Semester Activities

We are now into the 2nd week of teaching here and the usual amount of non classroom activities are starting to kick in.

Whether its for a football tournement, day outing, scout camp or whatever. It always seems to be the 2nd semester is the one thats broken up. Depending on the timetable, this can reduce the number of classes taught in a day to 0 or you could be unlucky and they are all scheduled on days where you dont see the little blighters and have a full complement to teach.

Given that we have only 6 weeks teaching in the semester its a bit wild with virtually every week effected in some way or another with activities or holidays or exams from now until March.

At the staff meeting last week, it was even suggested by the FUD that we might not get a day off for Xmas because it falls on a Saturday this year ( as does New Years ). Given that this is superficially a Christian school thats a bit of a laugh. I suspect we will get a substitution day but he either hasnt asked about it or doesnt know.

Teaching here ( or maybe more acurately what passes for teaching here ) is progressing along with the kid not really paying too much attention to anything thats going on apart form what their friend is telling them or making jokes at the teachers expense. Its one reason I would really liek to learn Thai - to catch these little asides the kids make. At the moment, I just bluff them into thinking I do know what they said and the majority of time it works but some day they will realise I know less Thai than they know English!

Fatal Fatalism & Work Permits

Well, here we are and we have just got the minutes of the meeting. Surprise surprise, there is nothing about losing the contract and we will probably be out of a job next year ( the agency is big enough to probably offer a job at another school it has contracts for but the pay / hours may be different ).

The strange thing is, they are now starting to try to do things properly round here ie checking when we start - 4 times late equals one absence - 3 absences equals no more free sick days and its a 2000 Baht a day fine after that. Strange, they are more focused on that than people leaving early - although we did get told we have to tell the FUD if we are leaving the school for anything apart form lunch. HA! The problem with my timetable is that I actually teach every last period of the day, so I dont get away early.

Given the option, I would like to arrive later than I do but people were complaining about teachers turning up late ( but still in time to teach ). Funny thing is, these are the same people who can and do go away early as they have no classes in the afternoons. Hmm they coplain about people coming in 20,30 minutes late yet they go 3 hours before the end of the school day. Hmmmmmm!

Management Bullshit With Contracts

Our agency had a 3 year contract with this school ending this year. Rumours have been floating round for the last year or so about whether it would be extended or not. On Sunday the Bilingual Program teachers were in doing prep work for the new semester and they had a meeting.

The meeting said the agency had lost the contract and they would be taking over our staff room ( as they are expnading another year upwards ) and another agency would be coming in and the they will be sharing the thai teachers staffrooms.

Obviously as we have friends in the program word soon got out and by Tuesday it was the talk of the staffroom but no word yet from our agency. Wednesday no word, or wait a minute, maybe there would be a staff meeting. Yes there would be one on Friday. Today comes along and we have it. Our lunch is 11.25 - 12.55 or depending on what level you teach 11.55 - 12.55. The meeting is scheduled for 12.00. The minutes drift by and at 12.15 we start the meeting. The cynically minded are thinking mmm good waste of time so far, lets see how they spin the message.

1st item up - trivial
2nd item up - trivial
3rd item up - trivial

then the baited breath

And to paraphrase

" this may be of interest to those wanting to stay in thailand or with the agency"
Eh?
"you may have heard negative reports about the contract and probably they are true" WHAT??
" negotitations are still ongoing and we have a final meeting to go to, to get a final decision. They ( the school) want to change what they want next year and I dont think anyone will want to do it"
OK, tell us the changes then.
" well its about working in October, teaching more but I dont think we will get the contract"
Ok, give us the details. We are here on stupid training for two weeks in October anyway so...
" If any one wants to get the full details they can come and see me"
" Current contracts not affected blah blah, we have contracts with other schools and can always use teachers with good records and attitudes blah blah....."
But the bilingual teachers have been told we arent coming back and are moving into our staffroom.
" oh, they have jumped the gun, its not definite yet!"

EH!!!! This has been the worst way I have ever been told that effectively I have been fired. Lets review. Other teachers in another program were told before we were. They have even seen plans of our refurbished staffroom! During almost the entire first couple of minutes our FUD was delivering the news with his head looking down into the noteboard he had and was mumbling about we had had a final decision yet and not to worry because good people will be kept on...... yes, those who dont rock the boat and tow the line. Hmmm Sniff Sniff, I smell BULLSHIT!

In a way the worst thing is that when I found out the other teachers knew before I did, I wasnt actually upset. Thats how immune I have become to this countrys and this agencys way of working. Back home a union would have gone ballistic!

We supposedly will have a concrete answer by the end of this month. I wont hold my breath. Maybe 2 1/2 years is too long in one school in Thailand and it is time to move on. My greatest concern is not finsing a job its my visa and work permit situation. I dont want to go through the whole visa run to get a non imm b to jump through hoops with the MOE .... again. Our contracts are due up on March 31 which means the WP and visa is valid til then as well ( at least according to some folk, other say different and others say different again but any way it is.... I dont want it )

I had hoped to go back home for a holiday in April but know I might be running around trying to sort out a decent job and or my visa. No point trying to organise one now as the only schools who hire this far in advance are true international ones who want fully accredited teachers which I am not - just a degree and a TESOL man me. ( but if anyone knows of a job starting May next year and paying 50k+ please let me know, pretty please with honey on top ! )

Have a good weekend!

Blackbored Jungle - The Return

Dearie dearie me. Back at the old chalkface and within 30 minutes I was wishing I was somewhere else - again.

You go away, recharge the battery and sanity levels and come back in the vain hope that in the few weeks that they haven't seen you that the kids have grown matured and got an extra brain cell between them. Not a chance of course but one can live in hope.

It seems that all the hired replacements ( if in fact we did have them all - ooops that's the cynical old me showing up again this early in the semester, not a good sign) didn't turn up and we are still one short. Well, if you had the choice of teaching Prathom 1s & 2s from Little Cleric, would you take it on? I have successfully avoided doing any cover teaching for his classes because I know they will be absolutely out of control. Just about everyone who has covered his classes has said they are horrible.

One problem has been because big Cleric has lost his little pal, he is spending more time in the staffroom which means more time he is on the pc and no one else can get on.

Add to that the American election for the last few days and his motor mouth has been going non stop. One unfortunate teacher who has now left ran into him and his little helpless girlfriend on Koh Chang. AAARRRGGHHHH!! Now that would be a nightmare from hell. But then he doesn't like me anyway so probably we would keep a civil distance away - well I would try and just move to the next resort!

A rumor is floating round the office saying our agency has lost the contract for this school from next April. How did we find out? The bilingual program teachers got told on Sunday and then told us. A meeting is planned for tomorrow and we will supposedly get told about it then. Hmmmm sniff sniff I smell bullshit coming.

I Can See The Pub From Here!

The last day passed without major excitement and it was as predicted, a mainly teacher run session with only a very little input from the trainer. But at least we finally got a handout!

So last day of term and it was celebrated in the traditional manner of going out and getting totally slaughtered straight from work.

Enjoy the holidays folks and see you whenever as I wont be posting much here, down the fact that I will be somewhere better than in front of a computer screen. :)

Almost Last Day Of Term - Yipee!

OK, something a little different this time, it’s a little competition. Lets see how many you can get.

These are all initials of methodologies of teaching

PPP,ARC, OHE, III, ESA, CLT, TBL, CLL, TPR

I will even throw in a little prize if you get them all. Todays’ training was much the same with basically the teachers training ourselves with different delivery methods. Hey ho. At least it’s the last day tomorrow.

Teacher Training -Methodolgies

Today was another day that was for me and many others a waste of time receiving unfocused and superficial training.

We went into the room to be met with a whole load of initials on the whiteboard and are then asked over the next 15 minutes to guess what teaching approaches they represented. WTF?? Can anyone see the value in this, apart from to waste time and to possibly once again prove the intellect of the instructor and the ignorance of the audience? Indeed that very question of what’s the point was raised ( what's the point ) and the response was this is what we are covering today. Ok, very good but why not just write them up on the board or prepare a hand out or something that would have been more productive? It would have saved 15 minutes of no idea, don’t know responses.

For the next 2 and a half hours we had the Readers Digest condensed guide to TEFL teaching. Mainly from the teachers not the trainer. He gave out a sheet with a brief description of a method to groups and then the groups had to give a 5 minute presentation. Err, ok and do we get an overall summary handouts at the end? No, have we been given anything to keep and refer to later? No. Can we take any notes? Well yes, but the notes would be based on another teachers 15 minutes of reading one sheet of paper about a method. Not a proper course researched, compiled and delivered by a teacher trainer and which you could refer back to at a later date. Again nor was the content really focused on how to adapt it to the specific needs of the different age groups and situations. Just the we will throw everything up in the air and we rely on you to decide and pick out what is or what is not useful to you.

Is this better than no training at all? Yes, it is but not by much. It is so superficial, ill conceived, unfocused and unprepared that to actual concentrate for the whole period and mine for the golden nuggets that you can use is very very difficult.

Tomorrow brings the promise of more activities that are presented as being “learner centred” but in reality are ones where they have thought what else can we do to keep them occupied and save as much work as possible for us.

Teacher Training Part 3

So, onto todays training.

More people arrived from the others schools that work for the agency so we have almost 30 people there who range from Prathom 1 to Mathayom 6 teachers.

Gander is doing the training today and its all about techniques. OK I think could be useful and he starts. He then does a 50 minute lesson entirely in Turkish and tells a story. We are supposed – in groups, again after being sorted into different groups - to write the story down in Turkish, translate it into English and note the techniques used.

If you have been in a CELTA, TESOL course you will probably have gone through this exercise one to demonstrate the difficulties of new learners and ways of learning etc. On my course the actual demonstration was about 15 minutes long and involved the Quizennaire (?) Rods and we did colours and numbers. After that we moved onto discussing the points raised and ways to overcome them.

Today the foreign language section lasted 50 minutes. Yup, 50 minutes of him “acting” and talking Turkish. Then we talked about the translation and then some of the techniques. All in, this lasted 3 hours. 3 hours that could and should have been condensed into around 50 minutes to 1 hour of focused activity. Instead it was one long rambling mess that most people were bored of after 10 minutes. Then he makes the point that he knows that “we are unmotivated and uninterested and that we didn’t want to be there because it’s the end of term so how do we think the students feel?” yes, we are unmotivated because, you aren’t a proper trainer, it’s the end of term, its unfocused, you are treating us like students, not grown up experienced teachers, you are giving the same training to Prathom and Mathayom teachers and we know you don’t care because if you did, you would be doing at the start of the term.

It’s this point that gets me. Almost every training we have is across such a wide range of age groups that it’s a scatter gun approach and they hope that we pull something out the multitude of pellets that’s shot our way and make it useful.

Reading some of the literature online about teacher training, the vast majority of opinions are that is has to be focused, it has to age specific and has to be done by people qualified to do the job. As far as I am aware this guy hasn’t got anything more than a CELTA ( education qualification wise ). In which case, I can do the job as well as he can. Give me the internet and some idea of what you want taught and I am sure I could come up with a decent course.

And of course the other point is the timing, if they are serious why are we doing it at the end of term when we are mentally shot and just wanting to go away for the two weeks holiday we have coming up. Why not do it at the start of the term when any points raised will be fresh in our minds and will be effective?

Teacher Training Part 2

As the original version was lost when I was trying to back it up this one is going to be a bit more vitriolic just as payback for the 15 minutes lost typing.

Anyway, so there we are on Friday with some of us having received an email – sent the same day – saying that the training would take place next week between 9 and 4. The mornings were supposedly training and group sessions with the afternoon’s preparation and group work for the next day. F@ck that for life on the ocean wave. However, after talking to the FUD he unsurprisingly shifted blame to the Training and Curriculum manager who we shall call Gander and it was all his fault yaddaa yaddaa yaa. I have no idea if it was or not but it would suit his character as it comes over as a typical corporate type who will brown nose those above and crap on those below.

So, this morning comes around and at 9 am there are still folk coming in, so around 20 minutes later everybody is still talking but I am suddenly aware that there are an awful lot less people than there had been a few minutes before. A quick check revealed that the FUD had come in and told people to move out to the room. I had not heard him at all, the person I was speaking to had heard him talking but didn’t make out the words. Obviously he had not got everyone’s attention first to make sure we could hear him and waited to see if we had heard and understood the situation. No problem we thought, the assistant FUD was there and we could go with him. Err, no, he didn’t know where we were supposed to go exactly.

OK then, lets just wander round the building until we stumble on them. No one was in sight as they had all disappeared so we set off looking in various classrooms until a cleaner saw us looking round and pointed to a room and indeed that’s where everyone was and we trooped in a few minutes late.

Now let’s distil the facts and consider them
1) an instruction was given to leave the staffroom and go to a previously unknown location and it wasn’t checked whether it was heard by everyone and acted on
2) the assistant FUD didn’t know where the training room was
3) we were told by a cleaner where the others were!
4) We turned up late delaying the training

Very professional. NOT!

Anyway, we go in and Gander is there looking typically geeky and he decides to do a “warmer” and mixes everyone up so we aren’t sitting in the original position and then spends the next 10 minutes explaining why he did it and trying to get us to participate. Unfortunately he waffles on and misses really one of the most important points – authority reinforcement – as well as other minor ones. Most of us agreed that after going to the students classroom to collect them, get them all lined up and walking to our classrooms, what we needed to do was to cool them down not warm them up. Yep, that’s what we need, someone who has never taught here telling us how to teach.

Could the slightly modified old saying could be true. Those who do, do. Those who can’t teach and those who can’t teach, train?


And at that he said the rest of the days training would be by the FUD. Ah ok, we have a curriculum and training manager who apparently doesn’t do either. Oi vey!

The FUD comes up and the transformation is remarkable. It was like the visit of someone from head office to a little branch where the eccentric staff do things in their own way and pretend during the visit that they do things normally and don’t use the office pcs to run an internet café on the sidelines for locals and so on. Then when the boss is gone everyone is relived and gets back to doing things their own way.

And he begins to waffle on and umm errr yes ummm quite right yes umm maybe umm errr and I begin to tune out and suddenly realise that people were leaving again – a quick translation from the person beside me informed me that we had in fact stopped for a coffee break. Great 9.50ish. On entering the staffroom we all sort of looked at each other with a “what the hell was that all about?” look. Another waste of time and effort.

Around 20 minutes later we go back up and find out the schedule for the week. The morning is supposed to be training and in the afternoon free study and preparation for the next day. The study can take place just about anywhere we are told. In other words we can go home or stay or do what we want. See what I mean about eccentric local ways?
We are also told that we are going to have to prepare a syllabus for the next session to give to the parents. Er, don’t we have one already? Isnt that why we have a curriculum manager and project manager and assistant project manager. Apparently not. The answer is, the one we have will not be accurate and they want to produce one with dates and topics and that sort of junk. In other words, its just for show to give to the school and isn’t of any real importance at all.

After that gem, we are given a questionnaire about the semester so far – how it went, how relevant were the books and so on and so forth. After filling them in we go into groups to discuss them and then into different groups to get further ideas. Not a bad idea if the conversations had been focused but of course since we ranged from Mathayom to Prathom not all the ideas could be used across the range.

One idea from Cleric was to introduce a teaching assistant to Prathom 1 classes as he could only teach about 10 minutes out of the 50 minute period. Unfortunately the way he put it, only revealed that he couldn’t control his classes and the more he spoke the deeper and deeper his hole became. I noticed quite a few heads shaking on this. Sorry, been there taught that level and got the buggers under control and taught them a damm site longer on average than 10 minutes. Did I lose control of the class sometimes? Yes. Often? No. Its called technique and combined lots of patience, some intelligence and with a dash humour you can teach and sometimes the best reward is the one worked most hard to achieve which most definitely is the description of what you have to do in Prathom 1 – WORK. And that is one thing he doesn’t like to do. He openly admits to showing videos as rewards. Ok that’s fine every now and again but he does it in the majority of his classes and that makes it routine, not a reward. I would much rather give out a worksheet for the kids who have finished than show a video. At least with a colouring in sheet you can still use it to teach while they are enjoying colouring in – what colour is this? What is this? How many…? Etc With a video they are gone and not learning.

Oops went on about him quite a lot so will draw the line there and call it a day. Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Teacher Training Elite

F@CK! F@CK!

Just spent 15 minutes typing stuff and it vanished again.

Teacher Turnover

Since I have started at this school 3 years ago I have probably worked with around 70 people. I think there are only now 2 others still here from the time I started. I say around as I have no accurate record, could I list them all? Probably not, many came and went before the week was out.
To be fair, this does include temp teachers, but the problem is, as it is for so many schools here that you lose count. People come and go and you develop the Vietnam 1000 yard stare and the "they're a newbie so lets not talk to them as they probably will leave soon, so there is no point getting to know them" attitude. Which of course sometimes can have the old self perpetuating theory. You dont talk to them so they think the place is unfriendly so they leave so another person comes in and you dont talk to them.......

This year it seemed to have been reasonably stable, as at the start of the year we had a full complement of staff as well as a cover teacher. Whoohooo! A great change from the previous year where it took a couple of months to get a full staffroom and almost everyone was doing 3 or 4 extra lessons a week to cover the gaps. As time progressed it got worse as the first one dropped due to the fact they didnt like teaching kids and then another but somehow we kept up more or less to full strength. But now, come the end of term we have got Little Cleric going, the cover teacher, 2 others and rumours of another 2 disappearing. We have been told that the start of the new term will see us up to strength so wait and see.

So the next thing is now WHY? Obvious reasons some of them, some people are going home to the UK, US for good, some going to better paying jobs, some better conditions, some leave because they shouldnt have been there in the first place, some realise they hate kids, can't teach or can't teach them that young. Then you add in the corporate culture.......

We have been sitting here for the last 2 weeks basically doing feck all. Officially we have been marking and writing report cards. This means we had around 30 cards or exams to mark per day. ok, thats 45 minutes out the way, what do we do for the rest of the day? I know! Crosswords, reading the paper, talking, checking the internet and then going home after 2 hours. Then next week we have training the agency now want to last ALL DAY! The attitude of the training manager appears to be that since we are paid we can be there all day. Err, well we have just been sitting around doing feck all for 10 days and only after that they are worried about us going home early? Add that to the fact that we suddenly now have to get back into thinking mode and the Thai teachers have already departed the school, the EP teachers are also away.......

They organise things like this to just dig the knife in a little further into the backs and make sure they appear to be the all conquering bosses. Pathetic.

Nonsense, tish, pish and waffle.

By the way, I have actually gone back into this post to re-edit and add in a couple of extra bits as this is usually typed in one go with the attendant mistips and rambling and ranting thoughts. Sometimes I cant be bothered going back into a post to even spell check and check for signs of intelligence but since this is now on the front page of ajarn, I felt it a required duty. Don’t worry, the normal ramblings will return soon.

PS Billy Connolly, I hope you are happy now that Ken Bigley has now died. For those of you that dont know, Billy said live on stage last week that he hoped the kidnappers would just get on with and kill him. He was booed by a couple of people in the audience but he told them to "fuck off". I liked BIlly but not now, I hope you rot in hell for those comments.

Boring Days

Here we are sitting in the staffroom, far above the real world, everyone is feeling blue and there is nothing here to do.

Apologies to David Bowie for that but we have now finished writing the report cards and have literally nothing to do for the next 3 days, but we are still supposed to come in. I suppose it is alright being paid for doing nothing but why not just give us an official holiday instead of this stupidity? The school doesnt need us here, its only the agency that tells us to come in.

How to fill in the day. Go on the internet, do a crossword, read the newspaper go to the pub for lunch and end up staying there until well passed sober time. Or should that be well pissed sober time?

Next week should be interesting as we have training. Lets see if its actually useful or again just a waste of time.

Thai Schools, Parents & Films

I was in a cinema down on Sukhimwit last week with a friend watching a Japanese movie called Azumi. Its basically a samurai movie with lots of sword slashings, blood spurtings and general mayhem and killings. Apparently it was based on a Managa comic of the same name. Obviously I enjoyed it. If it was back in farangland i would probably be only for 15 years or 18 years old and up. When the lights came up at the end I was surprised to see a young boy maybe about 7 or 8 years old lying across a couple of seats fast asleep and the parents sitting next to him

Now the question is - what where the parents thinking when they brought the kid to see the film? Did they know about the bloody content? Could they not find a baby sitter? Did they want to see it and didnt care if the kid got nightmares? Did the kid want to see it? Who knows but I have noticed that it is actually quite common to see young kids in movies that are plainly not suitable for them. Back home of course, there would be letters to the papers demanding that the kid be taken into care and out of the hands of the unfeeling parents because of innapropriate behaviour. But in a way Thailand is actually quite grown up and infact more so because it says do what you want, we the government are not a nanny to look afer you and hold your hand.

Another example is this school. There is a large audio visual room with tapes and videos to borrow and show the kids. There is the usual range of Disney and animals videos but there are also some surprising ones. A few weeks ago a teacher went down to get a video and asked about a particular title - she didnt know what the film was about - and the thai staff said yes its ok its a martial arts movie with jet Li and Bridget Fonda. She showed the film to the kids who were actually quite bored apart from the action bits but she was surprised about the content. Its about a policeman framed by a corrupt policeman and he then has to tie up with a prostitute and kill various people to clear himself. This film was actually classed as only for over 18 year at home. Let me repeat, the thai staff said it was ok to show this film to 8 year olds.

Unreal, but then if this was the same as home, we would still be there!

End Of Term Report Cards

Here we are, now stuck in the staffroom for another ten days before we have those wonderful training thoughts. At the moment - well, ok all the time, its fairly dull and tedious writing out the names, class details, sticking the little pictures of the kids to the insides of the report cards and then writing the same bloody commments for 140 kids.

The end result is that there is actually very little to write about. Supposedly we are here for the normal full teaching day but in reality - as I am writing this there are 4 teachers in the building and the two FUDs - everyone else has gone home at some point throught the morning. I suspect the first one went home about 1 hour after coming in. In a way its a little annoying from the "well he gets away with it so why do I need to do it" point of view but if I wanted / want to I could actually do much the same. Then the question is what would I do with the extra time? Read, listen to music, go on the internet? Well, in school the internet is free and a lot faster than most internet cafes. I have a little walkman with me to listen to music to and I can always watch tv later. I can read in an air con office or on the rooftop terrace beside the pool with a fresh beeze.... hang on that actually sounds quite good. I'm off. Ta Ta.

End of Term Reward Certificates

Well, this is the day when I start to see the last of my little darlings as the timetable winds down and they head on to their Thai exams next week and I head off to a week of writing report cards and then trainzzzzzzzz. Ooops, I mean very interesting and vital training by our curriculum manager who has never taught in Thailand and incidentaly has still not given me feedback on an observation he did on me about 3 weeks ago now.

Supposedly the agency is going to give prizes to the student we nominate for student of the semester or whatever. I really think this is not going to happen - again. The students were supposed to get something from the Mid term exams in July but they never bothered their arses. So to make sure the good kids got something I made up a little certificate and awarded them to the best student - not always the one with the best scores but one that combined good scores, attitude and behaviour through the semester. The first class I gave it to, the rest of them crowded round the guy clicking imaginary cameras and gave him a round of appluase which was nice to see. The 2nd class were a bit more blase about it with a minorr ripple of interest and that was it. They are also getting a little prize as well - a sort of lucky dip. I have put all sorts of free gifts or confiscated toys in a bag and they make a blind grab at something. So far no complaints !

This means its also the last week for the teachers leaving us. The lady teacher in the room next to me is a bit of a laugh, I dont always agree with her style of teaching but at the end of the day she gets the message across which is the main thing. But her room is normally a bit more boisterous than mine so today I got my own back. Today, towards the end of the lesson I heard the wall banging again. So I go the four boys in the last row to hit the wall in time - 1 2 3 Bang!, 1 2 3 Bang! But of course the rest wanted to join in so I let them as it will be the last time I see them until November. She said her whiteboard was almost jumping off the wall and her kids went silent as they hadnt a clue what was going on! Heehee!!!!

The next room down is the more mature american guy who is going to Costa Rica. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that there are lots of available little boys. But he is really losing the plot. This week, he found a new angle. Some kids were misbehaving and he got them to take their shoes off and throw the shoes into the corridor!!!!!!! I suppose it makes a change from him just shouting " You will respect your teacher ! "

Youve got to laugh havent you.

Thai Nicknames

Ok, the posts here have been a little downbeat in nature I agree. So here is something a little more lighthearted.

Nicknames - As most people know, thais have their name and a nickname. The nickname was originally given to "hide" the baby from eveil spirits, the reasonaing being that if the spirit didnt know the persons real name they couldnt do any harm. It seems to be the case know that the majority are given icknames simply because it is easier to say Apple rather than Praem-Thud or Pongsakorn all the time. Some of the nicknames are numbers - Neung, Song 1,2, colours Daeng, Dam, red, black, animals gob, pla, frog, fish or sizes Lek, Nit, Little.

It seems to have become the fashion now that more modern names are used and some seemingly grabbed out of thin air, making you wonder if the parents know what they are doing and what the word means. AMongst the kids I have taught are Beer, Benz, Golf, Earth, Kenneth, More, Big, Grand, Oil, Max, Guide, Best, Popeye, Mick, Most, Farm, Hopper, Oat, Bell, Park, Ball, Fred, Jame ( no this is not a mistype), James, Sea, Win and so on.

But the best one todate, is a kid I teach this year. Ladies and gents, I give you JAR JAR!

I dont know if this is after Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars but how else could he have go this name?

Computer Hogging and other Monday Moans

Yes, well the biggest moan is that after I had been typing it for 15 minutes the f@cking thing disappeared on me, so thats why there was an empty post for a while until I went back in to edit it.

Anyway. I finally managed to get onto a pc. The fat yank, I think I will call him Cleric from now on, decided yet again to hog one of the pcs from as soon as he got in to the moment he had to go and teach and then at every break. Even then that wasnt good enough for him. After the day had ended he came back into the staffroom and had the audacity to sit behind the ones who were using the pcs to "force" them off. He really has a very bad habit of doing this. He didnt even have the courtesy to speak to anyone, he just sat there.

He hardly comes into the staffroom now apart from to use the pc. Almost every morning you can set your schedule, come in, check who is on the pc - yup its Cleric and his little pal Mini Cleric. One is almost as bad as the other for hogging the pcs in the mornings. It doesnt matter if they have the first teaching period free or not. They are there until they have to go and teach - which reserves 2 of the 4 pcs we can use in the staffroom. Cleric also manages to reserve the pc in various ways - he leaves his email logged in and then goes to make coffee or photocopies or just chat to the others at the pcs or go and collect a book. And not forgetting to speak to his girlfriend on the phone every ( what seems like ) 15 minutes. ( she is one of those helpless females that seemingly cant do anything by herself and has to ask his opinion on how to do it - "How do I open the door baby? Well baby what you do is... " Eeuuuggghhhh! Thats what he treats her like, a baby and he calls her that all the time, pass the bucket. Please! He keeps on saying she is useless but he loves it, he loves the fact that he is there, charging in on his white horse, a shining knight to the rescue. I wonder if she is really that stupid sometimes and its all just an act and further down the line she will finanacially screw him for everything he has. Time will tell. Some of these methods reserve the pc up to 10 minutes! I would really love to say something but I know it would be taken as a personal attack on him - which it actually would to a certain extent.

This guy really has no sense of others - the surrounding world. He is so self centred and selfish that he doesn't think about what impact he has on the rest of the world. The concept of others appears alien to him - unless he can tell them how to do things of course!

Anyway, rant over for the day. Until next time. :)

Fridays' Staff Meeting

Well here we are again after yet another fun packed week. We had a special staff meeting today to reassure everyone that the agency isnt ruthless, insolvent, unscrupulous and otherwise out to screw its employees. Well, one out of four is pretty good I suppose.

The chief FUD ( remember the Fully Undynamic Duo ?) came out with one of his rousing flag rallying speeches. Well, umm, umm, remember, umm, that , umm, it is a ummm, hard ummm, time to be ummm specific ummm Prat, he even had the audacity to mention that we were viewed as the chief competitor to Inlingua in many area and he knew that by speaking to the marketing managers there. Err, yes you did, probably when you got interviewed or see them when you go in to pick up new course details because you work for them doing corporate work! A few of us raised our eyebrows but made no mention. I wonder what he would have said? Probably nothing and wormed his way out of it as usual.

Hey ho, Ryder cup weekend. Come on Europe!

Speaking Tests and Workbook Frolics

Here we are again and into a new week. Still, at least I finished the speaking tests. Its still amazing how after them saying good morning teacher how are you, I'm fine thank you and you every school day of their lives that they still sometimes find it impossible to answer that question on their own. "How are you?" "I am 8 years old" DOH !

So another couple of days of getting them to practice their reading and writing in the class by catching up with their workbooks - boring I know but a lot are way WAY behind on doing that type of work and it gives me the chance to catch up on marking the workbooks as well.

"Finish page 1, finish page 2, finish page 3 ....., finish page 48. OK?"
"OK!"
5 minutes later, "Passawich! Why are you on page 75? AARRGGGHHH!! "

I tried again to load a picture from Picasa last night - the program Google want you to use to add pictures to their blogs - and again it didn't bloody work. Grrr. Why cant they allow you to use Photobucket? Stupid.

I will try to get some pictures on here to make it more interesting for my loyal reader - whoever that sad bugger may be.

Thai Speaking Tests & Students Intelligence

Where did Wednesdays post go then? Hey ho, another post disappeared into the ether.

I tried putting up a picture as well from home using the Picasa software and it is horrible to use, it is not user friendly at all. Its also not helped by the fact that the connection at home is lousy - the highest I have ever got is 24kbps - even then I think that was wildly over stated.

Well, another batch of speaking tests done today and its much as I feared, they are dreadful - ahem - would be dreadful if we used the proper scripts. As usual the word came down that if we unhappy with the exam in any way we could change it. Which of course everyone has and the result is, it is no longer the prestigious Cambridge exams but some hotchpotch of things thrown together, subjective marking and some teachers aren't even doing speaking tests at all. They are giving a mark based on the performance through the year. Which sort of makes sense but again makes a mockery of the whole fact that the agency tells the world that we are doing the Cambridge exam. End result is, the average score is going to be much higher than I previously predicted. I have been so lenient, everyone has been given at least 1 mark.

In the school grounds there are some roads for all the cars to get to car parks etc etc. Yesterday we were leading classes from their play break lineups to their classes rooms. To get there we had to cross one aforementioned road across a pedestrian crossing. As it happens, one of the school minibuses comes along the road at the same time. One class hadn't fully crossed the road and was still partially on the crossing. Instead of the kids moving up or out of the way, they just sort of pointed at the van coming towards them and laughing. OOHHH! Look at that, a van is driving towards me, isn't that funny! Not, oh there is a van coming towards me, I will get out of the way. Oh no, that would be far to clever and require some sort of free thought. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Was sitting beside the big fat yank yesterday just at the end of lunchtime at one of the pcs. As I had a free period after lunch I stayed on but I suddenly realised that he probably shouldnt have been there. i looked over at a timetable for the group someone had pinned up above their desk and sure enough, he was supposed to be teaching. Although I was dieing to say something, I knew he would just take it as a personal attack - which to be honest it sort of would have been. I waited to see how long he would be there as he and Scruffy Doo have got a very bad habit of nt leaving until the very last moment or even later for their classes. The period started at 12.55 and eventually he wandered off about 1.30pm, not because he suddenly went Oh SHIT! I am late, but a very casual I suppose I had better go now. WTF?!?! The really, really sad part about it was he was speaking to the two FUDs ( Fully Undynamic Due aka the Project Manager and the Assistant Project Manager ) during the time he should have been teaching!!!!! :(

At the moment, as you know we are doing exams, now the thing is, his teaching group can do the exams as a group and sensibly do so, it is far easier than doing them all by themselves. But he should still be there, I mean surely he hasnt got it all sorted out so he doesnt have to be there and everyone else does the work? Surely? Hmm, unfortunately maybe he has. After all this is the guy who within a month of starting his first ever teaching job was telling a 3 year veteren who taught in Thailand and Japan how do do everything and how he had created this material and so on. The only thing is, a lot of it was created by me and the teaching group I was in the previous year. To my knowledge he hasnt actually contributed anything knew to the material bank - he just uses it and discards it! Whats the point of that? Selfishness, arrogance, lack of thought, not a team player..... Just about sums him up.

Terminal Tuesday

As you can probably tell the link between the title and the actual content of the blog entries are becoming more and more tenuous.

Today its reached the point of termination, there is no link, it just merely sounds better than yet another boring Tuesday doing tests hoping that they will actually colour the spider on the floor black after saying it 5 times and not colour the box on the desk black or colour things in randomly.

I haven't spoken too much yet about the work permit situation mainly because its too ongoing and the pissing me off scale is beyond comprehension. But needless to say I am having to jump hoops to get one. Its not so much the Ministry of Education wont think outside the box, its that they don't think. Its apparently too much for them to realise that the initials on the transcript are the full words on the certificate from the college.

Ah well, I start the speaking tests tomorrow.

"What is this?"
"Yes"
"No, what is this"
"No"
"What is this? Is it an apple, an orange or a tomato?"
"Yes"

or

"What is this?"
nod of the head
"What is this?"
shake of the head
"What is this? Is it an apple, an orange or a tomato?"
silence

Some of the conversations with other teachers are great :)

Since starting this blog, I have noticed quite a few problems with it. It is quite inflexible. In order to load pictures, I have to use a special program, Picasso. It doesn't allow you to hot link from photobucket for example which is really bad.

And talking of really bad, the spell check is a lot of pants as well. I don't know where they got the vocabulary database from but its really very limited. It doesn't offer a reasonable amount of alternatives ie if I mistype "a mount", it doesn't recognise I have put in a space by mistake and tries to offer a whole load of unnecessary alternatives. PANTS! BIG GIRLS PANTS

Madhouse Monday

The first day of the tests started today and it's the usual chaos and reigning confusion.

You get the kids lined up outside their classrooms and you tell them get colours ( coloured pencils ), pencils, rubbers and a ruler, they disappear for 5 minutes and the next conversation goes like this.
" have you got colours?"
"no"
"where are they?"
"in the (class)room"
"get them "
and so on down the line so you end up repeating the same conversation 12 times out of 20 kids. Its definitely not good for your health. So after that, you go up to your classroom.
"OK, get your colours out"
"teacher, teacher"
"what"
"colours in the room!"
"what? you told me you had them, you waste of good pork on a stick - or in your case a good waste of a piglet or 3 on a stick"

Thus resulting in a quick decision, are they intelligent enough to understand when you tell them to write the colour next to the thing ie writing red next to the ball, when you say "colour the ball red" or should you le them run back down to the class to get the colours or just leave them to wallow in the swamp of stupity that they made for themselves. Difficult.

Exams are an easy and difficult time because you don't need to think too much, just pass out the papers and let them get on with it. But then you have the listening and speaking tests where you end up saying "Colour the ball red" in your sleep. It really is a case of repetition - twice the first time around and twice the 2nd time.

Its still amazing the lack of response sometimes and the lack of thought too. "Colour the whale grey" brings an amazing amount of replies - grey, black, red, green, purple or nothing at all." Two test sentences contain "we had a picnic" and immediately they go to the first picnic they see - which is usually the one in the forest. Unfortunately, the sentence continues ".. at the beach" And when you read the 2nd sentence out, its a wild scramble for the rubber as some of them realise what has happened and try and change it.

Of course, some don't even try and listen. You tell them right at the beginning it is a listening test and to write their name etc on the front, you look up a minute later to see at least two people drawing random lines over one of the storyboard pictures. DOH!

Fridays Fun

And it was reasonably painless today, no real terrors except the last class who decided to act like a bunch of 2 year olds during the kings song. I really would like to know why they do it. Surely they dont do it in front of there parents? With some of these kids, who knows. Maybe they do!

As you can see or maybe not, I have added a little counter to see just how few people actually bother to come on here. Probably very very few. Even fewer than my web site. Never mind, this wasnt really intended for such a large audience anyway and was more of a self help cleanse the spirit and vent the spleen exercise.

The big fat yank has signed up for http://ajarnforum.net which is the main site for teachers in thailand under the name of "poolpisser" I wonder if he actually does that in fact as well as figuratively. As he certainly has pissed in this teachers pool and a few others in the staff room. I think its fair to say he defeinately has pissed off more than a few. I am tempted to create a new persona and haunt him on there but its just not worth the extra effort and time and no doubt I would get found out anyway.

But talking of http://www.ajarn.com and the discussion board http://ajarnforum.net I have been spending a lot of time reading in disbelief about one poster who thinks that it is his sacred duty to slag off all TEFLers, thailand and anyone who disagrees with him. Its quite funny and sad at the same time. Read this interview with him last year. http://www.ajarn.com/Hot%20seat/hotseatduncandonut.htm The sad thing is some of the stuff he talks about just about makes sense but is lost in the other 98% absolute drivel, hatred and self lothing that he spouts. See what you think. He is now called Smyth.

Terminally Ill Thursday part 2

Well, what else can I say? Its got to the stage where every teacher in my group is tearing their hair out or going grey or both. And I cant really blame them.

Again, I really believe a lot of it is down to who taught them last year and those 3 fuckwit teachers who didnt give a toss but were more interested in having an easy life and showing movies at least one period every week for the semester are to blame. Can I prove it? No. But then when you can pick a kid out by his behaviour and correctly name the previous teacher 90% of the time then something has to be wrong.

As the semester has gone on, I have become less and less tolerant both towards other teachers and the students. I suppose I aught to apologise at some point but thats not really in my nature - more of a forget and move on person me. It really tells me a couple of things, I need a break and a change of environment either temporarily or permanently or a change of level. I dont think a change of level will be possible next semester as 2 teachers from my current group are leaving for pastures new outside Thailand and no doubt the boss will go " I dont want any more changes..."

Will see what happens.

Terminally Ill Thursday

Ok, not quite but since the start of the rainy season is seems that the coughs and splutters are almost a permanent part of my life here.

I get rid of one and a few days later another one starts. Whether its because of the relative cool temperature I am not sure sure - after all 24 degrees would be a nice balmy day back home. Its is the difference in temperature between day and night ? Maybe. Is is the Bangkok pollution lowering my resistance to everything? Maybe Is it because i am around kids who do the usual kids stuff with their hands and dont wash? Maybe. But whatever it is, its a complete nightmare. I started taking these multi vitamin pills about 2 months ago and they dont seem to be making much of a difference - so there goes the vitamin theories. It seems fated that I get a cough about Tuesday/Wednesday just in enough time for the weekend. Its actually meant I have totally stayed in the flat about 4/5 weekends in the last 6 months. In one way, I suppose its quite good as its meant I actually saved a bit of money but its been BORING!

Just saw the first accident in the school for quite a while - how there arent more of them I will never know. Its the usual story, two small kids running full pelt all over the palce then WHAP!! round a corner and into each other. In a way it was actually quite funny as the smaller of the two actually did a cartoon bounce off the other one back onto the floor. Of course it wasnt funny for the kids as they mainly got a big shock and after a telling off for running the big one walked away. The smaller one was crying a bit as he seemed to bite his lip a bit in the collision but was ok after a few minutes.

The day itself as was yesterday was just a complete and total fucking nightmare. I have been trying to help the kids for the exams by giving them mock listening tests - they are bad at everythign but especially so in listening and the frustration levels have just boiled over for me. The ironic thing is that they will not listen to the instructions for the test so they dont know what to do when I start dictating. Its not rocket science english - its what colour is her hair, is Tom dancing, what is her name and so on from a very short paragraph. In one class of 17 kids I had 4 actually write something down. The others just sort of looked around or talked or the usual bs they do. Then they look surprised when I started giving the answers as if to say "when was the test?"

I predict out of 60 kids in my P2s around 10% will get 0%. Very, very sad but true.

Tuesdays Tantrums

Well, here we are into the last week before the exams and its tearing the hair out time. You know I used to have a full head of shiny light brown almost fair hair and now is flecked with grey and vanishing rapidly.

Part of this is down to the adminmissitration from the contemptable incompetant project manager and his sidekick ( hereafter known as the Fully Undynamic Duo or FUDs), partly from their policies ( hiring and otherwise) partly from the school, partly from the agency, partly from me and partly from the kids. The biggest two are the FUDs. They sit around all day and produce so little in the way of visible helpful output. They have known since May that the exams were coming up in September and when did they get around to chosing which set to use? Last Week. Have they typed up a clear policy on how to use them and what to do? No, of course not, that would be too much like work and useful to boot. Did they ask the thai admin assistants to make copies for the teachers? No. They pinned one copy up on a noticeboard and left it to the teachers to make their own copy. Have we had a meeting to discuss the questions, the way we are doing it, timing? Sort of. But basically it was like this blog sometimes, totally rambling, incoherent and you came out the other end wondering what just happened and what medication they are on ( or should be on).

This week is desparately trying to preteach a whole load of new concepts ( did I put this in last week? shows you you just how confused and mentally retarded I have become! ) like Bank, Cinema, Library and what they are. Not so easy. Maybe I should just give them the answers or help them during the test or maybe even not give a rats arse and c'est la vie.
One problem is that we are giving them a different exam from a different curiculum than we are using. Hence the sudden need for preteaching a whole new raft of words and concepts. The other thing is that supposedly, to give the exam - The University of Cambridge English Exam ( Starters ), we are supposed to be certified to give it. None of us are.
I am also giving them a dummy lestening test which basically makes them draw lines between things, colour certain objects in and draw others. Mainly testing prepostitions of place, colours and of course listening and comprehension - god that sentence makes me sound like a real teacher doesnt it! Anyway, the usual Thai ability levels kick in. Do nothing until I shout at them for the 10th time, somebody next to them does something - anything, so they can copy it or somebody shouts out in thai what they are supposed to do - usually wrongly.
To be fair, the Prathom 3's got it just about OK, but the P2s were totally useless. Since this score is going into their permanent records for the first time, I have grave doubts about some of them getting into double percentage figures. Even on the dummy test - colour the chair blue became colour the chair brown, yellow or the tree blue or the cry "teacher no colours!" would be heard - despite me checking just outside their classroom they had colours.
Do you have colours?
Yes!
Oh dear.

Wicked Wednesday

Ok, here we are again. And I will try and put in as much as possible that was deleted yesterday if I can remember.

So, anyway, we had our team meeting and the exams have been brought forward a week and the Speaking and Listening exam will now be included inthe kids overall english scores on their permanent records. Scary stuff, of course the younger ones dont have a clue what that means yet, but I am sure some parents will start moaning soon.

The trouble with exams is that we teach from one book and the exam is based on another course - the Cambridge exam. Brilliant, this means they are tested on some words that we just dont teach them. So the last week before the exam is frantically preteaching them all the stuff that they dont already know. Also the Cambridge divides students into 3 levels, Starters, Movers and Flyers. Trouble is, we teach over 6 Prathom levels. So Prathom 1 & 2 get the same exam, 3 & 4 get the same, 5 & 6 get the same. Its stupity, the higher level have that extra year of exposure to English and vocabulary so they always ( ok, 90% ) do far better than the lower year. For example, this year the P3s have to know stairs, basement, bank, cinema, lift, library and zoo. Not only as words but also as concepts.

As well as that the exam papers they will get are going to be in black and white so the agency has to change some of the questions - they can no longer ask "what is the blue monster doing?" because they all look grey!!!

As well as that they still havent told us when our holidays are. Maybe the last 2 weeks in October. I mean for Petes Sake, we are talking about only 6 weeks away. Its not as though some of us dont want to go away, a lot do and its not just local flights as well, its international ones that can be booked up very quickly and its now far too late for any deals, so we will pay over the odds for the fare as well. The school hasnt told us. Right ! My arse. The school knows exactly when it is closing, it is again a power trip by somebody so we the poor sods at the front line get to know last.

Tempting Tuesday

Aw F**** just spent 15 minutes typing in a post and the f*********** connection crashed. ********* **********

Thursdays Tales

OK, finished another day but still feeling awful fromt his cold thing I have, so it was another workbook catch up day or copy this into your books and shut up day depending on the class. Its extremely lazy and bad form but I just wasnt feeling up to anything else.

Rumours are flying around that we are no longer allowed to raise our voices to the students anymore, either inside or outside the classrooms. I am defeinately do it less than last year outside the classroom but maybe as much inside. I dont like doing it, but when you have 20 kids all talking, it can be very effective. No doubt this will be officially confirmed in the office meeting tomorrow along with what holidays we will be having in October- I wont hold my breath though. About the holidays I mean.

It really is pathetic, they will no doubt use the usual tactics of blaming the school and telling us at the start of October we have 7 days off at the end of the month but have to come into the office for 3 weeks to sit around doing sod all. 7 freaking days of holiday at less than 3 weeks notice - thats really useful for people trying to get back home to America or Canada or the UK. NOT!

I dont see the point of spending a full day travelling to suffer jet lag to have to travel back 5 days later to be on time to start school again and suffer jet lag.

Tuesdays Terrors

OK, another batch of lessons done and here we go with another rant. Well, Ok, not so much a rant but a tantrum, er no, more of a whinge really.

During the breaks I am finding that a lot of times kids have been coming into the rooms we teach in and basically re-arranging everything, go into the drawers in the teachers desk, drawing on the whiteboard and generally stealing stuff. Not big stuff, but markers, rulers etc that were in my desk. Now ok, you might say I shouldn't be leaving stuff in there but why shouldn't I? I really don't want to have to carry everything around with me all the time. Bugger that for a laugh. One of these days, I am going to go up during a break and catch the little sods at it and give them hell. ( I wish )

back to rant mode, last week the fat yank was asking about these little tin flipper things that are all the rage witht he kids - they have cartoon characters on them and they basically play some conquering game about how it bounces or not with the winner keeping the losing lids. Anyway, I said I had some on my shelf, another guy gets them and brings them to the FY who then plays with them in his hands like a deck of cards for the next hour and then buggers off with them never to return them! What a tosser. Its not that big a deal that its a monetary loss as they were confiscated from kids in the class anyway, but I was giving them back out as rewards. In a way I would like to ask him what he's done with them to get them back but the less I speak to him the better as far as I am concerned.

One of these days, I am going to brighten up this drab blog with a picture or two. Unfortunately, the software Google uses to post pictures, doesn't work behind the firewall at work which means doing it at home over a chronicly bad telephone line. So it may be a while.

Fridays Fits

On Wednesday we had a ceremony for the Queens birthday and we were all supposed to go down for it. As it turned out, I was sort of in another place ( mentally ) when the very muted request came to go down - result, I missed it. It has to be said the first one ever in 3 years. At the end of the day, the project manager asked me into the office for a little chat and told me off for not going. I sat there and just said yes, ok etc I couldn't really see the point of arguing the toss. But the thing was, who told him, because he wasn't there in the morning. Hmm, could it be, our friend the equally spineless and now appears to be the totally backstabbing untrustworthy Assistant project manager who told him? Probably. This is the guy who will talk to you and say the PM is a tosser, totally incompetent and then you agree and say similar things then when the PM comes in, he runs over and tells him what you said!

Today, we had another ceremony for Virgin Mary and we had to present flowers to the idol on stage. What a waste of time. Its the same every time, lets get the farang out to parade in view of the parents and not take any eral part of the school. Jokeville, Arizona.

On the subject of the gatherings, you can guarantee that within 5 minutes of it starting, the casualties will start. The ones who basically feel ill or piss themselves or whatever. I counted after 15 minutes, 6 being lead away, two going off by themselves, one actually being carried out because he was unconscious and 2 with the first gagging signs of vomiting and one actually vomiting. To be fair, the courtyard area we hold the ceremonies on is quite nice in the mornings if you are on your own but when they put the best part of 2000 kids in their it becomes very hot and uncomfortable and unless you are on the outside, no breath of fresh air at all. Add to that the diet of orangeade, cola and whatever crap the have been eating before school adds up to a guaranteed nausea situation.

Tearful Tuesday

Today is a relatively quiet day for me, teaching the first two periods and then the last one, which gives me a great big hole to fill during the middle of the day. Sometimes this is quite handy if I am not feelign well or am just hungover, go home for a couple of hours kip and then come back refreshed for the last one. Would prefer it the other way around but c'est la vie.

I splashed out last week and bought a DVD player. So have spent a lot of time watchig movies, which is a good and bad thing as it stops me from getting out and about at the weekends and stops me doing other things like updating the web site and writing or phoning people.

I have a confession. I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. What can I say, I am outed. I know its a bit gay but its reasonably tongue in cheek and doesn't take itself too seriously unlike some other american tv stuff so boo sucks to you if you don't like it. I am going through the dilemma of what to buy. Do I buy the trashy american blockbusters that will gladly fill in a rainy afternoon when too much thought isn't required or do i buy the classic films that require concentration and kudos to ones collection? Decisions, decisions.

Moody Monday & Covers

Well, here we are back at work again after a lazy weekend and Friday. Well, to be honest it was lazy as I was actually ill and didnt really have the energy to do anything.

Which sort of leads into the topic of todays little rant. Doing covers for other teachers not there for one reason or another ie illness or meetings or .... Some teachers do take this quite seriously and actually try to teach, some take worksheets in and let the kids do them and some just go in and show a video for the whole period. Now, being honest, I really like the easy life and take the path of least resistance but when it comes to doing covers I do get that little pang of guilt and end up trying to teach them something. It may not be what the original teacher wanted but somethign all the same. Which brings me to my classes I missed on Friday and it seems like all of them actually had teachers that used the book and taught them something - halleluyaaah! We have more than one person here whose idea of doing covers, it to arrive at the class 10 minutes late, let the kids out 10 minutes early and show them a video while they sit in the corner of the room and watch the video with them.

And talking of videos, at the end of our exams we all really decided to give the kids a treat and show them one ( hopefully the first of the year). We have quite a well stocked video resource room in the school and one of our teachers went down for hte first time. She asked what to get and show the kids ( 7,8,9 year olds ) and one of the titles suggested was Kiss Of The Dragon. The one with Bridget Fonda and Jet Li where she is a prostitute in Paris and he is a Chinese uncover cop and they both go on the run from crooked French police. So lots of guns, violence and explosions. I have no idea if the Thai teacher knew what was in the film but back in the UK it was classed as an "18" in other words, no one under 18 was allowed to see it in the movies and they give it out to Prathom 3. Unreal.

We sometimes joke that most of the films are in the library for the teachers and not the kids given the content ( a lot of "12"s, "15" and a couple of "18"s. But after that comment, maybe its not, maybe they are all for the kids.

Wicked Wednesday

Well, we are now back teaching after the joyful weekend that was the start of Bhuddist Lent.

And in true incompetant arrangements, what did we do on Saturday? Thats right we had a Cultural Awareness Seminar. Yup, they arranged one on a Bhudda day. DOH!

And it was all very basic about status as teachers and how we shouldnt dress down and we have to be smart all the time etc etc. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ But it was livened up by the presense of 4 female teachers and one in particular who when the subject had been broached and was asked if she had any questions produced a 3 minute speech. We then split into groups male and female to discuss this point.

As I was sitting fairly close to the female group I could semi listen in. It was hilarious. We are invisible, no one wants to talk to us, thai women look down on us because we are competition. Er no, thai women look down on you because you are wearing no bra, a low cut top, a mini skirt and are about 30kg too big to be wearing an outfit like that. ( well, not her specifically ) Dress respectfully and you will be given respect. How many thai women when bending down to pick something up will try and close their blouse to stop anything ( as in bra/cleavage ) being seen? Quite a few. how many falang women will do that, not too many.

They also complained that they are all strong women for coming out here and yadadada..... One in particular was the sort of woman who talks at you you rather than to you. At home, if you smile at a woman its a look of horror, what do you want etc etc that you get back. Here you usually get a smile back. A friend was in his local bar on Saturday night and was with another couple of guys and some female tourists were at another table talking to the manager. They walked over to talk to the girls and the manager and got instantly shut out with a "why are you talking to us attitude" from the girls. And they wonder why white guys dont want to speak to them anymore.

Woeful Wednedsay

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
 
Dear lord this is so dulllll.  Sitting in the staffroom writing all these reports.  I think I will try sometime to do a definitive list of comments we would all like to put.
 
Here is a start
Be positive           I am positive you are stupid
Be apologetic       I am sorry you are stupid
Be definite            You definitely are stupid
 
 
I will add them in here as I come across good ones or think of them.
 
Although we are supposed to be here the full working day doing markign and the like, folk from yesterday were already disappearing at 10.00.  Or maybe the were just working in their rooms.  Hmmmm
 
OK, time for a character assassination - Scruffy Doo
At heart, this guy is alright but he can be so totally empty of common sense at at times its unreal. He is quite a young guy mid 20s but to look at him sometimes you wouldn't know he has any Baht to rub together.  holes in his shoes etc.  He came in onetime last year on a Friday before
a long weekend with some of the thin plastic shopping bags you get from Tops or Lotus Tesco and we asked if it was his laundry.  No it wasn't he replied, these are the clothes I am taking on holiday.  He said he didn't have anything else to carry them in to Ko Chang or Samet or wherever it was he was going !
 
It has to be said that he is not the strongest willed of people so someone with a strong personality can totally take him over.  As is now the case, he is now under the spell of the big fat yank and wont hear a word against him.  SFX cinema has nothing on showing movies compared to these two.
 
If you go to Bobbys Arms, you will know Scruffy or more probably heard him.   CCCHHHHUUUUUUNNNNNNNNE!
 
If you talk to him for a while and ask questions, you gradually that there is most definitely something somewhere wrong,  the same question sometimes gets a different answer.  He does seem to be one unhappy person - the number of times he has been seen by various people out drinking totally smashed on his own raises doubts - but he doesn't really let anyone in close enough to help him.
 
Enough, enough.  I have spent most of the day winding up some prat on ajarn who if he had actually posted in a slightly different way might have got a good discussion going.  The way its gone, its turning into him against the world.  C'est la vie.

Tuneful Tuesday

Ok, so much for Fridays blog.  The pub just came a calling and I had to answer :)

Here we are, the exams are now finished and we are sitting in the staffroom marking the papers and writing the report cards.    This is a part of the job which is in a way so good but at the same dull so  dulzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  Sorry, fell asleep there.

All these reports you have to be so positive about the little darlings, I wonder what would really happen if I said what I really thought.  Instead of Somchai works hard and in class and is always practising his verbal communication.  It would be Somchai should stop trying to draw pictures of castles, spacemen and footballers and try to shut the feck up every once and while and actually speak English.

Now for the phenomemon called Desk Creep.  There you are at the start of the lesson.  All the desks are in perfect alignment and you have about 5 feet of space to work with and move around in at the front.  By the end of the lesson, you can guarantee thats its all gone and you are pinned at the front with all the space at the back of the room.

This, I believe is down to that strange thing called desk creep.  Its all down to the way the kids sit down and then work at their desks.  When they sit down, they dont actually pull the chair back and sit down and then adjust the chair to the perfect position.  What they do is push the desk forward until its too far, then they pull the chair forward and so on and so on.  Its always the desk thats moved not the chair!!

Well, despite a 2nd attempt to stop us going on holiday the Project Manager confirmed this morning what everyone else already know.  We are on holiday on Monday for one of the upcoming Bhudda days.  Shame we have a cultural awareness seminar on the other one eh! 

 

Catchup Thursday

Good Grief.  Its is really that long since I did a post.  Well it must be.
 
OK, so where were we.  Exams.  Yup, this week we are doing the mid term exams and so far it seems to be going pretty well with the usual surprises from the kid at the back that you thought was dummer than a five inch nail but turns out to have been listening all the time or gets tuition elsewhere or both, disappointments who the usually smart kid who ended up just writing his name on the paper ( in Thai ) and suspicions confirmed about the dumb and the smart.

We use the Get Set Go colelction of books and there are some burning questions that have to be asked.

What sex is Echo ( a parrot ) and Tabby ( a cat )?    The reason for asking is that we use the test out of the back of the teachers book and there are questions about them  ie what is Tabby doing.  So how should it be marked?  He is ..?  She is ....?  It is...?     We should be told!  and more importantly so should the kids, after all if they told what chance have they when they are asked.

Ok.  Now to some actual WRITTEN answers from the Prathom 2 & 3s.

These are as well as the usual mistakes of spelling two as tow and so on.

Q What's your name?    ( right at the start of the paper, no marks but you would think a good saef question to start with)

A I am fine.

Q What does Adam want?  ( along side is a picture of the characters and various food)

A monerth

Q What does Tabby want?

A eetnges

Q What's Isabel doing?  ( again with a picture alonside of activities)

A She's rape    ( er... I think/hope he means rope.  actually skipping is the right answer )

Q What are Helen and Sally doing?

A They are balling   ( eeek!!  I hope that isnt American English he is using.  They are playing volleyball )

Q What is Sam doing

A He is a basketball. ( well, at least he sort of has the right idea)

I suppose today, I am now a real Prathom teacher.  I have lost my cherry.  Its gone.  I have finally had a kid piss himself in class. 

Unfortunately, it happened right at the end of the class during the prayers.  He was right infront of me and suddenly started bouncing up and down and tried to tell me something but I couldnt really hear him because of the prayers.  I asked him to be quiet as it would only be another minute untilt he end of them and then it would be the end of the lesson and he could do whatever he wanted.  The bouncing increased in rapidity and even teh other kids could notice it and were laughing and then one kid pointed to him and said potchee in other words this boy needed to go to the toilet. 

Now unfortunately, I have observed various states of need and what this boy was doing to my eye was of the lets make a scene and pretend I really need to go by pretending and holding my trousers at the appropriate point.  Since he needed to hold on another 45 seconds I just thought it was funny but then little drops started to appear and then the puiddle formed.  Oh dear.  Needless to say, his classmates had absolutely no sympathy and were....ahem.... taking the piss.

As soon as the prayers ended ( 30 seconds too late for him ) I shoved him out the door with his wet trousers since I am not their nanny and have no intention of or want to do any sort of clearing up after that.  I hope the cleaners come intot he room today as if they dont, tomorrow will stink to high heaven.  I couldnt see them after the bell to ask them to clean up, typical.  

You might think I was a bastard for not letting him go but as it was during the prayers we are under strict instructions from the school not to let them move during the prayers never mind let them out of the classroom. 

Thats all for now, but tomorrow the mystery that is know as "Desk Creep" 

Fearful Friday

Well, it actually turned out to be not too bad as, had been predicted by all, the Project manger was talking out of his arse and we are on holiday next week. Why he seemed to know something nobody else knew about, I dont know. Was it a little power play? Maybe.

Anyway, next week no teaching and then its exams and then marking so no actual teaching for 3 weeks. WHOOO HOOO!!!

See yall on the beach ! :)

Thursdays' Tales

Well the Project manager after saying we definitely had next week off is still going on that it may be cancelled. PRAT. No one else in the school is aware of anything but the school being closed. I mean, we are at the bottom of the information food chain but we know something the rest of the school doesn't? As if!

Got observed today by the curriculum honcho, and it turns out it was an informal observation. What the hell is that? Informal? Feck knows when I get a formal one then. To show just how professional he is, we had to move 3 times for the post interview because he hadn't bothered to book a room or check if any were free. Prat. Then he says because it was informal I didn't need to get feedack if I didn't want to. HUH?! That's the whole point of observations, to get the pigging feedback. Anyway, as well as that he was asking about the company in general and personal development and really I just rambled on in that non inflammatory way and waffled a few key buzz words that made it appear I was actually listening to what he was saying and that I was taking it very seriously indeed. I really would do, if the agency was actually going to do something about their own professionalism and raise their own standards.

Anyhoo. Had another class stand in the dark for 50 minutes with no aircon because they wouldn't shut up for more than 1 second. Ah well.

Windy Wednesday

For some reason one of the kids today just wouldn't stop farting in class. It became pretty obvious very quickly who it was and the kids round him kept on yelling out about it. Fortunately, my desk was at the opposite end of the room from him so I avoided it all. HEE HEE!

But my last class of the day were just total pains in the butt. Just would not shut up. Even when I had them standing for 5 minutes, they wouldn't shut up, I ended up drawing 2 faces on the whiteboard, one talking and one not with the equation talking = no air con = standing = no lights and no talking = air con = lights = sitting. And they still didn't shut up, so the lights were off, air con off and they stood the whole 50 minutes. By the end it was quite like a sauna and even I was sweating just sitting down.

Idiots.

Tuneful Tuesday

Why tuneful? Well, because up by our classrooms there are also music rooms and sometimes they give it full blast on the volume score. As well as that sometimes the teachers lets the kids go out into the corridor and let them ractise there witht heir flutes and recorders and whatver else they can carry.

The other problem is that when we aren't there, the kids come into our rooms an practice. If they left the rooms the same way as they found them it would be all riht but they don't, they have got very bad habits of leaving chairs and desks all over the place, going into the drawers in the teachers desks and rubbing stuff out from the whiteboard. FECKERS!!! If I ever catch them I am going to lynch the swine before taking them to the head of year.

At the moment, we are going through teacher observations - supposedly as professional development - but in reality as a paper pushing exercise. The curriculum manager guy from the head office is also doing some. Unfortunately, as he has never taught in Thailand, most of his "suggestions' are truly worthless. They come straight out the delta training manual. Lets do pairwork and free conversation work with Prathom 1 & 2s. Hmmm. No way man. My lessons wasn't that good as for some reason the kids were more noisy than normal. I would usually expect the other way round. Because of that it was a bit flat but then again maybe he saw what its really like to teach.

Back to planning where to go for next weeks holiday :)

Mad Monday

More mad because of running around like a prevrbial blue rear ended insect. Lots of people off and the new Cover Monster is happy.

Definition - a Cover Monster is a person that will cover / teach other absent peoples classes and thereby get extra Monday. The Fat Yank ( did I assassinate his character yet? I will need to check ) was definately one last year and this year he seems to have been joined by the gay yank. You see them dropping whatever they are doing when the Project Manager ( bbwwwaahhhaaaahhhaaa! ) comes in and they are poised on the edge of their seats, timetables and pens at the ready. As soon as the PM says P..."ILLTAKEIT!!!!!"..eriod They dont give a toss about whether anyone else would be interested or even that it might be a good idea to share the extra money round, team players and all that.

For cover periods, its quite scary what goes on. You come back for the next lesson and find out they ave been doing colouring in or something. And to ask them, they always say they teach proper lessons. HA!

Well, the PM finally confirmed what everyone else was told on Friday, that we have next week off. Yeehaaa Baybeee!!!

Fantastic Friday

Well, well, well. Good news indeed. It seems that because of the forthcoming AIDS conference ( which apparently $1000 a ticket ) that the schools will be shit for a week from July 12. Yabba Dabba Doo!

An extra weeks hols! :) This comes in the middle of our mid terms which means we have a few days less to do them which isn't really a big deal since they will take up only 2 lessons anyway. I might try and get away down to an island somewhere but definitely out of Bangkok.

We had a staff meeting today and one of the things they discussed was the mid term progress card. The version they showed was OK up to a point. We could tick a box to say the student was excellent, above average, average or ... wait a minute, where are the other choices? They were trying to slip in a report card where basically everyone was average or above and we couldn't even get near the truth for some kids. Pathetic, because this didn't even come from tea school, it came from tea agency. When questioned, it was all " oh, we have to be careful, we have to be positive" and all that shot. After just about everyone commented, it was "oh yes, we will change it but don't put too many in there" pathetic. Even more so because the actual report cards go from Needs to improve to below average to average to above average to excellent. What would a parent think if suddenly the kid goes from Average to Needs to Improve in 2 months? Again someone in management not thinking about consequences.

Once again, the difference in the kids lining up outside the classrooms has been remarkable today. Well behaved! Inside again, it depends on the class. Today was a 5 period day and because there were so many people off I had the chance to teach 7 periods. Err, nope! No way hosay! ( how do you spell that anyway? ) In one of my 3s I had the kids I have been teaching for 3 years. 2 minutes into the class and I catch out the corner of my eye him throwing something at another kid. Here we go again. :( OK, on your knees at the front. He knows one of my cardinal rules is not to throw things in class because ( and at this point I turn into my mother, horrible thought isn't it) that could take someone's eye out or hurt someone.

So, continue teaching and he is creeping along the floor gradually moving further and further away from his starting point and I am continually telling him to move back. At one point I hear a metallic clink and see him picking up one of these little metal disks that are all the rage at the moment - they bounce them off the ground and presumably the result is down to how it lands and which face is up. So, I pick it up and tell him if I see anymore I will take them off him and he wont get them back. He knows I will do this and its not an idle threat as its happened many times in the past.

Of course, a few minutes later, I see them in his hands and hear the clink so go over and ask for them, he refuses, I ask for them again and he refuses again. I get him to stand and up reach for his shirt pocket where he put them and he physically stops me from getting them. Not wanting to get into a fight with him, I change tactics and stop the rest of the class. I tell them what has happened and tell them until he hands them over they will all stand and the air con will be switched off. Switching the air con off is a tactic that some classes react to like its the threat of a WMD and others are "so what?" This was a WMD and they did not like it and I could hear murmurs directed at the little ray of sunshine. They stood up and I switched off the air con and waited with my hand out infront of the little darling. Within a minute I had two, then a pause then another two then another two than another longer pause then two more and then an even longer pause before I finally got them. As I keep my promises, the rest of the class sat down and I switched on the air con again. At the end of the class I had the behaviour book and told them they were getting 8/10 but would have got 9/10 if it hadn't of been for him. Again a few murmurs and dark looks were directed at him. Good, finally he might get some pressure from the others to behave and let them learn in peace. At the end of the class I didn't give him back the metal discs and he actually started to cry. Good. Now, I know this sounds like I am a total bastard but as I said yesterday I think, I have tried just about everything I know to get him to behave so finally maybe he is getting the message that he has to start listening.

if a class is good through the lesson, I don't mind a bit of mucking about at the end. In one of my earlier 3s, I caught one of my smart boys playing muay thai against another kid, I pulled him aside and said he shouldn't do that because if he kicked the other student I would kick him and "landed" a kick on his side. Then another, then the class started the "OI!" sounds you hear when a kick or a punch is landed. A couple of "punches" and "kicks" later, I told him not to do it in class. Of course both of us and the class were laughing but a point had been made.

Character assassination of the day will need to wait and I can hear the pub calling my name "Unassuming!" "Unassuming!" "Unassuming!" "Unassuming! Where are you?"

G'night all.

Tedious Thursday

Family is the subject this week - mother, father etc. Simple enough?

Draw family tree on the white board, illicit response from students to check what they know ( and who ) confirm pronunciation, drill 3 or 4 times checking participation, continue pronunciation drills on individual basis.

Use text book to reinforce knowledge gathering and other additional resources ie tape, handouts. Then walk around the room faciliting learning on 1 to 1 basis and encouraging and using positive reinforcement.

Eh, no. It never quite works like that in a class full of hyperactive 7 year olds. You can always tell what ice cream they had at the break because most of it is always spread over their shirt as they run around and loose control of it and SPLAT or DROOL. The result is one sweaty basket of brown wet skin, black hair and ice cream colured shirts.

Today it was more like this for P2.2 Draw family tree on white board turning round at least five times to tell Somchai ( not the real name )to sit down, Nachanon that he doesn't need to balance two pencils on the end of his pencil case which is something else he doesn't need at the moment and about 4 general be quiet / no talking warnings. Check what they know turns into a monologue - in our family you can have a mother..... waiting expectantly for more suggestions,a minute goes by, a mother .... holding his hand out to try to get more responses.... ok it doesn't work, a mother..... a ..... nope, a mother, a father, ....... nope still no sign of recognition ( except for the one bright boy in the class who 99% of the time is the first one to answer and who I feel sorry for as I have no idea what goes through his mind dealing with all these thick kids and one exasperated teacher).

They should know it, as its covered in the first and second year by us and the Thai english teachers.

OK, finally having got them to get all the answers, lets open the book at page 23,open the book at page 23,open the book at page 23!,open the book at page 23!,open the book at page 23!, Not your Workbook, not the notebook, the Pupil Book! Not page 43 with the animals, not page 36 with food, page 23.

Page 23 teacher? AAAARARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Ok, who is this ( pointing to a picture that has a name of the character) ? Ratchepong, SIT DOWN!

SISTER!!

Ratchepong, SIT DOWN!

No, the name. SISTER!! Ratchepong, SIT DOWN!

No, Ratchepong, SIT DOWN! what is the Ratchepong! name ( pointing again at the picture) I am 8!!!

OK, Ratchepong, since you dont want to sit, stand up for the rest of the lesson.

No, that's how old they are. What is their name? Bobo. ( Finally thank feck)

etc 10 minutes later we have finally identified all 5 characters.

now look at picture 2 on the same page, this says who they are - dan, mark, biff.....

Deep intake of breath and launching myself into the abyss, who is Bobos brother? And of course no one gets it except the smart kid despite me pointing out the two pictures and all they need to do is match the characters and read the name out.

Oh what's the use, that's the class almost over. I shouldn't let myself get upset but they don't behave that with the Thai teachers. Just a waste of good pork on a stick they are.