Teacher Mark’s Reading Room

I’m sorry I haven’t added anything to the Reading Room blog in a long time. I’ve been very busy substitute teaching in other classes for teachers who have been sick, gone on visa runs, or decided to leave our school. In addition, I’ve also been teaching as much of my regular Reading (and ESL starting next week) classes as possible where they don’t conflict with the fill-in lessons.

Over the past two weeks I’ve substituted in P1, P2, P3 (homeroom including English, Science, and Maths), and M1. The only levels I have not taught in yet are Kindergarten, P6, and M2. For the next couple of weeks (at least) I will be teaching most of the English classes for P1 Red until the school can hire a new homeroom teacher. Yes, it’s been a very hectic schedule which doesn’t leave me a whole lot of extra time to mark assignments, prepare materials for upcoming lessons (the way I’ve redesigned P3 Reading this year does take A LOT of extra prep time), catch up on paperwork, write mid-term exams, etc. But somehow I do manage to get everything done with a minimum of stress.

I am paying more attention this week to HOW MANY hours I’m teaching — my contract calls for 20 teaching hours per week. Last week, I went over by six hours!! I didn’t even realize until I wrote all of the substitute lessons onto my regular schedule (I’d only cancelled two P3 Reading classes last week). You can’t exactly get compensation for working over what you’re supposed to — overtime pay, I believe, is nonexistent in Thailand. At least a number of coordinators and other staff members are aware of the situation and are concerned that I might become over-stressed. But I tend to handle that sort of extra work easily and I’m not worried about burning out. My only worry is that I may not be in the Reading Room when a student needs my help (I have an open-door policy that if any student doesn’t understand something on any of their English assignments, I’ll sit down with them and try to help them as best I can).

SInce we need to do some assessment of the students’ reading comprehension every few weeks, we decided that this week would be a good time to give P4 their first ELO (expected learning outcome) exam of the term in Reading. I spent this morning writing a 20-point test covering the first four chapters of Charlotte’s Web; the homeroom teachers were to let the kids know today as the test will be tomorrow. I didn’t make it very difficult as it mostly repeats the questions from the first three chapter comprehension worksheets with a few added in for chapter four.

For a bit of something different, the P3 Reading classes this week are listening to a two-part recording of Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, courtesy of the BBC. P3 Yellow did very well listening to Part One yesterday; I was worried that the heavy British accents would be off-putting to some but they sat quietly for the most part (although there was a lot of tittering during the songs). I asked them a few comprehension questions and they answered them very well. This is to prepare the children for their Listening Comprehension mid-terms next month.

Today we will have the first meetings of the Friday Clubs following last week’s sign-ups. The minimum number of students for the clubs is usually 10; I only had five kids sign up for Community Service but they’re letting it go on anyway. I’ll have three students from P4 (two of which seemed to enroll just because it was Teacher Mark’s club) and two from P5. Unfortunately, they haven’t given us any of our money for supplies (I submitted a budget request of 300 baht). When I asked about this yesterday, I was told to buy my own supplies and then bring in the receipt. Since we don’t get paid until after 4:00 this afternoon and I’m broke…  Anyway, I have managed to scrounge three garbage bags. I’ll buy some more plus a package or two of plastic gloves this weekend. I’m looking forward to getting outside this afternoon and picking up some trash!

(BTW, the drawing above is of Jackie Chan performing community service.)

I’m already tired and we still have 18 weeks to go in Term 1!

The P3 students are a very energetic lot, to say the least. They are enjoying the Reading lessons and eagerly thrust worksheets my way whenever I enter the classroom. Completing the comprehension exercises properly are the key to receiving a new Oxford Reading Tree book.

We also started taking students to the Reading Room this week in small groups (five to seven kids). That’s really worked out well as I’ve already moved a few kids down a stage or two as they were really struggling. And a few children have advanced a level as well. Except for a bit of minor misbehavior on Tuesday, the students have been extremely well-mannered while in the Reading Room. Starting next week, there will be multiple groups of kids using the room at the same time as we are sharing with with P1 through M2 — both Reading and ESL. I think that we will still be able to maintain control, however.

Thursday once again proved to be my favorite day of the week as I was upstairs teaching P4 Reading. Other than a few students in one class who had forgotten their copies of Charlotte’s Web, the lessons went fairly smooth. I again had to teach P4 Green in a shortened class period as they had to have their photographs taken for school identification cards. I hope to make it up to them next week.

All three classes focussed on Chapter One of the book. I think they initially were surprised that P4 Reading is more about comprehension than anything else but they soon got into the spirit of the discussion. I’m sure any one of them can tell their parents, brothers, and sisters every little detail of what happened in Chapter One as well as why. Their homework (apart from reading the next two chapters) is to draw a picture of one scene from the first chapter. We’ll do this every week so at the end of the term they will have an illustrated version of the story to go along with their comprehension worksheets (which we finished in class this week).

As I mentioned, school ID photos were taken yesterday. This afternoon, the children will register for their Friday Clubs (I made some visual aids with which to decorate my booth). And we’ll have Parent-Teacher meetings next week for P3. The school year has only just begun and I feel like it’s already been a month!

Have a great weekend…

On Friday, the students will sign up for the Friday Club of their choosing. These are special extracurricular activities each Friday afternoon conducted by individual teachers. These are to give a well-deserved break from the routine of classroom work in preparation for the weekend ahead. Activities include playing boardgames, learning to play guitar or speak Spanish, ballroom dancing, football (soccer), etc.

My club this year (depending if the minimum required number of students sign up) is Community Service. Community service is something a person does to help his or her community, in our case that would be both our school and the villa behind it. Our first (and ongoing) project will be to keep the school grounds and the villa’s streets clean. We will do this by picking up any trash we see. Don’t worry! I’ll provide the garbage bags and rubber gloves.

Other things that we could do would be to visit elderly people in the village and talk with them. I’m sure we can learn a lot about the community through doing this and it would give them a break from their own days. We can also assist children (and adults) when crossing the roads between the Thai Programme and English Programme buildings. On rainy days, I suggest we either help out in the school library or “adopt” a classroom/office to clean.

Registration for this club will only be open to students of P4 and above.

Please remember to come and visit my booth this Friday to learn more about the Community Service Club. If you would like to give a bit of yourself to help others, please sign up and join us. As Ghandi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

During Term 1 this year, we will be reading Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. I’m really looking forward to this because I’ve never read the book (well, I’ve read Chapter One to prepare for this week’s lessons!), nor have I seen the most recent movie. I have a lot of fun activities planned that will help us understand (and enjoy) the story even more. Unfortunately, I will only be meeting with the three P4 classes once a week (on Thursdays) so your homeroom teachers will give you additional reading homework throughout each week. I will always be available to help you in the Reading Room if you want extra reading time or just want to chat! My schedule is posted on the bulletin board.

It’s been really nice seeing all of you this week with the start of the new school year. Yesterday, I had my first Reading class in P3 Yellow and today it was P3 Green’s turn (plus a second lesson in P3 Yellow). Tomorrow, I will visit the students in P3 Red and Blue. Finally, I have three classes in P4 on Thursday; I’m especially looking forward to seeing my kids from last year most of whom are in P4 Yellow this year.

I’ve spent a lot of time running around these past two days checking out the Oxford Reading Tree books, printing and photocopying worksheets, and finishing the Reading Room. I think next week will be a lot easier, especially when we begin removing children from their homerooms to come and read in the small groups.

In addition to several Reading classes on Friday, we have the ever-popular Friday Clubs to look forward to. This week the teachers will present their clubs to the students with sign-ups occurring next Friday. I’ve submitted a proposal for a “Community Service” club in which we will pick up trash and perhaps even plant some flowers in front of the school and inside of Villa 5. I want to give something back to this community that has been so good to me, and it will be nice to have a cleaner area surrounding our school.

I know we will have a very exciting year together. If I’ve just met you, please give me a week or two to learn all of your names (I have over 175 new students in my classes this term!) and, more importanly, how to pronounce them correctly…

I began moving into the new Reading Room at school this week. All of my teaching stuff — books, games, papers, and desk are now sitting in the room along with a whole lot of empty student desks. The workers installed a new chalkboard yesterday — it still has plastic wrap on it and it seem a shame once it becomes covered in chalk dust — as well as bulletin boards. They came in later and painted the bulletin boards (white) which caused me to become lightheaded from the fumes!

Next week, once Teacher Timmy returns from his holiday, we will really get to work decorating the Reading Room. I have some good ideas but will need their help getting those to become real.

Here are some photos I took of the room this week:

_________________