Feeling the Heat in Thailand Schools

I thought I would take the opportunity to update everyone after two full days of Teaching in Thailand, this is Josh by the way. I will be starting out this post and Beth will be finishing it.

Walking to school Monday took about five minutes. We have taken this walk many times in the past week but never like this one. The usually desolate sidewalk was filled with students of all ages. Many of the students were attending the school we were going to. Others were from an all girls school right next to our school. Our school, Wat Khema, has about 3000 students ages 12-18. Boys and girls attend our school but there are many more boys than girls. Not to many years ago our school used to be an all-boys school, hence more boys than girls, about 3-1.

As we walked into the school we saw uniforms on every student. There were many different kinds of uniforms but every student had a uniform. We saw customs of showing respect from the students as they walked in. For instance, many students would stand in a line facing what looked like a teacher and do a synchronized bow as a sign of respect before they entered the school. Other students walked past without bowing at all.

Beth and I made it to the Foreign Language Department before 7:30am. One of the few things that we were told about our job is "show up by 7:30am." We did and hoped the many questions about our job would finally be answered. When we arrived at the department we saw a few familiar Thai teachers that we had met in the past week. We also met some new people. We were now greeted and apart of the foreign part of the foreign language department. Included were many teachers from the Philippines, Australia, Africa, and America. All spoke very good English. A few teachers have been there many years and a couple for less than a year. We happily joined them as English teachers.

Our schedules were given to us around 8:00am on the first day. I had 19 classes and Beth 18. She will teach upper level students Math and I will teach lower level students English.

I will conclude my part by explaining a little bit about my classes and then let Beth finish the post.
So far I have had 6 classes. One had been in air conditioning, about 12 students aged 15, with decent English skills. Five of them have been classrooms with no AC (one without working fans), about 45-50 students in each, aged 12-13, who had little to no ability to speak and comprehend English. It seems I have my work cut out for me. I also want to mention a few elements that make my job a bit trickier. The typical temperature is 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. This will put any teacher into a sweat in no time. Especially someone whose body is not accustomed to this much heat. Also, there is construction going on at the school. An excavator (backhoe) equipped with a jackhammer was demolishing a building right outside one of my classes. If you could imagine 50 of my students being screamed at by a teacher they have never met, in  language they can barely understand, while listening to a jackhammer right outside the classroom. If I was their age I would have a hard time paying attention as well. Anyway I will leave it to Beth to wrap this post up.

A view from outside our office - all the crazy construction!

Beth now...
 One of the very few things I was told was that I am teaching Math. I have two English Program classes, one 10th and one 11th grade - these students take all their classes in English. I also have 4 other classes of special math (grades 7, 8, 10, and 11)- from what I understand students have a Thai math class and I will be teaching Math in English one day a week as well; I also understand it's the first time the school is trying this. On Monday, first day, I had no idea what I was suppose to be teaching in these math classes - and was told the Math teacher would be there Thursday to tell me. Lucky day for me, the math teacher was there today (Tuesday) but he was only able to tell me about one English Program math class. Later today the Thai math teacher came in and told me about another one of my special math classes - tomorrow I have a meeting where I am going to find out what I'll be doing for the rest of my classes. From what I understand I will not have curriculum for the most part - but I'll find out more tomorrow I guess.

I had 4 classes Monday and 3 today - one English Program class with about 13 students - nice! My others had around 30 students, one class had 49 students. Students were all fairly good, the class of 49 was difficult. As I am finding out I have students who have some English proficiency, so communication isn't as difficult as in Josh's classes. All my rooms except one, so far, have AC - I feel very lucky! My class schedule is much different than in the states - lots of office time! Today I had three classes in the morning and I was done at 11:40! But this differs everyday.