Teaching English

We had so much fun teaching English together.  We went into the classrooms as a team–most of the students had never met a Western child before, and certainly had never had one as a teacher.  We taught lively 8-10 year olds in a village school, who were very well-mannered and astonishingly engaged.  We really enjoyed working with them.

We also taught quite unruly novice monks, ages 13-18, in a Buddhist temple school.  We could not believe how much the novices were like all other teenagers we knew, hiding in the back of the class playing on their computers and cell phones, sneaking out of the class during the lessons, buying forbidden treats after lunch through the locked gates of the monastery (they were locked in during the day to prevent them from sneaking out) and of course laughing at us.

We often didn’t know from day-to-day what we would be going into, so had to wing it in almost every class.  We spent a lot of time jumping around acting out animals, and vegetables (you should see Jackson do an ear of corn!) and other vital vocabulary.  Sam developed a fun game that we would adapt to the level of each class that involved a lot of movement–jumping, clapping, and flailing about of body parts.  Except for one particularly apathetic class of 13-year old novices, all the kids seemed to have as much fun as we did.

  We also taught the Openmind staff in the morning, which we really enjoyed because they were so excited to learn English.  In the evening Sam and I alternated teaching the team of volleyball girls, but of course, being 13, they preferred the nights Sam came in to do the lesson.

The staff at Openmind, Nong Khai

The volleyball team (in yellow blouses) moonlighting as dancers to show us some traditional dances

Follow