Thank you Teacher

Hi friends!

Two of the most frequent questions I get asked is 'what do you actually teach?' and 'How do you teach without speaking the native language?' well, here's your answer....

I teach all ages of primary level, that's kids from 4 - 12 years old.

As my school is private, the parents have the choice to pay extra and put their child in the 'Intensive English Programme' - this is an hours English lesson everyday, taught in 5 different styles; standard, activity, pronunciation, literature and workbook.

A standard lesson is based around conversation, introducing the language and sentence structure to the children then drilling it until they understand, a TT (thai teacher) will translate if necessary. Then a 2 team game, usually were the teacher asks a question and they have to race to write the correct answer.

This is Year 5 lesson "what does your aunt / uncle look like?"

We recapped family trees, brainstormed facial features and played a face drawing game (hense the creepy woman at the right of the board!).

Then they drew their aunt and uncles writing "He / She has....".

Activity day is a little more fun, we are given the type of activity, and suggestions on how to teach it. The kids love to draw so I often ask them to design and present their understanding.

Like this Year 6 class (in their scouts uniform) designing 'super cars' - the aim was to learn the parts of a car in English.

However some activities can be a little more controversial, like this one about 'Hitler the great dictator' (in Thailand they are taught that Hitler was a great ruler!).

The younger years don't have as much freedom, but still include drawing and games, this is a preposition of place lesson:

There are a lot of running around games in Year 1!

Pronunciation day isn't my favourite, the older years we teach grammar and with the younger ones we teach sounds, such as long sounding 'O' / short sounding 'o'. Like this Year 2 class:

Most of these are whiteboard activities 'circle the long-o words'

After half an hours teaching and a 10 minute game, they are able to fill in their workbook with ease!

Super tiny Pleum being all adorable!

If they finish in time and have had their books marked, we play a game, this is their own 'collect the beanbag' creation.

Literature is one of my favourites, the kids all like it too. Its where they learn through stories, the younger years are told basic stories using flashcards, the older years have to listen then break down the story, doing activities until they understand what it is about.

This is my favourite Year 5 class:

The story was about ancient Egypt and mummification, together as a class they broke down the story and drew pictures to explain.

This story was about a poor Chinese girl who had a magic paintbrush that brought things to life - role play!

And sometimes we read the story out as a class then they have to individually think of the ending:

Who's Jason?!

Finally workbook day, this is pretty straight forward, the sentence structure and vocab is on the board and the kids fill in the blanks, they are good at this as they have been through it with their homeroom teachers.

Good behaviour is rewarded with games at the end of lesson.

(Absolutely adore this class and this picture - cuties!!)

Kindergarten classes are word and colour based, they're still learning how to write their names in English, so tracing letters and colouring pictures is enough:

The excitement of getting the yellow wax crayon first!

I also teach an adult class and privately tutor after school, which is more complex grammar and time-tense based.

Its great teaching such a range of ages and abilities, things are kept interesting with the different lessons and styles. Although I may have to deal with "smoke weed every day" written in Year 6's workbooks:

Kids not knowing whether I'm 18 or 30 years old...

And it taking 13 weeks for me to realise that 'fly a kite' is a euthanism for masturbate!

"what do you do before you go to sleep"

"fly a kite"

(They're 12!!!)

So there you have it, as much as my Instagram tricks you into thinking my life's a breeze by the beach, I actually spend my days being shocked at 12 year old's, been told I look 18 and playing dodgeball!

Don't forget - if you fancy your hand at teaching, give me a shout!

Until next week,

Zoe

xoxo

#lessons #teaching #becomeateacher