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).

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.

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…