Remembering Amazing Thailand

I only had like eight students but since it was my first time to handle a class that had a different culture and upbringing it was very difficult for me. I wanted to be their best friend but I think the way I delivered the message was something vague for them. There was this one girl who had a strong personality and she tried to convened with the rest of the class to deliberately defy my authority in the classroom. She made the last couple of weeks a hell for me.

One time I gave them an instruction to do a roleplay. I even handed them a script. But they pretended they couldn’t understand my instruction. I had the Thai teacher explain but to no avail. So I had to cancel that activity and gave them something undeniably very easy like reading out loud.

It was the last day of the school and it was the worst time I have ever had with them. Before I sent them out for lunch I told them that I was giving them a treat. But when it was time to come back to class to conclude they were nowhere to be found. I alerted the principal but I think it gave a negative impression on me. A couple of hours later they came back and I didn’t know where they had been because the Thai teacher who was supposed to be our interpreter couldn’t say anything.

Upset and disappointed, I knew right there and then that I was going to get busted. The only thing that went well was the party where we had to share food with each other.

The school library is the best thing that’s ever happened in the campus. Because we didn’t have a TV or a radio or a CD player or anything we could use for entertainment, life was so boring when we finished teaching every day. But thanks heaven, the library which was just a few steps away from our apartment came with internet-enabled computers. But there were so many students who wanted to use them too. So what we’d do was we got there before the library opened at 7 pm and made sure we got a computer that’s connected properly. Then Karoline, Jane and I would monopolize those computers until the libray closed at half past ten in the evening.

It was 2001 and the only thing I knew about internet was emails, news, and chatting. But we’re not allowed to chat in the library so we would just goof until we got bored.

Sometimes when the internet was not working then it would really be a very bad time and then I would resort to reading books. That was how life was with Karoline, Jane and me in the summer of 2001.

This was going to be my favorite place to shop while stationed in Muaklek teaching EFL for a couple of months. As what I have mentioned earlier, when we go send the kids back home most of them lived in the town center, Saraburi and on the way is a Tesco shopping mart. 

I found it really favourable to find some of my favourite noodles like the Korean spicy kimchi ramyon. Also the fruit salad they prepare with a sweet salad cream was superb. 

Sometimes when Karoline and me are not on the school van duty we still went with the van almost every day just to get out of what we considered a miserable campus. 

Well, if you lived in a place where there’s no tv, no radio and there’s absolutely nothing to do to entertain yourself, it was like living in a prison. Good thing the van had always a place for us and if it was full we carried the littlest ones on our lap.

Every week two teachers were assigned at the entrance of the school to greet the coming pupils and the parents or guardians who sent them off and sometimes help little tots get off the car. Basically, we just greet them good morning and although it seemed unnecessary since our school was in the heart of the campus but it is a Thai tradition that is strictly practiced in all schools whether it is a private or public school, international or Thai school.

What I didn’t like about it was that I had to start doing it at 6 am because some pupils arrived early or their parents sent them early because they had to go to work too. And I didn’t like it when we greet them good morning and they turned a deaf ear to us as if we were just a monument that they saw every day and they didn’t even notice we were there.

There were a couple of toddlers we had to pull away from the car every single day because they clang tightly to their mother and didn’t want to let go. Poor kids, they didn’t want to be separated from their parents at such a young age but they just had to stay at school because no one could look after them at home and their parents were busy at work.

I wish that when I get to be a mother I wouldn’t have to send my kids to school while they are very young. I want to be their first teacher.

One of my favourite days when I started teaching my EFL students was Tuesday because we go a-swimming. Although I couldn’t and still can’t swim myself but at least I get a break. Sometimes classroom can be boring and how time slows down if you want it to run fast.

One time, there was no van to send us to the pool and we walked all the way. It was not very far but it was hot and the road was a bit dangerous. On both sides were like a virgin forest and snakes slithered across the roads sometimes.

During the swimming day one day, I tried to dip in the pool. It was a bit deep for me. But I had what you call a kick-board and I thought it would be easy to float. But I was wrong. I tried to kick the floor to go up but I couldn’t reach it. I started to panic and shouted for help. Thanks God, I managed to float and go to the swallow water. I never went back into the pool again even if we had to do it every week for the next three months.

Well, I still found ways to enjoy myself like snacking and picking wild fruits. Sometimes, I asked my pupils to teach me Thai words and it was very difficult for me to learn it. We were eating a Thai snack and one girl told me that it is called kha khai with the first syllable in a mid rising tone and the second in a falling tone. But I pronounced it with a rising intonation just like when we are asking a question. They had to correct me several times. I thought I had right for them it’s wrong. I didn’t realize that tone is very important in Thai.

Being an English teacher in the Philippines I thought it was going to be easy to teach Thai students but I was wrong. My first group of students were 10-13 years old. They were Charlie, Kook, Plaa, Liszt, Title, Tawan, and Mook who was the youngest.

Having to start without preparation or orientation I felt I was thrown into the deep end right on my first day. I saw the textbooks for the first time and I had to teach them on that day. It was such a big struggle and I felt very unprepared. Yet I pretended I knew what to do. After the first week I got fairly acquainted with my students and the lessons. However, I lacked the right approach. I insisted on what I thought was the best way for them to learn the language. I pushed them to fail.