Back to school

At last it’s time for the children to arrive. As they come in the classroom I am greeted with a strange combination of unsure looks and yet smiling mouths. They are all very polite in their responses to my questions. “Hello, what’s your name?” “My name is Kodchakorn”. “How are you today?” “I am happy today.”
Wow, this is going to be easy. We start off with my usual ice - breaker games and I get the impression they’re not sure what to make of me and my games but they really like my make a bookmark and draw something you like task. This has them all talking to me and asking for things and thanking me for the ruler, the rubber, the pencil sharpener, which happen to be the vocabulary I’m to teach this month. This is fun.

When they have Thai lessons, I prep my next few crafty projects, make more displays, design my own worksheets and draft up more lesson plans. I never tidy my desk and the workbooks (which need marking) pile up around my latest projects. Workbook based lessons (English, Maths and Handwriting) are my most tedious lessons. Where some children work through the pages independently and have finished in minutes, others need enormous one to one help. But, having left it to the last minute to complete the workbooks last term, this time we MUST do them at all the timetabled points.

Some things I teach my class and they just don’t pick up them. Like when they don’t know the answer, I want them to say “I don’t know.” and when they don’t understand I want them to say so. Then there are the things that I don’t teach but they have taught themselves to use – to death. For example, I have developed a very BBC English voice and it’s become amusing to imitate me, only now, (to Miss Maitanee’s frustration) they can’t even say Miss Maitanee’s name without my English accent. After I told them to look at my mouth to catch how my tongue made the ‘l’ sound at the end of ‘pencil’ and how my teeth make the ‘s’ sound in rice, I now have children stopping me in my tracks to inspect their mouths. “Look at my mouth. Crocodile.” Where I would usually give a countdown for quiet or a five minute warning before time’s up or exclaim, “Oh my Goodness. This is far too noisy” I now have students who take the words out of my mouth or whisper my instructions to me if I’m a little slow in giving them myself.

My best lessons seem to be one’s where I can see them blossoming and my worst are those where I lose crowd control. Like the time we made bread – with a bread maker. It starts on Tuesday morning and then we realise my planned lesson is too late in the day to allow the bread to bake in time for them to actually eat it. So, I craftily tell them we’ll make bread tomorrow, today we’ll write down (handwriting practice) the ingredients we’re going to use. Wednesday, KG2 teacher Mr Ol sets me up with my ingredients, oven gloves, apron, the bread making machine and a table at which I will demonstrate. The class eagerly watch as I match up all the ingredients to those they have written out in their handwriting books. In goes the flour, the water, the yeast, the salt, the oil. On goes the machine and while we’re waiting let’s catch up on those workbook pages that people haven’t managed to finish in class time. Everyone has their hands up. One student has his hand up to ask if the bread is ready. The pencil sharpeners aren’t working. There aren’t any rubbers left. Conversations about pencil cases and hair and sweaters have begun and then we have a full blown racket. “Oh my Goodness. This is far too noisy” (Nothing.) “Five, four, three, two, one, shhhhhhhhh.” (Nothing.) . “Five, four, three, two, one, shhhhhhhhh.” (Nothing.) Plan B: Go up to the first children I can see talking and ask them to stop. I have to be quick with this. Sometimes I can hear what sounds like everyone talking but then I look at their mouths and they’re not moving. I think it’s something to do with there being 35 in the class. Got them all. Ok, let’s continue. Quick look at the bread. It’s not rising – but it smells right. Oh, now everyone wants to look. Phew, it’s nearly break time. Five minute warning. Everyone pack away. Extravagant explanation by myself as to how the bread is going to rise and at the end of the day we will eat it – with butter on top. Two hours later and the bread is still powder in the bread maker. I call in Mr Ol and he looks at how much water I have left (too much) and how I have used up all the flour. (Did I get the maths wrong on the flour?) Mr Ol pours in a bottle of water and sets the machine to start over again. (Students can see all of this but I pretend this is all planned – unconvincingly judging by the look on their faces). At the end of the day I triumphantly show the brick that is our bread and Miss Baiyamat slowly saws in to find edible bits. I had hoped we would all sit down in a circle eating our little picnic of bread and butter, chatting in English, but with the clock ticking for home time, I butter (real butter that cost 3 quid from Tescos) and everyone helps themselves from the bread board. Some students refuse the slices available. One says “I don’t want butter”. Then everyone is saying “I don’t want butter too” and I’ve just buttered all the pieces and there isn’t much left that’s edible. “Students, if anyone else say’s I don’t like butter I will be very angry.” Right that’s done it. No - ones talking now. But they clearly want more bread the way they’re loitering round the bread board. So I give them the bone dry crusts that we chipped off to get to the soft bits.

Out of the blue we have a five day weekend and with the extra cash, I decide to nip to Hong Kong to be with my Gran and sort my stuff that I left under my bed 10 years ago. I call some relatives, some old work colleagues, my old boss, and before long my five days are packed with breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late evening appointments across Hong Kong. With no time to sort properly through my things under the bed, I bring as much as I can carry back with me to Thailand. My Gran is very confused as to where all this luggage has come from. There are books, photos, throws, rice bowls, teaching materials, children’s story books and hundreds of postcards. I also take back with me Suky – a classroom assistant I worked with 10 years ago. Recently unemployed, Suky wants a holiday in Thailand before she gets her next job. Although she can’t fit any more of my stuff in her suitcase, she happily hand carries my racks of books in a plastic basket I’ve found.

After a few hours in Bangkok, Suky (looking really sad) confesses that she thinks there are ghosts in my apartment which disagree with her and she thinks the area where I’m staying isn’t safe. Wow, I love my apartment and I have never felt unsafe anywhere in Thailand especially around where I live. To help her with this, I sail home from work on a motorbike taxi each lunch break and find that as she has ventured a little further out her feelings towards being here have improved (phew!).

At the weekend we go on holiday to Pattaya – a place Suky came to 10 years ago as part of a package tour from Hong Kong. This is a side of Thailand I dislike (streets of lady bars, restaurant menus screamed into your face.) But we do get time on the beach and that always has me feeling like I’ve been on holiday. Back in Bangkok, we take a trip to the Kao San Road and this is where Suky finds happiness. Ah, the abundance of restaurants (Thai, Farang, Nepalese, Israeli, Indian), the streets of cheap clothes, bookshops, lovely bars, coffee shops, the music shops, the cheap DVD stalls. Kao san is a fake little world but it's full of treats.

By half term I am frazzled, but I’m hungry for more money for more trips away. I sign up for teaching a week long camp. Up till the early hours co planning, making hundreds of mini books, prepping materials for hundreds of children to make crabs, making 'under the sea' board games, finding music for dance workshops, making worksheets. By the time camp comes I am on auto pilot. We welcome in one group, deliver the class, round it up, send them off for a snack, tidy up the classroom, welcome in the next group, deliver the lesson, send them off for lunch, tidy up the classroom, welcome in the next group, deliver the class, send them off for a break, deliver the next class and the next. Go home, adapt the lesson plans, do more prep. Home is a tip. Classroom is a tip. Book flight to the Philippines. Go in to school. Welcome, deliver, tidy, welcome, deliver, tidy, prep, re- plan, deliver, tidy. Rush to the airport. Arrive in Manilla.

written by  Yee Ling Tang on October 10, 2009 from Bangkok, Thailand
from the travel blog: the break
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