Imagine my surprise finding a computer lab with 30 computers in the temple school. So here I sit in a/c comfort reporting on my experience. I helped with a 5th grade class, they'll be all mine next week, played ping pong at lunch with the students and now am blogging.
Some things don't change; students are students. They behave well but are not regimented at all. They are comfortable moving around the room and collaborating on their work. Liz had a work sheet of a simple word find and a third of the class of 18 was able to compose an impressive list. I was quite impressed with the ability of some of the students to work in in English. Liz's experience and mentoring is very helpful to me. Of course I'm a curiosity here but they are used to a steady stream of volunteers coming through. One volunteer was 17 years old and most of them have been young. I suspect I'm the oldest they've had.
Last night the school's English teacher and her husband, also a teacher, took Liz and me out for dinner. Kelsey chose not to go. We went to a floating restaurant on the river for a lovely fish dinner. Their English is quite limited, but, by carrying a Thai-English dictionary we were able to converse. It was delightful to sit and watch the barge traffic going by (every barge has a family living on it).
After dinner the three (Liz, Kelsy, Al) of us went to the Chinese New Year's festival. About a mile of the main drag is blocked off for three nights of festival. You think you've seen red at a Pentecost Service wait till you see Chinese New Years. Both sides of the street were lined with food stalls, merchandise, performance stages, acrobats, etc. This was the 2nd of three nights
The class rooms are quite basic opening to the north. Overhead fans keep the temperatures quite comfortable. Students are used to doing drills and are comfortable responding as a group and almost totally unwilling to speak individually. Thailand's traditional resistance to colonialism blocked the teaching of English until 18 years ago. This means they have bit of catching up to do relative to some other countries but these youngsters are well on their way.
Sitting on the 2nd story deck of our house this morning I struck by the sounds; motorbikes purring by, Thai music floating from the distance, monks chanting at the temple, roosters crowing, a pickup truck with loudspeakers blaring an announcement, doves cooing, sparrows chirping, dogs barking, trucks rumbling past. Morning is glorious, perhaps 75 degrees, a slight breeze and after a cold shower I'm ready for the day.
Now we are about ready to teach a 4th grade class. It will be interesting to see the difference is English capability.
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