Arriving to teach English at school in Kanchanaburi

Meeting your TEFL students and fellow staff for the first time when you’re teaching abroad can be scary, but intern Pashka settled right in to her new role!

It makes me laugh to think how nervous I was on the way to my school. It was that uncontrollable human instinct to fear of the unknown that stirs in the bottom of your stomach. Like jumping into deep water when you can’t see below the surface. I arrived to be instantly mobbed by children, who all wanted to shake my hand, give me a high five and introduce themselves at once. It definitely felt like the kids had been eagerly awaiting our arrival.

Our student Poy and her crew

It was all pretty overwhelming at first, but then you just have to think back to when you were that age, so full of energy and so enthusiastic about new things, and remember they’re only children! There was really nothing to be afraid of. On that first day, we were just shown around our on-campus accommodation and parts of the school building (we literally couldn’t take 2 steps without being crowded by children), and attempted to ask the TEFL representative the 101 questions in our minds before they left us there.

Morning assembly

My assigned school is Wat Sriloha (Wat meaning temple, where the school was originally housed) a primary school and kindergarten, with a total of 450 students aged 3-13. It is situated in the small town of Tha Muang on the Mae Klong river, a 20 minute bus drive from Kanchanaburi Town, 2 hours away from Bangkok and walking distance from the interns at the next school along. Regarding what we actually teach, we were pleasantly surprised to be given course books and given the freedom to follow the units as closely or loosely as we liked. The timetable looked sparse in comparison to what I was expecting. Two lessons a day between two interns plus a couple of twenty minute kindergarten activities meant sharing eight hours of teaching a week – very short of the “10-14 hours at least” we were promised at the orientation. But, it being the first week, we guessed we were being eased into things and hoped we could ask for more lessons once we were settled.

Some of my grade 3 and 4’s

We are very lucky to have an incredible English teacher at our school. Her name is Pare and contrary to what we were told, her English is brilliant. She is a peer that I can look up to and relate to. She helped us out a lot the first couple of weeks, making sure we were comfortable and had everything we needed. We are both so grateful to have her. The first day “teaching”, my partner intern and I sat in on her lessons- observing and helping with pronunciation. We spent the rest of the day planning our first ever lesson. It takes Pare twenty minutes to plan an hour lesson… it took us 3 hours!

Our little blue house on the school grounds

She showed us around our local area in the evening – took us through the markets and to eat at a local cafe. Walking around, I realised that I really was in Thailand. Not tourist hot-spot, everything-ready-for-you-on-a-plate-in-English Thailand, but actual Thailand, where absolutely everything is in Thai and hardly anyone speaks English. I wondered how on earth we would be able to go out to eat (or do anything for that matter) without Pare’s help.

At the market

After my first week teaching, I felt encouraged and relieved. Things had gone well and the excitement of the students broke the ice when it came to teaching for the first time. The level of English was a lot lower than I expected and the pace of the lessons had to be quite slow. My partner and I worked as a team, taking it in turns to lead activities and when it was clear something wasn’t working, we adjusted our plan and tried something else. Although I imagined I would have more of an independent experience, teaching with my partner was beneficial when it came to putting things into practice.

Lesson planning in the office

When he was teaching, I could see what worked or didn’t work, and vice versa. We made sure we took it in turns to go first to make things equal, and helped out when the other was leading the class. When we met up with the others during our first week, it was clear that every school has a different way of doing things. Some interns were thrown straight in with loads of hours and no guidance; others were only teaching twenty minute portions of a teacher’s class where they were told what to do. Some were teaching as a pair, others were assigned individual year groups. I think we had it pretty good.