Teaching and cheerleading

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The past two weeks has been teaching as usual around the notably cooler Muang Samsip. M5 have been writing up New Year’s resolutions, (some have been to listen less in class), and learning about English weather. My guess is that whilst I shiver in the 21degree heat, you are all sliding around in a winter wonderland/chaos depending how you look at Britain when it shuts down over several centimetres of snow. No dangers of that here!

I have successfully bribed M3 into speaking English with fruit Mentos. Their lust for sweets means most are actually attempting to speak English rather than whisper it to themselves.

M1 are a real mix. Some classes are powering ahead, keeping me on my toes as to what lessons I need to plan. Thankfully this is the majority of students and surprisingly it is the bigger classes that do well (44+ is a good size). Yet others tend to struggle. Today, for instance saw a third attempt at teaching Family to 1/7 with menial progress. Sometimes I feel like saying ‘why yes, bruger is the correct pronunciation, now please tell me how many sitsas you have.’ One student, named Pepsi dribbled so much on his worksheet whilst dozing that his writing shifted onto his face. When awoken from his slumber he had ‘SISTER’ tattooed on his left cheek. Pra Yang has dubbed them the buffalo class, (buffalo is Thai slang for stupid), and whilst I feel more and more inclined to agree, I won’t be giving up on them anytime soon, even if it takes all year just to say brother!

Away from teaching, sports have dominated our agenda…

It is a Tuesday evening. The orangey sunlight filters through the dusty school field, giving us light whilst we aimlessly kick a penny floater around. As the sun sinks lower we are joined by four M1 students (from the bigger/ cleverer classes) who bring with them small footsong goals. Playing three on three, we kicked up dust for a good hour and spent much of it being out manoeuvred by 13yearolds half our size. By the end I was playing barefoot as my new trainers had taken half the skin off my toes. We won 5-2 and hobbled home, a little stunned that we had been repeatedly out dribbled by my youngest students.

The next day was Teacher’s Day. This entailed a morning ceremony, followed by an afternoon of eating, drinking and sports. The event was held at the primary school and like all Thai gatherings, came with a huge sound system blasting out Thai-dance and karaoke. Every one of the three schools had its own sound system. This cacophony of offbeat drums and whiny Thai singing made conversation neon impossible. As we sat grazing on sticky rice and fried crickets, we observed the competing schools battle it out in footsong (5 aside) and volleyball.

Each school came complete with a cheerleading squad. One was made up of men in leopard patterned tank-tops and skirts stretched across their bodies. Another had heavily made up women standing on tables, whiskey in hand and side-stepping to their own brand of noise. Ours was the staff, mostly inebriated, glad in long skirts and dancing in whatever manner they thought best. My only guess is that this entailed trying to detract the opposing team with the most comical movements possible, as demonstrated by Adjan Witichay who violently swung his hips like he wasn’t in his late 60s. So naturally we were smiling and swirling up on stage in long yellow skirts, alongside another overly masculine man who had the good sense to finish his outfit off with a cowboy hat. We won the women’s volleyball, and dare I say our support had helped (notably Ben’s tap dancing!).

Isn’t Thailand weirdly wonderful? One minute you are quite happily sitting, eating fried insects, the next you’re in a dress dancing with drunken teachers. Business as usual? It never is!

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