Tag Archives: Tutoring

Penpals and Friendship Bracelets

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This week, I feel like I have grown to love Koh Tao for what it is. Despite all the crazy tourists and weird positions I have found myself in, it has become a kind of home. Having taught here for nearly 2 months now, the children and their parents like to hang out with me. I have built friendships with shop keepers and know their stories. Then again, just when I feel like I’m adapting and really getting to understand, I know that I am leaving in about 11 days for Sing Buri.

This week school was a little strange. I learned that the kids do have an English exam along with the rest of their finals. The problem is that because the volunteers are teaching the classes, the Thai teachers who make the exam do not know what to put on it. The classes have changed hands with volunteers probably about 4 to 5 times in one semester alone. While teaching a lesson on meal vocabulary and consonants, a Thai teacher handed me freshly copied “Test 2” which was an activity asking the kids to match the days of the week, color, and write English words. The instructions were in Thai and I was confused about two things 1)where we had a copier and 2) how we could afford to have whole sheets of paper for a worksheet. I’m hoping that I can review the basics of English- alphabet, basic vocabulary, and greetings for the exam. Hopefully, the Thai teachers will consult me or Nikki about what to put on the test.

In addition to our meal vocabulary and consonants this week, Nikki has arranged a penpal class in the US for the kids.  We put up a letter template and asked the kids to fill in the blanks. The template is as follows:

“Dear Penpal,

Hello! My name is ________. I am _____ years old.  I am in the 2nd/3rd grade. I live in Koh Tao, Thailand. My favorite color is _____. What is your favorite color? My favorite animal is a _____. My favorite food is _____. Where do you live? Write me soon!

Your Friend,

___________”

The issue becomes that if the kids are rowdy, we can’t get to do anything cool like letters to their penpals. In one class, only half finished their rough draft. We took pictures of the kids who finished and saved their drafts for the next class. I give Nikki complete credit for thinking of the idea, and I’m hoping we can make it work. It work be really cool for both classes to begin an exploration into another culture via letters.

After school tutoring is working well, with the exception of Saturday. The tutoring pupils I have are beginning to sound out words when reading. It’s really amazing to watch them remember and trying to work out the phonetics of a word. The entire time they are trying to remember I feel all excited and nervous waiting for that *click* in their brain. On Saturdays, the kids or the parents generally forget about their lessons. It makes me sad that they are not taking advantage of the opportunity, but at least I have the ability to offer. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. The kids who are drinking are really making progress. though.

Other than teaching, I realized this week that I only have 30 pictures from the past month and a half. I started taking a lot more because I don’t have much time left here. Saturday was a great day to take pictures. I went to the island’s Buddhist temple with P’Lake (my guesthouse owner’s wife), met a teacher from Koh Samui on the beach randomly, and had dinner with P’Jin and her family.

Temple was really incredible. It was such a gift to get to share in the meditation and rituals of the temple. All the ladies brought savory curries, sweets, and flowers for Buddha. All of these items were shared on the altar. The monks performed chants and we all were supposed to repeat in Thai. I didn’t want to offend anyone with my mispronunciation, so I chose to not attempt. After the service, the monks ate and then shared the rest with the community present. I met P’Lake’s mother-in-law and many other ladies in the community. They were all so kind to me. We all sat in a few large circles with dozens of small bowls filled with spicy, homemade curries. A large bowl of rice was passed around. Then, you were free to pick your favorite curries to top it. After the meal, we shared fruit and sweets. I tried a coconut jelly sweet, jackfruit, and a sticky, egg-flavored sweet. The ladies of Koh Tao are very talented cooks.

From left to right: P’Na (a local massage therapist), Me, and P’Lake.

“P” added to the beginning of someone’s name is a form of respect for your elders.

If they are a grandmother/grandfather, “Boo” is used instead.

 

In the evening, I went out for dinner with the Lofts (P’Jin, her husband Kevin, and their two daughters, Tara and Charlie). Kevin is from Australia and P’Jin is from mainland Thailand. They met here years ago when Kevin was a dive instructor. Their eldest daughter, Tara, is in my 2nd grade class. When I first came to the island, I went to their technology shop looking for a case for my camera and came away with a friend. I noticed Tara’s picture on the wall and started chatting with Kevin. P’Jin has been instrumental in helping me arrange my tutoring lessons. She’s also become a really great friend. Whenever I have a question about anything- school, snorkeling, life, or where to go to eat- I ask her and she helps me out. I feel so lucky to have them in my life, and they will be missed terribly when I leave. I bought the girls bright pink bracelets and P’Jin a blue bracelet to remember me by.

In the pink, holding the heart- Tara

In the blue, making a face- Charlie

Front to back: Tara, Charlie, and Fasai (another 2nd grader whose mother works at the dive shop across from Kevin’s shop)

P’Jin and Me after dinner. Charlie was running around with my camera taking pictures of random people. Haha!

Friendship bracelets, the eternal sign of friendship. I’m pretty sure I made my first one in 3rd grade, yet they are still so relevant.

It’s All About Literacy

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This week, the whole experience of teaching changed with the change of volunteers. Gregg and Nikki are a great pair of volunteers for me. We work well together. Every night before school, we plan, prepare props, and put together a coherent plan of what we are going to do in class the next day. The unused second bed in my room is used to store all the supplies that we brought here ourselves or picked off from the old supplies.

My tutoring sessions have revealed a whole new layer in the conundrum of language acquisition and culture on the island. I get a closer look at the student’s abilities, their family, and myself as a teacher. With the exception of two students, all of my tutoring students cannot read English. When asked to recognize a word to symbol, the ones they have memorized in shape will stand out. However, generally, the problem comes down to the fact that they do not know how to read. I’m hoping that I might be able to switch from having them memorize English phrases to memorizing phonetics. If they can learn to read, everything else about the language will click better. Rome was not built in a day, but I do intend to at least put forth a valid effort in bringing the students up to check in reading.

Another benefit of tutoring is the time I spend getting to know their families. Word seems to be passing around Koh Tao that I am willing to do free private tutoring. When I go to a new place for dinner, someone will ask me if I’m that teacher from the school. Also, other needs in the community are brought to my attention. A massage therapist located opposite the spot where I tutor on Saturdays asked me to help him translate some terminology about reflexology to English.

Saturday was my perfect day in Koh Tao. I spent the morning tutoring the kids, hung out with the kids while swimming for a few hours, talked with P’Jin and split fruit all afternoon, and ran off to my last tutoring session of the day with Zoe and her brother, Lucas.

Zoe, Lucas, and their mother, Sandrine, are pretty interesting to watch in action. After my tutoring session with the kids, I ate dinner with their family. I watched as Sandrine spoke in French to her children, asked me questions in English, and ordered from the server in Thai. In addition to French, English, and Thai, she speaks Italian and German. I think it is absolutely crazy that she can just flip the switch in her brain that quickly from language to language.

With Monday through Saturday filled with lesson planning, tutoring, and school, the only day I have completely off from all things teaching related is Sunday. Today, I went to Chalok Beach with Gregg to swim and relax. I’m finding that even workaholics need a day of rest. That said, I would rather have the well earned rest after a busy week than spend my time being bored on the beach. This week restored my faith in my cause here in Koh Tao. The families have really welcomed me to Koh Tao and their children are a gift to teach. I’m so excited about my last month here. On the 27th of August, I will go to Koh Samui to finish a visa extension and then I will be on a flight to Bangkok. From Bangkok, a bus will take me to my next English teaching camp in Singburi, just two hours outside of Bangkok. From the beach to the mountains, I’m thrilled to serve through teaching English!

Note: I would post more pictures, but the internet connection is being really slow right now... 🙁 Sorry Friends.

 

School Days and Mountain-Top Experiences

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Friends,
The weekend brought some interesting adventures, mainly in my own brain. I spent much of the time writing, reading, and researching possible lesson plans for the children. I was excited to begin teaching on Monday, only to go to the school and find out that it was another school holiday!

I went out to a local coffee shop, Cappuccino, and a photography store, Tao Technologies, to talk to some parents about possibly private tutoring their children in English. Since I have time on weekday evenings and weekends, I am looking to find more time with the children.

School begins at 8:30, but I only teach 3 hours a day Monday through Friday. The average school day for me goes like this:

9:30 Get to school and make preparations for the lesson (copies/worksheets)
10:30 Grade 1
11:30 Lunch
12:30 Grade 3
1:30 Grade 2

Often, teaching in this setting is hard because we don’t have real control over the class. With no translator or local teacher in the classroom, the children are less likely to listen. Nevertheless, we find games and demonstrations that get them interested. For example, on Tuesday, in the classes we played “one of these things is not like the other”. I would draw shapes on the board and ask the children tell me in English which shape is which and which did not belong in the grouping. Afterwards, we did worksheets asking them to identify the number of animals in a drawing and then write the answers in English. If they finished that, we would take them outside to play Duck, Duck, Goose or toss the ball. During the ball games, we ask them to say things like their favorite food, favorite color, or count when the ball is thrown to them.

The most entertaining thing that happened on Tuesday was tug-of-war using my body. Once we got back to the classroom, a few of the kids decided them wanted to hug me all at once. That hug turned into 5 children pulling on my left arm and 5 children pulling on my right. My torso turned into a flag. Haha!

On Wednesday, we didn’t have class again because of school-wide exams. I was going to go to another part of the island with my friend Fabienne. Mango Bay was our destination, but it was too far to walk. Ultimately, we rented a scooter, but the mountains on the island were a little too precarious for my liking. Climbing at an 80 degree angle, the scooter was just not going to make it with two people. I hopped off and walked all the way back to my apartment, then passed out for three hours from exhaustion. Mountain-top experiences? Oh yes, I’ve had them!