Teaching in Thailand

My experience in Thailand so far has been completely different from my previous visits. I’m embracing new challenges everyday and starting to feel like part of the community. I buy fresh pineapple from a local street seller called Lek, she makes me cups of tea and homemade pineapple jam on toast. I go to Yoga Life a few times a week and practice yoga with the locals. Tikki is a great teacher, she has so much energy and a great sense of humour. Her classes are always different and have a relaxed vibe.

A few weeks ago I started volunteering at a local school called Tedsaban which is a government run school in Hua Hin. In most schools, the parents pay for a western teacher to come and teach English. This school can’t afford to have a western teacher to teach English, so they were extremely happy for me to come in and teach some classes. Xplore Asia also run English camps here each month, for the groups doing the TESOL.

I was told to turn up at 7.15am on my first day so that ‘teacher Claire’ could introduce herself to the whole school. This is normal for western teachers when they start working at a school, so I prepared my speech and was hoping I could get a selfie of my big moment. To cut a long story short, the head teacher’s car broke down on his way to work and I didn’t get to do my speech! I did get to see the morning routine at the school, which includes all the children standing to sing the national anthem and some other songs, followed by raising the flags. Sometimes the school band perform too.

Being a western teacher here is like being a celebrity. Every child wants to say hello, high five and wave at me when I walk across the playground shouting 'teacher, teacher!' Some stop and greet me with a 'wai' (hands in prayer position and bow the head) the children love having western teachers at their school.

Teaching English mainly involves lots of speaking, repeating and fun games to help build confidence and get the children conversing in English. When I say repeating, I mean repeating everything I say when I’m trying to give instructions! I thought I was doing well in my first lesson, the class were all drawing and labeling body parts but then I realised I couldn’t get them to stop and move on to another activity because they didn't understand a word I was saying. I have loved every minute of teaching another culture. I sometimes think that maybe I should’ve got a job in a school for longer but by volunteering I’m making more of a difference to children who wouldn’t always have western teacher. And that is what I came here to do.

This is how I felt after my first morning of teaching

I’ve got to know some of the teachers at the school who like to come and chat with me to practice their English and help me with my Thai. One of the teachers gave me a Thai cooking lesson. She didn’t speak English so another teacher came to translate and they found it very entertaining watching me choke on the chili in the spicy soup I made. This was being served to the kids for lunch. Lunch times at the the school are fun to watch. The children bring their money and literally buy whatever they want for lunch, noodles, curries, rice, fresh fruit as well as ice creams and ice lollies. I saw one boy enjoying an ice cream sandwich! I’d love to see that on the lunch menu at Ivy Chimneys!

Ice cream sandwich!

Thai cooking lesson

During my last lesson at the school, a little girl said 'thank you' when I was handing out the worksheets. This made me feel so happy that she had the confidence to speak English to me after three weeks of me teaching them.

I'm looking forward to experiencing other schools in Thailand as my adventure continues.

Namaste x