I have been teaching for a month now! I’ve steadied myself after the first couple weeks of extreme highs and lows – working here is not the greatest thing ever, but I’m happy being here for these few months (probably I won’t be extending the contract past April). I no longer have the extreme lows of what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into-I-can’t-do-this, but my optimism of what I might be able to accomplish here is gone too. I wanted to make a big difference, help these students gain confidence and communication skills, and make improvements to the school’s English program that would last even after I left. I wanted to love it here but I don’t think I’ll more-than-like it. Parts of it are great, seriously wonderful, but much of how things work here seem set up for failure and there’s only so much I can do to combat that. There’s only so much I can do with 700 students who I see each for max-1-hour a week, without permission to print anything for them, without a computer, with students who are so disillusioned (and rightfully so) by classes that prioritize the appearance of vast knowledge over actual learning. (Example: An English assignment my students were given by another teacher was to copy paragraphs and paragraphs of text from the textbook into their notebooks. They had no idea what any of it meant, but they diligently wrote every word.)
I do really enjoy most of the students here. They are funny, surprising, sweet, and now that we’re breaking through their expectations of how English class is supposed to work, they are opening up and trying to speak more with me. My big goal now is to leave them with an impression that English can be fun – it doesn’t have to be tedious or overwhelming.
Here’s what I would tell you, with my month’s seniority, if you were going to start teaching here:
- Wash your hands after every class. Even though the class times butt up against each other sometimes. Be a minute late. If you don’t, you’re hands will be very, very, very blue from the whiteboard, then you will accidentally touch your face, then students will laugh and you won’t know why until you finally take that minute to go to the bathroom and wash your blue hands (and face).
- Actually, just don’t ever touch your face. Even if you just washed your hands, your face will probably still somehow end up blue.
- Play games with teams and let them choose team names. Laugh when every single class gets this mischievous look and then chooses “Team Angel” and “Team Devil”. Every once in a while, if you’re lucky, more unique ideas will pop up and you’ll get “Team Beautiful Girls”, “Team Otters Are Cute”, or “Team Winners” and “Team Losers” (the losers won and that was funny for everyone).
- Hangman is a good idea to fill a few minutes at the end of class, and even better to start class. It gets them energized and involved right off the bat, and your hangman phrase can be a phrase or sentence to lead into your lesson topic. (If you want to have one of the students do the word on the board, expect this to take about twice as long as they try and process the word and its letters while their classmates guess.)
- Some classes (just a couple) really do suck. It’s not your fault, don’t let them discourage you. Yeah, it’ll be rough hour, but just get through that and let the next awesome class re-energize you and remind you that sometimes, it’s not you, it’s them.
- Be outside as much as possible when students are coming and going, having lunch, or moving between classes. Most of the time, the most you’ll get is a “hello teacher” but it will slowly warm them up to you. An hour a week isn’t nearly enough, so the more extra interactions you can squeeze in, the better.
- “Only English in the classroom” is a good idea, but it’s just not practical. These students do not speak or understand enough English to have productive lessons without at least supplementing with Thai. Throwing a little Thai in helps to (1) confirm understanding, (2) catch their attention because they never expect Thai from a farang, and (3) ease their minds about making mistakes – you speak imperfect Thai so they can speak imperfect English.