6.5.12

Well, we were supposed to be “picked up” in front of our house and taken to the school. I think something gets lost in translation when they say “I will pick you up at the end of your street”. What it really means is “I will meet you at the end of the street and take you across the road to the bus stop. Then we will get in a mini van with 12 other people and ride in to Hat Yai. The van will drop us off in front of the hospital where we will wait for a tuk-tuk to pick us up. The tuk-tuk will then drop us off a quarter mile from the school and we will walk the rest of the way from there.”

This was our experience the day before when we came to the school for some more training.

So, when the misunderstanding occurred again on the actual first day, we told her that we had to take a taxi. Just our luck. There was one waiting up the street. Because they won’t go unless they have six passengers. In a car. That should seat only four.

With four people in the back seat and two in the front plus the driver, we made our way, at 6:45am, to the school. Our first class wasn’t until 8:30am. We got there at around 7:30am. Sweaty and tired and befuddled, we made our way up to our shared office. I set up my computer and tried to get some last minute things done with regard to my lesson plan before my first class. This week was going to be pretty relaxed and mostly “Getting to Know You” stuff. And I know my mom, having just read that, will be thinking of the King and I and singing in her head.

We were taken outside to an assembly, this being the first day of school. They raised the flag, played the Thai national anthem and had both a Buddhist and a Muslim prayer. Then the school director, Khun Sungob, gave a speech. A speech that would have been long even for just adults to listen to. I am pretty sure he lost the kids about 10 minutes in. After we introduced ourselves to the students, we were able to go back up to our office. By this time, it was almost 9am. The first day of school is a bit chaotic.

I took some time to center myself, got my key to my first classroom (all the keys are in the main office and you have to take them back at the end of class so the next person who has the room can access it). Khun Apple was going to be observing me in my first class. Ever. It was nerve wracking. But I got through it. I started by having them write their short name (nickname) in big letters on a piece of paper. Then I took a picture of them holding up their name card so that I had a photo reference and would be able to learn their names easier.

Side note: Thai nicknames. I have two Beers, a Gift, a Golf, a Milk, a Book, a Champ, an Oil, a Gun, a Pop, a Top, a Bee, a First, a Tea, a Pier, and a Donut. Yes. Donut. I think it would be the same as if I heard a foreign word and thought it sounded pretty and (without knowing what the word meant) decided that would be my nickname. There are also those who opt to go the simple route and just pick a letter. I have an A, a U, and a T. A few actually pick English names. Mike, Patty, Jane, June, Jay, Fern, Rose and Gus. However, there are still plenty who just pick a short Thai name or a shortened version of their real name. After taking role in four classes, whatever their nickname, I am certainly grateful for them because I would never be able to remember (or pronounce) the full Thai names of the 80 different students that I currently have. And I haven’t even met all my classes yet…

After taking their “mug shots”, I did ice-breaker questions. Where do you live? What is your favorite subject? What do you do for fun? How old are you? These were more for me than anything else. Help me to gauge my class. Get a general demographic. With the age question, after I had all of them tell me their ages individually (between 16 and 19), I had them ask me “How old are you?”. I wrote four different ages on the board (21? 25? 28? 32?). Then I had them each vote for one of the ages. After they all voted (pretty even between 25 and 28, thankyouverymuch), I paused for dramatic effect before circling 32. The reaction was great. Squeals and laughing and cheering. Some of them reacted like “I knew it!” but they probably voted the way they did because their friends had. I still had about ten minutes left at the end with nothing to do, so I assigned homework. Write two sentences about what you do for fun and what your favorite subject is. We would go over them next time. I let them work on these in class and then let them go for the day. Khun Apple said that I did very well. Have I mentioned that I love her to pieces?

Most of them participated really well, but one girl, Mim (who is just cute as a button), was so quiet that I couldn’t hear her even when my ear was right in front of her. Pretty sure she may have just been mouthing the words. Terribly shy. I will need to figure out what I can do to draw her out.

My next class had a higher level of English ability. I got a lot of class participation out of them. And I was more comfortable on the second go-round. Phil was observing me this time. Attendance took a bit longer since this class had around 32 students in it and the last one only had 16. I asked the same ice-breaker questions from the first class and got the same reaction when I revealed my age. I (again) was presumed to only be 25. I love Thailand.

This class would be the full 90 minutes and I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have a bunch of time at the end. I took a five minute break halfway through (the Thai teachers had suggested this since the class was so long). I won’t be doing that again. Only about four of the students even took advantage of it. No reason to disrupt the flow of the class in the future. When we resumed, I decided to have them play Buzz. It was a favorite game of mine when I took French. It’s a counting game and, basically, you substitute the word ‘Buzz’ for any number that is a multiple of three or has the number three in it. If you say the number, you are out and sit down. Thai kids are too bright. Even switching order and being completely random, it still took about five or six rounds to get down to eight kids still standing. I decided to end the game early.

Went back to Getting to Know You questions. I added a couple more. What do you want to be (when you grow up)? Where do you want to go? The kids really got in to it. I got so many different responses. It was great and really gave me a sense of their ambition level as well. They gave me tons of different countries. We didn’t even get to finish before the bell rang. Guess I didn’t have to worry about filling time with these kids. They all said “Thank you, teacher!” in unison and gave me an enthusiastic round of applause. * sniff *

I was supposed to have another class 45 minutes later, but it had originally been scheduled for a different time. I guess the kids didn’t get the memo about the schedule change. So, I had the rest of the afternoon off.

I got feedback later from Phil and Khun Apple. The only criticism they had was to be aware of when I am just engaging the kids who are participating (which they said is only natural for me to do) and to make sure to write in lowercase printing and only capitalize proper nouns. I tend to write in all caps on white boards. After my first day of ever teaching a class, if those are their only critiques, I think I will be ok.

Spent the rest of the afternoon getting my internet fix and trying to research places to live. I found a place that (based on the pictures online) looked pretty decent. I had one of the Thai teachers call and (lo and behold!) they had availability for monthly rentals. We were going out to dinner with Phil and Apple and some of the English teachers from the ABA kindergarten here in Hat Yai. Tom and I decided to go look at the place after our meal.

Had a really great dinner with the teachers. It was so nice to meet other non-Thai English teachers. Two were from South Africa (Pippa and Claudia) and the other was from Egypt (Lara). We got phone numbers from them and they will be great resources for finding a place to live and for general information about the area. Pippa and Lara speak really fluent Thai, so that is a bonus.

The Lanna Inn.

Well, we had a pretty good idea why they had availability after we checked it out. They must have had a really good photographer take the pictures for their recommendation on Agoda.com. It wasn’t a place that I would want to spend one night in, let alone an entire month. Really glad we checked it out first. Mold in the grout, broken tile, cramped space, dodgy neighborhood. Oh well, another bust. What’s new?

By this time it was about 7:40pm or so. We headed out to the street to try and figure out how to get back to Songkhla. The Somtao(sp?) stopped running at 7pm, we were told. So, we wanted to get a mini bus or tuk-tuk or cab or something. A gentleman told us that any tuk-tuk would take us. Naw. That’s not true. We found some helpful folk who said that if we waited where we were, a mini bus would be by in about 15 minutes. Never trust the Thais when it comes to time estimates. We waited for 35 minutes before we saw the bus pass by on the opposite side of the road. We looked at the people who told us to wait and they said that it would come back around. Another 20 minutes later and there was still no sign of it. One of the guys came to us and said that since we had been waiting for so long, he would call us a taxi service. That would take another 20 minutes to get there. We didn’t have much choice. He was very helpful though. He got the address from me ahead of time so that he could map it on his iPad and give the directions to the driver when he arrived. I have found that drivers from Hat Yai do not know their way around Songkhla and vice versa. Just get me on Lopburi and I can show you where to go… I’m always proud of myself when I tell a driver “Yee-sib-song Saiburi soi sib-sam”.

While waiting, an elephant walked by. Not by itself or anything. It had a driver and then a man walking along with it whom you could buy food off of to feed to the elephant. As much as I wanted to do that, I was too tired to care. But, I was happy to see my first elephant NOT in a zoo.

The driver was more punctual than we expected. Only 25 minutes later, we were finally on our way home. During which time I saw another elephant, a baby this time. Maybe my eyes were playing tricks. I let the driver know when we got to our street (at 10pm) and dragged myself up the stairs. As tired as I was, I was also literally dripping sweat so I had to have a rinse before bed.

At 11pm, I was finally able to lay down and go to sleep.

It was a long first day. Gotta do it all again tomorrow…