Good morning, TEACH-uhh!

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School is going well so far, and although there are and will be challenges, I think I have landed in a pretty sweet deal. I am at a small private bilingual school that goes from nursery age up to primary grade 6. I am teaching science grades 1-6 and I have one section of kindergarten math (with just 3 little students!). It is a very interesting setup, more like an American university model in that I see each class 2 times a week, except for 1 student in grade 4 and one in grade 6, brothers, whose parents pay for them to have individual instruction in EVERY subject every day (!), so I teach/tutor them both separately in science every day. I usually teach just 4 classes a day and so I have 2 plan periods plus a 50-minute lunch every day, except on Thursdays I teach all 6 periods and Fridays I only have 3 classes (all one-on-one tutoring).

The classes are all small, about 14 students or so, so that is really a delight, but the science is a little complicated for the level of language that the students seem to have. There are really quick ones in every class, but some of the others just kind of sit there and stare at me. They are all adorable, though, in their little uniforms. They call me Teacher or Teacher Laurie and at the start of each class they say: “Good Morning, Teacher” (sounds more like “TEACH-uhh”) and at the end of the lesson: “Thank you, TEACH-uhh.”

My favorite class so far by far was the kinder math class, which I had for the first time today. They already know so much! We were working on place value for tens and ones, and they are able to count quite high, write the numerals in English and Thai, and write out the number words (with some assistance) in English. This is much more than many of my kinders could do in the U.S. last year. They are so eager to participate and their language skills are pretty impressive. Oh, I wish I could work with them all day! Another foreign teacher, Morven, has kinders all day. I’m jealous!

Things are pretty laid back at the school on the one hand and on the other hand it seems like they are trying to tighten things up a bit, by requiring a timeline for the term’s teaching topics as well as saying that we need to hand in weekly lesson plans (ugh!), which apparently was not enforced before this term. I think it is going to be one of those formalities that you just have to do but that it won’t be super important in the end. Hoping, anyway.

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