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).

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

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…

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.”

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…

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:

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