Miss Shannon - first week teaching

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While we were warned that Thai schools weren’t the most organised of places, nothing could of prepared us for just how chaotic, disorganised and stressful our first week of teaching was going to be.


Monday morning bright and early we got picked up by the head of English and then went and met the rest of our ‘hub’ staff in our big air-conditioned office and were shown to our nice desks with big computers. All was going well until they dropped the bombshell that we would be teaching ICT which I know nothing about but she reassured us that the ICT would be split between the two of us and not to worry about it. After a few hours of looking through teaching blogs and chatting to the other teachers we were sent home and spent the rest of the day sunbathing around the pool.. Perfect first day.




Tuesday was not so great, nor Wednesday, or Thursday, or Friday… they never split the ICT and instead I was handed a ‘temporary’ timetable with 14 hours of ICT lessons to teach and a few English classes. The kids were super bright and as for ICT I was completely clueless and they knew a whole lot more than I did. I was informed that I was expected to teach 3D graphic design which is completely over my head and which I know nothing about, so I just spent the week giving basic introductory lessons and getting the kids to do ‘about me’ PowerPoint presentations.




On Friday I had finally had enough and when we were handed our new ‘revised’ timetables in which the ICT was supposed to be split between the two of us, I was not pleased. They had not split the lessons at all, instead they had just gave Gabby 2 hours of my ICT and left me teaching 12 hours. We made it clear that we weren’t happy and have been reassured that it will be sorted and that we wont have to teach the upper years. So I guess we just wait and see what happens on Monday.




I came to Thailand to be a English teacher, I know nothing about ICT so hopefully it will all get sorted and I can get on with teaching English…




FRIDAY NIGHT - We were told by the deputy director of the school that we would be taken to the temple on Friday night after school finished. At half 5 we went expecting to spend the night sitting in a temple praying but instead we sat at massive tables and had dinner with the monks, it was lovely. After he took us to a nice rooftop piano bar of a hotel with views of Mukdahan and Laos where we had yet more food and beer, he then took us to a bar for even more beer which he insisted on paying for and karaoke. It was actually a really nice night and our deputy director is lovely, he put our mind at rest about ICT too telling us that he will sort it and not to worry, just focus on teaching English so a successful night J

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Comments

[Kieren]

Not a bad effort Shaz!
I am actually pleasantly suprised by the content of this blog miss vale....lol miss ya and love ya! xxx