THAILAND: AN ABRIDGED VERSION – PART I
My Thai adventure so far has been split into 3 definitive sections; a 3 week TEFL course; a 2-week whistle-stop tour of Northern and Southern Thailand, and finally an unexpected move back to Phuket to work as an English Teacher. This post will be about numero uno, the TEFL course.
My reason for coming to Thailand didn’t exactly stem from a burning desire to explore South East Asia, but instead a failed plan A to work in Canada (thanks, Canadian visa department for six months of hell).
I was determined to go somewhere and do something as the post-uni blues hit me hard and I needed to just take the plunge and do something different. I ended up deciding on Thailand after the company who was arranging my Canadian trip said I could transfer onto any of their other programmes around the world. If I’m honest with you, my decision was made purely on the basis of ‘where can I go for the longest time whilst spending the least amount of money and still get something worthwhile from it all. Voila – the TEFL certification.
The three weeks were intense, to say the least, in both terms of work and adjusting to a whole new culture whilst spending pretty much 24/7 with people who were then strangers – however choosing to do the course, no matter how I came to the decision to do it, turned out pretty well. The course was split into two sections – classroom time to learn, and classroom time to teach. They were two very different experiences. The first week was purely learning, learning and relearning. Learning to lesson plan, learning to manage a class and relearning grammar.
Grammar, grammar, grammar.
One of the requirements to get a job as a TEFL teacher in Thailand is that you have to be a native English speaker which is quite frankly, stupid, as someone who can fluently speak English AND has consciously learnt the rules along the way can teach it a hell of a lot better than a native speaker who knows all the grammatical rules because ‘that’s just how it is’. As a result of this, the evenings were less island party life and more ‘how long can I avoid reading the 2 chapters of the Grammar book until it’s too late and acceptable to go to sleep’.
However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom in the shape of Penny Ur’s ‘A Course in English Language Teaching’, as the other aspect of the course encompassed hours of practical hands-on experience in the local school, Ban Bang Tao. Driving into the school grounds for the first time, I was amazed at the difference between Thai and Western children – the general happiness on their faces through just playing football, the respect they held for others and most of all, their excitement to see a teacher. They all queued up one by one waiting for a high five while screaming ‘Teacher, Teacher, Hello, Good Morning Teacher, How are you?’ (which I very quickly learnt that this is where their English capabilities stopped and discovered this is the general ‘script’ that every single child across Thailand learns and the majority have no idea what they are actually saying to you).
We started off the course ‘team teaching’, which FYI, I am eternally grateful for, as standing in front of 35 10-year-olds whilst sweating in the 30-degree non air-conditioned room with semi-working fans is more than a little daunting. But lo and behold, it was actually quite fun and the three weeks flew by with only a slight hiccup when I discovered that, although my first impressions of Thai children were impressions filled with rainbows and butterflies, teenagers are teenagers anywhere in the world and I think my less than pleasant experience steered me towards working with Kindergarten age, with kids who haven’t learnt to be little bastards yet (although they still unknowingly manage that too sometimes)…
In summary, I figured out that I enjoyed teaching and was, surprisingly, quite a natural and meant that I had an opportunity to work 25 hours a week and enjoy life on a tropical island, have amazing beaches in reach and live in a country where you can eat for less than £2 a meal.
