Captain's Log, Day 2

My foray into teaching continued today when I substituted for 2 of pee Mam's classes.  The first one in the morning was actually the same class I co-taught yesterday, so I knew for sure where they had left off and where to begin with them.  Of some difficulty was the explanation of pyramids of number, energy, and biomass.  However, they did seem to understand the concepts in the end, since they managed to get my concept checking questions right...yay!  There was some confusion when I was working on one pyramid, but it turns out it wasn't with the concept, but with the words frog and eagle.  I was asking them to raise their hands if there were more frogs or eagles in an ecosystem, and I got blank looks.  They didn't know the words! Now don't jump on me just yet--I had seen students draw/label both frog and eagle just yesterday, but I guess it was in a different class.  Anyway, through miming (complete with squawking and arm flapping for the eagle) I was able to show what I meant.  Then we were able to move on and learn about the pyramids of number, biomass, etc.  

There was another slight mishap in that first class--there are only fans and I was wearing sort of a flowing sundress.  Yeah...the fans definitely blew my skirt up.  That got a lot of laughs from the class! Luckily the class captains scurried to turn off the necessary fans to save me from future embarrassment.  I also learned the necessary greeting script, so the "Hello teacher/Hello everyone" charade went much better today.

So I thought my second class of the day was the same group I had seen yesterday (neither one is exactly on my schedule, jsut substitute teaching).  So I showed up for class and had them pull out their handouts, then asked where we left off last time.  They said page 1.  Thinking they just didn't understand I repeated no, where did we leave off, not where did we start.  Page 1.  Ok, so perhaps this was a new class, or perhaps they were confused, or maybe I was going crazy.  Whatever.  Looks like we were starting on page 1!  Now before anyone jumps on me with the eww, you think all Asians look the same comment, just wait--these are classes of 40-50 students, all wearing the same uniform, with pretty much the same haircut, in identical classrooms.  So yeah, I'm gonna own it: they kinda did look the same.  I thought I was teaching the same class as yesterday.  Oh well.  It definitely turned out to be a new group (after class they ran up to me and asked my name and where I was from--they were all very excited and it was quite cute).  The lesson itself ended up going pretty well.  I think that they like how energetic I am, and I guess that Westerners tend to be less traditional in their teaching than the Thais are (I don't use the mic, I walk around and gesture a lot, definitely not concerned about embarrassing myself with bad drawings or acting, etc).  It is sorta like what they told us in our training: to be a good teacher you need to be part entertainer/clown.  Well, with the number of laughs I get from my students, I am doing well on the clown front!

In other news, most of the laughs today were actually from my fellow teachers rather than the students.  In my attempts to learn more Thai, I am apparently quite amusing.  The other biology teachers really speak no English, so most of the time they just chatter to themselves, and I feel kinda silly.  Then when I ask them words, they laugh at my butchered attempts.  I am a very slow learner...

Another interesting thing: all school assembly occurs every morning except Tuesday.  Hence not knowing what happened yesterday.  On Tuesdays the students stay in their homeroom.  Every other day we go down to the main yard, they sit in orderly rows of some sort, and there is a bunch of talk in Thai.  There is the raising of the flag, we wai to the flag, and we wai to Buddha.  I don't know all the details of the assembly since the teachers just chat through most of it (except anthem/flag raising and the wais).  I did meet more of the chemistry faculty, and one of them seems desperate to set me up with teacher Aof, the guy I will be teaching M.2 chem with.  Weird.  

Anyway, all in all a good day.  I now have books for both of my solo-teaching classes, I made it through everything without complete humiliation, and I hopefully have a viable plan for tomorrow.  I  had lunch with pee Neat and pee Nura at the canteen--quite tasty, but you have to eat at 11 to get there before the students.  We also made a car trip to Tesco Lotus.  This was fun, but I am not sure that a bike is going to be a viable option...I might have to learn how to ride a motorbike.  EEKKK!!!  I will keep you updated.  For now have a good night!