On Friday, I went to the school by myself for the first time. I understood that I was going to be meeting with Kru Pecht, the English teacher there. I had gone the day before to meet her and observe one of the other volunteers teach a class. Thursday was teacher appreciation day, so the schedule was quite out of wack. But even so, they still waited for all the students to arrive before they started the ceremony. Some of them were very late, so all the children waited more or less patiently on the cement ground while the teachers wandered around or sat in chairs. When the ceremony was over, we went back to class. It seemed much more informal than in the States, with students even occasionally coming in and out. But they paid attention and seemed interested in the lesson.

    When I arrived the next day, They were all lined up on the soccer field. First we sang the national anthem, then some students came forward and said something, I had to introduce myself (and the English teacher promptly quizzed them on where I was from, how old I was, ect), then they had to run around the soccer field a couple of times. After that, they assembled under the school on the pavement for mediation. This lasted quite a while, and I was surprised at how well they all did—even the preschoolers stayed relatively quiet and still.

    This was not the case later on. I was shown upstairs and told to teach a class of first graders. !!!!!!!!!!!!! No lesson plan, okeeeeaaay. Alphabet! They knew the song, but not really the letters. So we practiced spelling words with vowels and played a couple of games I improvised. Not too shabby, but still.

    Then I was shown in to a room filled with different ages, looked like a class of kindergarteners with their older siblings helping. I was told to help them with their worksheets. A couple times I tried to start a lesson, but very few listened to me, I guess this was not supposed to be class time. This was a pretty crazy two hours, with kids running in and out, sometimes doing their work, but mostly goofing off. I found out later that two teachers had a meeting that morning, so no one was left to watch their classes. The school is very open, so the other teachers could keep tabs on the children, but they were left to entertain themselves, except for me.

    Then we had lunch. They get an hour for lunch here, which is amazing. The students get their food cafeteria-style and then have to wash up themselves. Wouldn’t that be the day. The teachers eat together, and they were very nice about sharing the things they brought in addition to the meal. Some of the fruits were even grown in their gardens.

After the bus picked me and the other volunteers up, we went back to the office. I needed to do some work, but, unfortunately, the power was out in the office. So Saranda, a Swiss volunteer staying in the same house as me, and I went in to town and did some school shopping and to a coffee shop to use their internet.

    When we were finished, we decided to attempt to get to the beach. This proved more difficult than we thought. We imagined we could just approach one of the many trucks with covered benches in the back and ask if they were going to Ao Nang, but we were redirected to a bus stop. After we finally found it, we managed to get on the right bus and find the beach. The area around the beach was much more touristy, with hotels and restaurants and junk shops. The beach itself was fairly small, but still with great views. It wasn’t the most enjoyable experience though because it was so windy and because I still had my insanely-heavy back-pack to carry around. All in all, I was ready to go home in time for the last boat.

     On Saturday and Sunday, I attended a conference for teachers. The first presenter was from a neighboring university who was lecturing on inductive language teaching. At first I was very excited because she was presenting in English. But then she and I realized that the Thai teachers couldn’t understand her. She then used a mixture of Thai and English. When I talked to her at lunch, she was shocked that I was going to just be presenting in English without a translator. One of the workers from Projects Abroad was with me on Saturday, which was very nice because he introduced me and told me what was going on. But Sunday was his day off, so I would be on my own.

     For my presentation, I was supposed to talk about how to plan a lesson using the new book they just received. Unfortunately, they gave me the wrong book, so I had to change my presentation. At least the new book was easier, but I still wasn’t sure how much the 150 teachers were going to understand. I would have to just speak slowly and hope for the best. When I arrived Sunday morning, Kru Pecht, the teacher who I’m working under at the school, told me to start with a song. I didn’t know any songs, so we did Rocky Top. They thought I was funny. Then we launched in to the presentation. I tried to include several interactive games, which sort of worked. Occasionally, I had one of the teachers translate for me, and that helped. I wasn’t sure how much they were getting, but at the end everyone said I did well, just to talk slower. Huh. I thought I was. If I’d talk any slower, I’d sound like a caveman. Oh well, I did what I could. They did seem to like the lesson plan, so maybe next week I can do more with that.

     Tomorrow, I’m going on a long-boat island ride! Hope it’s nice weather!