Recently I have become frustrated with the difficulties of teaching younger students of a tongue I am NOT proficient in. Its really frightening to be put in a room of 6 year olds who have miniscule attention spans and who took 1 week to master the concept of saying “Hello!” when their name was called during attendance. Even my brilliant acting skills as little Devy and Teacher Deven have thus far been ineffective at improving comprehension. Students don’t ask me questions (probably because they can’t or are too shy) and choose not to do their homework instead. This cycle has led to every class being pretty similar as I have been hesitant to move on without students mastering “My name is..” and the alphabet. These combined frustrations of feeling like my students are registering information even when I feel like they understand and then they completely fail a quiz—taken without the assistance of peers or notes—with frustration over variable absences upsets me! One student has missed the past 3 classes and I only see the class four times a week. It’s no wonder students miss so much class when school is always closed for a random reason.
Lesson Planning
So to make a long story of frustration short, I had a breakdown on Wednesday morning while lesson planning. I just started crying because I felt like I didn’t know if I was even making a difference. How can I expect 6 year olds to write letters as part of our village connection project with high school students in Taphan Hin when they can hardly write in Thai? I felt lost and inadequate. Everything just seemed to build up on my while correcting abc quizzes and trying to figure out if introducing family words and numbers would be overwhelming. I came to Thailand with different “dreamer” ideas about my students being able to put on a play in English as a final project. I didn’t estimate for students this young or inexperienced. After a cup of sweet coffee with MaReam encouraging me and telling me that even though the students didn’t seem to be registering much, they were SO excited to have me as their teacher and apparently babble about me in other classes. I simply needed to adjust my goals and reassure myself that English exposure, even if muddily understood, is still exposure. I still felt unsure of my “wasted” time drilling the abc’s unsuccessfully when really, they aren’t SUPER necessary for conversational English. I resolved to focus more on other goals of fostering a love of learning and of school with less focus on proficiency. I think my goals for the next month are going to be variant with the 4 grades. I hope that the 10 year olds in Pratom 4 will be able to introduce themselves, talk about their likes, dislikes, families, numbers, and be able to have an introductory conversation. The Pratom 3 (8-9 year olds) should be able to do this too. I am most skeptical of my 6 and 7 year olds, but I think if we do more fun vocab like animals and food I will be able to hold their attention and know that they have many years of English training left to go.
I wish I could just draw and play games with my young students but as the pilot group for LE Thailand, we designed a mentorship program to connect high school students to college students and also to connect students from the small, mostly upper-middle-class city Taphan Hin in Phitchit province—where LE volunteers Crystal and Stacy are teaching—to our rural and impoverished students in Bangkratum. I thought letter writing wouldn’t be too tough, but for a six year old learning how to hold a pencil, “Dear ____, My name is _____. I am ___ years old” takes over 45 minutes of my 60 minute class period because I have to individually assist each student and keep them excited about sitting. It’s difficult. I am adapting my “letters” to be really short and have mostly pictures, but it’s weird knowing that 15-18 year olds will be reading and responding to them. I will need to find a way to distribute class time evenly so they my students can practice speaking AND write weekly “connection” letters. The other wrench in the mess is that students who miss class miss a quiz/test and could miss writing the first 3 lines of a letter which is determental to the weekly connection project! What if that mentor doesn’t receive a letter at all? AH! Hence signing up for independence and “piloting”. I love Learning Enterprises go-with-the-flow self-designed lesson plan ideas, but I like overhead supervision too. Nhaca and I talk frequently and I am in touch with Daniel (our program director in Taphan Hin) several times a week, but ultimately I am in charge. Being trusted with vital responsonsibility is both a blessing and a scary feat.
Today, Wednesday, went surprisingly well and my students outpouring of love for me makes it impossible to be worried about their progress. Just seeing them smile and stand up saying “Good morning, Teacher” (even in the afternoon!) comforts my OCD self. I went into my Pratom 1 classroom after class (again, they were unsupervised) and they all ran to the door and hugged my legs so hard I almost fell over. A passing teacher took a picture of them for me. Enjoy the cuteness.
It’s also adorable to have some of Nhaca’s older students say completely innocently: “Teacher, you are beautiful today!” Thai students soften my soul. I hear stories about the struggles that these families go through everyday. although its true that a huge communication gap on when to go to school or stay home exists, the truth is, some students have to stay home to watch the store or take care of sick grandparents. I learned of one girl in Nhaca’s class who is frequently absent. Her father is out of the picture and her mother re-married away from home, leaving the student to care for her disabled grandfather. To maintain herself and her grandfather who cannot walk, the student tends to a duck farm, going to school when possible.
cute
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