The Best and the Worst

November 12-13

This appeared in the school courtyard - where assemblies are held

It has become clear that teaching is very much a roller coaster, affected by many variables. Variables such as how much sugar the students had for lunch (usually the answer here is A LOT), what they did in the previous class, the seating arrangement, and many others that cannot be easily identified or predicted. Such has been my last 2 days.

Monday was the worst day I’ve had so far, without question. It felt that nothing went right. The day started with my 4.2 class – we started with dictation and moved on to a reading exercise in their notebooks. We were starting to look at exercise and how it affects your body. First, I tried to teach them new vocabulary, such as heart and muscle, with a drawing on the board, and using my own body. The class was not paying attention in general. Well, a few pay attention and take notes, but many of the students were occupied with other things. I tried to gain their attention but they just weren’t interested. I wrote “Game” on the board, and wrote ticks beside it- if we got to 4, there would be no game at the end. I got up to 3.

 

Next, I had my 4.1 class, normally my best behaved class. Not today. For whatever reason, their desks had been rearranged from pairs to groups of 6-8 blocked together. The downside of this was the kids just talked to each other the whole class. Even the students who are normally keen weren’t paying attention and talked loudly to their neighbours. I ended up cancelling the game in that class. That shut them up for about 10 minutes, but they still ended up talking.

In the afternoon, I had my 3.1&2 classes. Normally my co-teacher is always at those classes, as the kids are basically nuts. But she wasn’t there yesterday, so the class was basically lost from the start. Like the 4s, I started the class with the “Go Bananas!” song that I taught them last week. They liked that. That’s about it. I was working on vacation item vocabulary. The CD that comes with my teacher book is broken, so I wrote a script and the students would have to write which item belonged to “Brad and Suzy” and “Greg and Lisa”. I made it super simple so they would understand. They just weren’t interested. It was the same with both classes. They just talked and talked. Also, for 3.1, they had made pinwheels in the class before, so I spent most of my time asking students to put them away, or to stop making new ones. I tried including them into the lesson, and saying what they were called in English, but no one cared. I feel like I tried every trick I’ve learned or read about for classroom management. I was quiet. I yelled. I moved the desks of the misbehaving students. I cancelled the games. I drew on the board. I helped individuals. What was so frustrating is that all the students straight up DIDN’T CARE or want to LEARN, no matter how much preparation I had done, or how much I tried to coax them. A few of the students were trying but they were the vast minority. I also figured the novelty of a new teacher had worn off. At the end of the day, I just wanted to go home and cry. I ended up buying a bunch of junkfood, eating it all, and ordering my favourite curry and a beer at Kian’s (the local restaurant). 

Needless to say, I was not looking forward to teaching today. But I got up, planned my lessons (which I normally do beforehand, but I had to leave the school the previous day for a brain break). I had to start today with my 3s, which I was not looking forward to. But lo and behold, I had great lessons with both my classes! First, I did an activity we learned in orientation (I posted a picture of it here) – we write the alphabet on the board, and students write something in the same theme for each letter. They LOVED it. Even the students who don’t pay attention/behave on a regular basis were pulling out their dictionaries and asking me how to spell words. As usual, it got very loud but they students were so INTO IT. Although I did have my first student cry in class: she burst into tears when I handed her the marker. I was just like “uh oh. I don’t know how to deal with this!” so I just patted her shoulder, said it was ok, and ran away. I got my Thai co-teacher to talk to her. After that activity, I drew a tent on the board and labeled the parts (the students did the same in their workbooks). Although most Thais don’t go camping, they still want the kids to learn about it and the vocabulary. They actually wrote down what I said, and were reasonably quiet while doing so. Next, I had them draw a campsite and label the parts of the tent. I drew an example for them. I’m becoming quite the artist, PS. So, I learned these kids also love to draw and will also do so relatively quietly. It really is amazing. In my drawing, I drew mountains.

I tried to tell the students they could draw “mountains, a beach, or a forest”. Most of the kids just drew mountains, but a few drew other settings. One of the kids who I feel doesn’t understand a word I say, drew a very nice beach. And they all (eventually) labelled the parts of the tent (rope, pole, peg, groundsheet). Some drew more elaborate scenes. That trouble maker kid who loves games (whose name is Mix. I will learn all the names!) showed me his at the end of class, and he had all the hard vocabulary written, even “cook over a campfire”. 

After lunch, I had the 4s. I also had them do the Alphabet activity, and they also loved it. “N” was a hard letter, i told most of the students who had “N” to write “newt” or “narwhal”. In 4.2, one kid wrote “nautilus”. For those who don’t know what that is, you can see below:

(via wikipedia)

The only reason I know what that is is because of the BBC planet earth/life series. I tried to find out who had written it, but no one took credit. After that, we walked about exercise. I had them list types of exercise (volleyball, running, etc.) first. Then, I taught them how to say “What do you do for exercise” and “For exercise, I...”. It went really well, even when I had them practice in pairs. At the end, we played Pictionary. For the game a and when I was asking for types of exercise, and later “what do you do for exercise”, students were practically jumping out of the desks with their hands raised (a la Hermione Granger). It was such a start contrast from the complete lack of interest the other day. Weird. One student asked if we could play a game tomorrow, and I said “if you behave/are good”. One good thing about cancelling the game yesterday is that this time, when I wrote game on the board and a tick mark, the class immediately shut up. Some students were telling other, noisier students to be quiet as well. Good to know!

At the end of school today, I was much happier. I felt that today went REALLY well and actually enjoyed myself the whole day. I feel like I can’t stop smiling when I think back to the work the students did and the learning I witnessed. I guess this is the life of a teacher, and I have to be able to take the good with the bad. Hopefully, as the students and myself learn more, we can continue enjoying the learning process!