The second week of my teacher training course ended with our first teaching practice that we'd all been nervously anticipating for a while. In pairs we prepared a lesson plan to teach disadvantaged children at a community school that consisted of a small covered area outside a temple. As if we weren't sweating enough through nerves the infamous Bangkok heat and humidity was in full force that Friday. We had to make sure we weren't sweating all over the children! My partner Stacey and I taught the children basic directions and names of locations; teaching children who know very little English is challenging, particularly when you don't know much of their language and we're encouraged not to use any Thai so that the students get used to hearing English, even if they don't fully understand. When it was all over the incredibly cute children begged us for selfies and one of their parents gave us three bags full of mangos that she'd picked from her garden to say thank you.
That night my fellow trainee teachers and I decided to celebrate our initiation into real life teacher-hood by ticking an essential experience off of our Bangkok bucket list: a ping pong show. For those of you that don't know, this is definitely not a recreational team sport played with paddles....I suppose you could call it a 'sex show' and I'll leave what happens to the ping pong balls up to your imagination. But let me tell you this - it wasn't just ping pong balls...it was fairy lights, bananas and one 'lady' even manage to 'drink' a bottle of coke only to have it come out two minutes later as water. Wait...what?! One person remarked that next they'll be producing humans from 'down there'. Ummmm....that's called childbirth. We made it through twenty minutes of the show, decided we'd seen more than enough and got the hell out of there. Taxi!
Our second chance to practice teaching was at the Bangkok Police Academy where cadets between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight study for a year to become police officers. At several intervals during the day the cadets would ask me permission to go to the toilet-some of them were my age! Thailand has a problem with corruption in its forces and this issue was addressed by the young, bright eyed and eager policemen in training; they pledged to be honourable throughout their careers and it was being drummed into them that they must be approachable to tourists, hence why we were there to assist them with their English.
Teaching English as a foreign language involves an awful lot of repetition, miming and jumping around like a fool. It's a lot of fun!
"Teacher, Teacher, can we have a selfie?"
That night my fellow trainee teachers and I decided to celebrate our initiation into real life teacher-hood by ticking an essential experience off of our Bangkok bucket list: a ping pong show. For those of you that don't know, this is definitely not a recreational team sport played with paddles....I suppose you could call it a 'sex show' and I'll leave what happens to the ping pong balls up to your imagination. But let me tell you this - it wasn't just ping pong balls...it was fairy lights, bananas and one 'lady' even manage to 'drink' a bottle of coke only to have it come out two minutes later as water. Wait...what?! One person remarked that next they'll be producing humans from 'down there'. Ummmm....that's called childbirth. We made it through twenty minutes of the show, decided we'd seen more than enough and got the hell out of there. Taxi!
Another night out.
And another...
Chicken feet soup - yummers!
Our second chance to practice teaching was at the Bangkok Police Academy where cadets between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight study for a year to become police officers. At several intervals during the day the cadets would ask me permission to go to the toilet-some of them were my age! Thailand has a problem with corruption in its forces and this issue was addressed by the young, bright eyed and eager policemen in training; they pledged to be honourable throughout their careers and it was being drummed into them that they must be approachable to tourists, hence why we were there to assist them with their English.
I persuaded some of my cadets to sing for me and give me a Muay Thai demonstration! They saluted me after each session.
Here's us foreigners struggling not to squint in the intense sunlight-all the Thais don't seem to bat an eyelid! (terrible pun intended...).
Good to read your latest blog...keep it up x
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