Why do students need to be at school 9 hours a day? Why are
classes so chaotic? Why don’t I have so
little support from the school to do my job?
I never taught in the US, my home, though I certainly attended school
there. Although Thailand is, in many
ways, a wonderful place to be, teaching can be a challenge. Here are a few examples.
I have only taught in one school, so I don’t want to say all
Thai schools are this way. I have read
stories from teachers around the country with similar problems, though. My school has students ranging in age from 3
to 18 and there are over 4,500 students.
I teach senior high school with 50 to 55 in each of my 14 classes. I teach two of them twice a week and the
others I teach once. My students have
been “taught” English since first grade yet they don’t seem to remember
anything beyond good morning and good afternoon. They have to check their watches to be sure
they say it correctly.
When I started two years ago, I had no idea what I was in
for. I was given the freshmen and
sophomore classes, called Mattayom 3 and 4 here, without a textbook or a
curriculum. Few of the teachers can
speak English including many of the English teachers, at least in the
elementary school. In only a few
classrooms do students actually sit down and become at least moderately quiet
before I begin. Much of my time is spent
getting them to settle down to listen to my lesson. Such experiences bruised my ego and
frustrated me. To that add that there
are too many students in the room, no audio visual equipment for me to use and
I can barely speak to them. Some teachers
came and went within the same year, finding it too much. And yet, I stay.
I make up all my lessons from things I find on the internet, books I bought in Bangkok and sometimes ideas I make up in my head. Each has its successes and failures. I treat each day as a chance to bring someone along to speaking and understanding better.
Each day I am greeted by endless smiling faces, both
students and teachers, with a good morning.
A common greeting is to ask if I have eaten yet. I have considered getting a hat made that
says, in Thai, gin laeo, I have already eaten.
It is probably no more frustrating than Americans who also ask, “How are
you doing?” In both cases, the person
asking doesn't really care; it is just a habit to ask.
What keeps me going is the energy I get when I do get a
class to do what I want them to do, whether it is to repeat a lesson, sing a
song or play a game. I don’t flatter
myself into believing I am going to get all 800 of them to speak English by the
time they leave school. Still, I want to
give it my best effort. I work at
letting them know that English has its fun side and it isn't all about grammar. Ironically, most of them know
English grammar rules far better than I do despite their inability to
understand simple questions like, “What are you doing?” and “Where can I find…?”
Next week is midterms for them which will give me a
break. My job will be to help teachers
grade their tests, a mechanical process at best. After that, I want to try something new. I have read that being able to speak English
requires you to know a certain number of words and ten basic phrases. They know quite a few words. Now I want to help them express
themselves. Wish me luck.
