First Day of Orientation

October 20

Today was the first day of orientation. I was quite excited to get started: we have TEFL classes as part of the orientation and I need all the help I can get. I am in the “Primary” group as I think the highest grade Anna and I will teach is grade 4. I am pretty happy about this, even though the students will likely not know what I am saying to them most of the time. Immersion is key in Thai English programs, which is good as I can say about 3 things in Thai. 

I managed to get a great night’s sleep and felt rested and ready to go in the morning. As I was getting ready, all of a sudden I heard this drumming start. My first thought was “Is that a train?” but there are no train tracks near our hotel. So I peered out the window and saw several people in a drumming circle outside the hotel’s shrine in the parking lot. Later, I asked one of the OEG staff about it and they said it was customary for Chinese weddings to drum beforehand to ward off bad spirits. Pretty cool! Below is a picture of the shrine, which in the evening. In the lobby of the hotel, there are several, I assume Buddhist, figures of people an animals. They are very lovely and ornately decorated. Each has a different offering in front of it, some are water, some are food, and some are juices. I wish I knew more about the practice, but it is fascinating just to observe!

This is apparently the biggest Teach In Thailand that the Overseas Education Group (OEG) has had. I think there’s about 80 in our orientation, and I imagine probably about the same in Orientation A (which happened last week – I am in Orientation B/the second one). There are so many people it’s overwhelming – I’ve already forgotten more names than I can even count. After a brief welcome with Phil, one of the head OEG staff, we went off into out separate group lessons (There are two other groups for the secondary level). We discussed what we, as foreign teachers, can bring to the class room, and various techniques and practices appropriate for the primary level. One thing we did is our instructor wrote the alphabet on the board, and we each had to write a name of an animal starting with our assigned letter. I had “B” and I wrote “baboon”. Then our instructor said to make sure the students actually knew what their animal was, we could ask them to draw a picture. He then chose me to draw my animal. This is my rendition... 

Lunch was provided for us in the hotel restaurant. It was buffet style, and consisted of many dishes. Below is my plate, which features chicken with cashews, broccoli & shrimp balls, mixed greens/mystery leafy vegetable and dragon fruit. It was all very tasty. After lunch, we had our first Thai lesson. We focused on basics, like greetings, manners, directions, food, and some cultural tips. For example, in Thailand, you eat most of your food with a fork and a spoon. Thais push the food onto their spoons and eat from them. Chopsticks are used only for noodles (and I haven’t seen any yet). I’ve been trying the “put food in mouth with spoon” method, and I’m rather clumsy at it. But I want to take in as much culture as I can, so I am determined to keep at it!

We were finally done for the day around 5:30pm, and most of us were exhausted. We decided to go for dinner around the hotel, as none of us felt like making the trek into Bangkok. We found a nice looking Thai restaurant on the main street. I really need to start figuring out what these places names’ are... Anyway , I had my first authentic Pad Thai experience, and it was very tasty! There was a Thai man singing Karaoke in the restaurant – he asked us for a song request, and we had him sing “Thriller”. He did a pretty good job. My meal, Pad Thai and a bottle of water, was 80 Baht - $2.67 CND... And I couldn’t even finish my plate!

We then stopped at the always near-by 7-11 for ice cream. I decided to go with a Thai ice cream bar – vanilla with chocolate coating. Mmmm. We all sat in the lobby of the hotel, ate our ice cream, and watched the wedding guests go by. The guests were all very fashionable and had many beautiful hairstyles. Some of the younger kids will say “Hi!” and wave when they see us Farang (meaning foreigners...). They are all super cute – but I don’t know if I’ll feel the same way when I’m in a class room full of them! But we shall see. After that, it was bedtime for me... Ready to do it all again tomorrow!