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.

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.