Preschool in Thailand= chaos

Hello everyone, sorry for the long delay in posting. I did actually make it to Thailand, I’m not stuck at the border somewhere in the jungles of Cambodia or anything so don’t worry.

I’ve pretty much accepted the fact that I won’t be able to post regularly until the TEFL certificate is over and I’ve gotten a job somewhere. There’s just way too much to try and get done. It’s definitely a challenging certificate, which is good because I feel like I’m getting a decent amount of training. Even though I’ve been mostly babysitting three year olds. But more about that later.

So we crossed the border on Friday after a 6 hour bus ride. Then we had another 3 hour ride in a van and an hour ride on a ferry until we reached Koh Chang. Koh Chang was our island stop on the way to Pattaya (because everyone who comes to Thailand needs an island stop). It was literally the eye in the middle of the storm: our first two weeks of homework and classes and grades were behind us, and our two weeks of teaching were about to begin. I enjoyed the weekend, laid out in the sun, played in clear, crystal waters (have I made you jealous yet?), and it was amazing. It was one of the most relaxing weekends of my life. We went to a little village on the water for dinner and had the best seafood ever- I kept getting mussels because Thailand has the best mussels in the world, I don’t know what they do to them here but wow. The following day we hiked to this waterfall way back in the woods through these treacherous paths that would probably never exist in the States, got to play around in the falls for awhile, and then made our way back. We lunched on the best chicken I’ve ever had cooked rotisserie style over an open flame. Then we made our way to Pattaya.

There are no words to describe Pattaya. At least no words that exist in the English language. Let me just sum it up by saying that Pattaya is the sex capital of Thailand. And Thailand is known for being scandalous, so for Pattaya to be the sex capital, I think you understand the craziness that faced us. It seemed fairly tame when we moved into Green Vale, the guesthouse we’re staying in for the next two weeks. Our little street had a few stores and food places and a money exchange: pretty much all you need in life. Then we decided to venture out later in the week. And wow. I know that sex trafficking is a huge problem in southeast Asia, but it’s laid right out in the open for everyone to see in Pattaya. It’s everywhere, more so than in Bangkok, more so than in Cambodia. You can’t go downtown without seeing it everywhere. It’s like an open business. We tried to find a normal bar and gave up. I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of early nights here.

Monday was the first day of teaching. Except that we went to Hilton, a little school that is part of Phoenix Kindergarten, and observed preschool for most of the day. Which was great because having a day to observe the Thai way of teaching is definitely good. And the preschoolers were wild. Monday afternoon we had Thai class for the first time. Thai class is slowly frying my brain. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to have many brain cells left if I make it through the rest of the course, and I’m blaming it on Thai class. Thai is a tonal language. That means there aren’t nearly as many words as in English, but they’re all said in different ways. The most famous phrase in Thai for driving Thai learners crazy is “mai mai mai mai mai “ which means “new wood doesn’t burn, does it?”. The word mai is the most versatile word- it means so many different things depending on when it’s used and how you say it. I’ve never tried to learn a tonal language before, so this is definitely a struggle. And the first day was brutal. We learned how to introduce ourselves, ask where someone is from, say where we’re from, ask what someone’s job is, and say what our job is. You would think that would be fairly easy. For homework, we had to go out on to the street and ask five people those three questions. It was not easy. I confused five restaurant servers to the point where they got me a motorcycle driver because they thought I was trying to get home.

Anyway. Tuesday was day two. We didn’t student teach on Tuesday either- we stayed at Phoenix instead of going to Hilton. By this point, Holly and I were getting a little frustrated because everyone else had started teaching. It was nice to observe different teaching methods and we got a wealth of ideas for dealing with preschoolers, but it was difficult not to be getting that teaching practice since we both knew we’d need it for finding jobs. We couldn’t say anything at the school though because LanguageCorps very strictly warned us to just go along with whatever we’re told to do and if we have a problem, to talk to one of the LanguageCorps employees afterwards and they’ll deal with it. Which is probably good because the staff doesn’t exactly speak perfect English anyway and things could easily get misunderstood.

Wednesday we found out that we weren’t going to Hilton anymore because there was a hand foot and mouth disease outbreak and the school was closed. Which was just lovely news. We were quite relieved to be staying at Phoenix after that. We got placed with Kristina and Val, and I’m now teaching with Kristina. Which is also a relief.

Life at Phoenix is night and day from life in an American preschool class. In an American preschool class, kids have about a half hour of actual time spent learning the alphabet or how to count, they have recess like three times a day, they have naptime and dance time, etc. The whole day is play basically. In Thailand, the first three hours of the day until lunchtime, the kids are expected to sit at their desks and learn. Three year olds. Sit at their desks and learn. For three hours. And guess who teaches them? That’s right.

The first full day I got to teach was Thursday. I was super excited. My lesson plans were as follows: the letters A-M, eight different colors, board scramble where I have them form teams and pick two to come up and erase a letter off the board, numbers 1-20, etc.

My lesson plans for day two after I muddled through day one were as follows: The letter A. The color blue. The numbers 1-5. That was it. Teaching three year olds English is like being the most boring babysitter ever. We try to jazz it up with lots of songs and some Barney and Bob the Builder mixed in, but it’s tricky because the kids get so wound up. I put on “Five Little Monkeys” the first day I taught class and the kids went nuts and started a mosh pit. We’ve been relying on calm activities like coloring a lot, needless to say.

Today was my second day of teaching, and I feel like I’m getting into the swing of it a little more. It’s nice having Kristina in the room because we can divvy up what we teach, and it gives the kids some variety since we have different teaching methods. I feel like there needs to be two people in that room anyway. We have Thai aides who come in and take care of the kids, and make sure that they’re all behaving and listening, but it’s still difficult because we don’t speak any Thai at all so if the kids need something, we aren’t much help. Some of the kids come from English backgrounds and can speak sentences in English, but most can’t even say their names. Every day is an adventure, let’s use a cliche and leave it at that.

I like teaching little kids, but I don’t feel like I’m using my full potential as a teacher by teaching at Phoenix. Right now I want to look for jobs in Bangkok- we’re all at the “work on resumes and cover letters” stage, and everyone is trying to figure out where to go. I think Bangkok is going to give me the best chance for getting a job right away. What we didn’t know before we got over here is that the Thai school year ends at the end of March, and then most of the schools have off until the beginning of May. So we might only be working for a month or two until we get a break. Which is both good and bad because I do want to travel, but I feel like it would be nice to earn a little money first. I’m going to try to teach third or fourth grade- somewhere in that range. I like working with kids, but working with preschool just makes me want to pull my hair out. Not to mention the fact that they cry. A lot.

Other than that, my week was fairly simple. I slept a lot- even though we’re only teaching four hours a day, it takes a lot out of you. And we had Thai class for two hours every day, which didn’t help my sanity much. But I bartered in Thai today for a dress and got the price down so I guess the Thai lessons are paying off. We’re also learning the language at an alarming rate since we’re learning it from a program that specializes in teaching languages. It’s very thorough language training.

Thursday night we went to see a movie. Which is quite the event in Thailand. We chose Couples Retreat (it was the only romantic comedy and Val and Susan had just seen The Road, which is extremely depressing). The movie theater was extremely nice, and movies were 120 baht, less than four dollars. The popcorn was less than two, and they have caramel popcorn- so exciting. We went into the theater and sat down, and enjoyed the previews which were all in Thai. Then everyone stood up. We were like, “What’s going on?” Apparently they play some kind of tribute to the King at the beginning of a movie in all the movie theaters around here. It’s really interesting. The movie itself was a nice break from the lesson planning and language journaling and homeworking that I had been doing all week, so I really enjoyed it. We also found this huge mall with six stories of designer stores, which was basically culture shock in and of itself.

Pattaya is a weird little town, I will say that. It’s right on the ocean, but the beach is kind of trashy, especially since we’ve been spoiled with Koh Chang and I’ve been to other islands as well. Even Bangkok is nicer. Though the conditions are cleaner than in Cambodia. We’re catching a ferry tomorrow (Saturday) to Koh Larn, an island about forty minutes away that is supposed to be much nicer than Pattaya. It will probably be fairly crowded. The crowds are really surprising me here. I keep forgetting that when I was in Thailand over the summer, it was rainy season and as far from tourist season as possible. This is cool season, or it’s supposed to be- it got up in the nineties today so who knows. But everywhere right now seems fairly overrun with tourists, and when I came during the summer it was a lot emptier. Nevertheless I’m excited to head to Koh Larn and lay on a beach all day. Just one day where I don’t come home with crayon and children’s tears and dirt all over me. It’s going to be glorious.

So that’s the update on my life. I’ll try to post again soon, and hopefully I’ll have some news at least about where I'm going to work even if I don’t know what job I’ll have yet. Hope everything is going well at home. I miss you all!

Love from Thailand,

Monica