I met my first class yesterday, at The Banyan Center. The students are the oldest group, aged 12 to 14. Yesterday there were three boys and three girls in the class, and all of them were very polite and eager to chat.
Since class started late, we did a simple introductory art making activity with some English conversation tied in.
I had the students use coloured pencils to draw one thing about themselves, or one thing that they liked.
After drawing, the students introduced themselves and explained their drawings. It was a really nice simple way to start getting to know the students and sharing interests.
Following this, each student was told to ask me one question in English, and I would ask them the same question back. This was a fun way to encourage conversation and to build background about each other.
One student in particular was a strong character. Instead of drawing on his paper, he spent the ten minutes fake drawing in the back of the room. When it was his turn to present, he showed his blank paper and said " Hi! My name is ... And I like Paper, because you can do anything with it, like draw, and write". Very clever, yeah?
And when it was his turn to ask a question he was the last student so all of the easy "where are you from?" "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" questions were all gone, so he was at a loss. He kept on asking "how are you?", but we wouldn't let him off that easily so my coteacher let me ask him five of my own questions, which he did very well at answering. Apparently he has "many" girlfriends and his favourite colour is black because its dark. :)
Here are the photos of their drawings of things they like and their explanations
1. " I like trees!"
2. " I like computers and playing video games"
3. " I like birds" (picture of him with his bird in a cage)
4. "I like cars and fixing cars. I want to be a mechanic when I grow up" ( picture of her in the car shop)
5. " I like listening to music"
6. " I like paper..
7. My coteacher: she likes her baby!
8.Me: I like being outside!
Hi Elizabeth. Your cousin Ben here! I spoke to your dad the other day on the phone and he mentioned you were in Pai and pointed me in the direction of your blog. Looks like you are doing some really fantastic work out there! I spent a yr in NW Thailand in Mae Hon Song province teaching at various schools, inc some with Burmese refugees. I was also lucky enough to go to Pai a couple of times - a beautiful place - I'm very jealous that you are there now! I bet your schedule is v busy but it you get the opp to go to Mae Sot for a weekend I would recommend it - a real melting pot of Burmese, Thai and hilltribes, particularly Karen, but also some Shan too. Are you trying to learn Shan? I learned a bit of Karen as I stayed in a Karen village, but mainly stuck with Thai. Anyways, good luck for the rest of your time there and keep the posts coming - I will read them avidly!
ReplyDeleteHi Ben! Just figured out that I could reply to you here! Great to hear from you and it's really near that you were in Mae hon song too! I'll try to make it to Mae sot at some point! I've been running the programme alone for three weeks but once my colleague gets back I hope to have more free time! I'm learning a bit of Thai, as all the Shan kids speak that most often. Thai is hard!!
DeleteWere you teaching English?
Plan to come back?