My Thai Classroom & Teaching Day

I have been keeping a blog while in Thailand mainly for friend and family to read but seeing as I’m going to try to keep a professional blog too this year thought I’d give some background by using some of the posts from there as a basis for an introduction to my teaching experience day-to-day.

My class are out of my hands for pretty much all of this morning. I get them for 20 mins. before playtime and then for about 30 mins. before lunch on a Wednesday (Thai Language class & PE). It gives me time to get other things sorted out and to catch up on task, or just get ahead on planning. Today though I’ve been doing some reading about Secondary ICT in preparation for this afternoon’s interview.

I have done a quick video of the classroom – I just stood in the middle and turned around in a circle. As you can see it isn’t massive but then I only have 12 Kids and 2 Adults in there. Still need to get more stuff on the wall, hopefully the next couple of week’s activities will produce some more work to put up.


Link to video if it doesn’t work: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tj2904/2863845983/

The timetable contains a lot of breaks and snack/eating times. Thai culture is to eat a little but often which I suppose explains that part, also the heat may have something to do with it, although I don’t know what as my room is air-conditioned and the play areas are in direct sun. There is obviously a No Hat – No Play rule which is enforced.
Other differences from the UK include only one assembly a week. I think I have to take a Key Stage assembly once a year as opposed to the however many it was before. We do a class assembly too, but also only one of them. Swimming is a year long activity we have a proper pool and a training type pool for Pre-Prep (Nursery) children to start off in, that makes up one of our 2 45 min. PE slots every week.
Music is also taught by a specialist twice a week, a music lesson and a whole year group singing lesson.