I enjoy teaching and had had enough holiday time so I went to school feeling enthusiastic and pleased to be back in my role of assisting students to improve their conversational English.
After assembly I felt like I was returning to a lovely family. Students were constantly greeting me and speaking to me in both English and Thai. I enjoy walking around the school yards and engaging with students as much as possible and when I could see their smiling faces and see their confidence in approaching me with English then I can't tell you how rewarded I felt for my efforts of the first term.
The teaching vacation is extremely challenging but I really feel that if you are GENUINE in your respect and care for not just your own students but all pupils on campus then you will be viewed positively and can make successful impacts on the learning experiences across a wide spectrum of students.
There are over 2700 pupils in our school at Phutthaisong and I have to declare that the joy I felt on my first day back at school was far greater than any of the pleasantries I experienced on holidays. Working with young people is so refreshing and being involved in education brings so many worthwhile outcomes that are spiritual rather than mercantile.
Buriram Province is situated in one of Thailand's less wealthy areas, the Isaan region. I have taken a lot of time to put myself in the shoes of my students and have come to realize that many of them come from big families and often don't see their parents for long periods as they are away working. That's why I try to give my students as much attention as possible. I have adjusted my teaching persona to provide some sort of fatherly concern for my students. It is tricky to balance the role of teacher and parent together but if you fuel your efforts with compassion then it is possible.
Bring a high energy, super positive attitude to the classroom is a must. The bigger the class and the more the tendency of the students to be off task then the more positive energy and compassion must be brought to the classroom by the teacher. This is especially true if you want to teach in a warm classroom that can sustain learning in a fun atmosphere as opposed to a tough disciplinarian approach that creates a more sterile classroom.
I took three classes today and overall their performance was good. The students having returned from holidays were a bit slow out of the blocks but I was patient and positive and eventually we completed our workbook tasks and had some meaningful English conversation about what they hoped to do next year after school and in identifying their dream jobs.
A useful technique that I employed with success today involved adding a sentence which was associated with their list of vocabulary words for the day. This caught the attention of some students and rather than just repeating the word they were seeing, saying the word in a short phrase or sentence thus assisting the subconscious mind to become more competent with grammar patterns.
So for example we had the word "tiny" with a picture of a small frog in a man's hand. So instead of just repeating the word "tiny" over and over, I wrote some sentences on the board: "He has a small frog", "He had a small frog", "They have a small frog". By having the students repeat the word and then the sentences they are get a sense of how to use tense correctly and when to use 'has' or 'had'. I was able to explain some grammar rules to the more engaged students while the others still had the opportunity to hear and practice saying the word "tiny."
I definitely recommend adding a short sentence or phrase to any word you teach on a vocabulary word list as a way to enhance to enrich the learning advancement of your ESL students.
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