaching in the nursery, where they don’t talk or read or stand up much.

“I ran out of things to do after ten minutes,” she told me. “They just sat there looking at me. Johnson (the teacher giving her moral support) emptied a bucket filled with balls and we spent twenty minutes congratulating the kids for putting the balls back in the bucket.” Oh, the joys of the kindergarten.

The first day was the worst. The rest of the week went by in repetition as I drilled the kids in what the teachers wanted me to teach them in English. The school runs much the same as private schools in America run. Every morning there is an essembly of all the students where we sing the national anthem and raise the flag. Then the Thai teachers sing a song for the kids followed by the American teachers and Chinese teachers. The nursery and K1 kids get a nap in the afternoon. In fact, everyone gets a nap during the day if they want to. The head of the kindergarten English department (not to be confused with Pete at the high school) regularly puts her head down on her desk and naps away the afternoon. It's the same with the Chinese teachers. I'll have to try it soon.

I’ll save my critic of the Thai educational system for another entry as that rant would be far to long to include here. I will just add that I’m trying to not feel like an incompetent teacher because I’m not allowed to teach in a way that is effective for the students. Very frustrating. But then the kids sit on my lap during story time or give me a kiss or wave in the halls screaming “Teecha!” and my heart melts a bit.