School and teaching

 I’m teaching in the new building in my new room now.  It’s really nice having my own space!  The kids and I are getting along well and I have established some good discipline and routings.  I wrote about that over on the teaching/parenting website my mom and I have if you want more details about that.  

My classroom is nice.

Here are some of my students:

Me, FeiFew and Yindee collecting leaves for a science experiment. (photo credit)

More of the science lesson (photo credit).

Auto, First, Aishi, and me 

Gui, Mhew and me

Praewa, Yada, Mhew, and me

Crazy faces

More crazy faces

The rest of the building still isn’t done.  There are construction noises all day and it’ll be even nicer when that is finished and it’s quieter.  The bathrooms in the building still don’t have water and aren’t functional so the kids have to go to another building to go to the bathroom.  In addition to that I am waiting for the cork boards and the other white board to be installed in my room.  We are getting there slowly but surely. 

I was chewing a piece of gum after lunch.  I went back to class after and forgot to throuw it away before getting the students.  Pordee saw me and asked, “What are you munching?”  I thought that was such a great word for him to use! 

I had cardstock cut into squares with letters written on them up on the board.  We used them in the E1 (Elementary 1) class.  E2 was in my room later in the day and the letters were still on the board.  There were some students at my desk getting their work checked.  Phuvit was waiting for me and was standing by the letters on the board.  A few moments passed and he said, “Teacher, look!”  He sounded so proud of himself.  I looked and he had used the letters on the board to spell a swear word!  I always thing it’s preposterous when kids aren’t completely fluent in a language but know naughty words…  People on the streets like to shout out to us as we ride by on our bikes.  They usually know 1-3 things: “Hello!”  “How are you?”, or “I love you!”  There are a few young boys a little ways down from the school.  They alternate between “Hello!”  “I love you!” (while blowing kisses), trying to get high fives as we pass, and flipping us off.  Interesting the things that people learn in different languages. 

The other day in class we were practicing phonemic awareness.  We were ‘cheering’ so I’d say, “Give me a /c/ /a/ /t/” and they’d shout “cat!”  Well they were having so much fun with the activity that I thought I’d continue and do some of their names to be fun.  I did the sounds in Pordee’s name and the class shouted him name.  Pordee burst into tears.  I went on to do other kids’ names and they all loved it.  I had a hard time getting Pordee to tell me why that had upset him so much.  I told him I was sorry if I’d made him say, that I was just trying to be fun and would never do something like that to be mean.  Tunwa was a good friend and comforted him and he calmed down before too long. 

For our lesson in gym last week we had a water relay.  There was a big bucket on sine side and we were about 5 feet away.  They had to take a cup and go get water to fill their bowl.  They had a great time and didn’t want to stop.  I taught the lesson on Wednesday with E1 (they’re a year younger) and I tried to give the directions while we were outside.  It didn’t go real great.  When I taught the next day with E2 we did all the directions and instructions inside then went and played and it was SO much better that way!

Last week I told E2 that my sister-in-law was going to have her baby in a few days.  They were really excited and started asking all about my family.  They wanted to know everyone’s names and who was married and who had babies, and how old they were, and who was going to come visit Thailand.  I went through all the names on my side of the family.  They loved it and after I was done they said, “Some of those names are weird and silly.”  I explained that in America they thought they were normal and that the Thai names were silly!  I shared some of the names with my dad and he enjoyed hearing them.  The kids in my classes are Phuvit (‘ph is pronounced like the letter p in English—you don’t hear the h), First, Aishi, Post, Pordee, MeePhoo, Aomsin, Tunwa, Nick, FeiFei, Yindee, Ongry, Shogon, Max, Mhew, Auto, MeMe, Pan, Maeni, Gui, Bonus, Praewa, Ioon, Lin, and a couple more that I can’t think of at the moment.  After I told them about my family they wanted to see a picture so the next day I showed this picture:

Speaking of my new niece, here she is!

(My mom had my brother take this family picture a week before I left.  I didn't want to get pictures taken, but now I'm SO glad we did.  Thanks momma, for making that happen.  Thanks Brad for taking the pictures.)

They loved it.  Bonus pointed to Curtis (the redhead in the front) and said, “What’s this one called?  He’s cute!” 

I'm loving my students, the planning is getting faster (not AS fast as I want, but it's getting there), we are getting in a good groove, and my body is getting adjusted to the heat (and it's cooling off a bit).  I'm excited for Tanner to get here!