After 2 weeks...

Well, it's been 2 weeks now at Interkids Bilingual School in Bangkok..
And I'm still alive, but man.. teaching is hard work!!!

I'm starting to have a lot of respect for the teachers in my old school, because these kids might be difficult, but I remember from my school time that we were a lot worse than the kids here! We sent a couple of teachers home with nervous breakdowns each year, I don't think the students here would go so far. :)

It was quite difficult to get started, but now I'm starting to get a bit more comfortable with teaching. It helps that all the other teachers here have just as much trouble controlling the students, at least it's not completely my fault that most classes end with all the kids running around screaming and fighting and playing. ;)

Luckily there are also a few students (and I really mean a few) who really are interested in learning English and who do seem to like and respect their teacher (me).. :) But most of them really don't care at all, they're not interested in learning anything and a few are so bad at English they can not even understand my instructions to the class.

All in all, it's very exhausting and I'm happy to get home each night and especially happy it's weekend now!!!
Anyway, this is just an internship for me, 2 months teaching at this school and then I get my certificate and after that I can try to find a nicer school, with better students, who will be interested in learning something...

First day in school

First day is finished and I'm still alive, tired, exhausted, but alive.
The good news is that it can only get better, the classes I have today and tomorrow are supposed to be a few of the most difficult, so I guess if I make it through these two days then the rest shouldn't be too much trouble.

And here I am in full teaching outfit.. I've never in my life had a job where I had to dress up, so this is quite a change for me, but it's ok, even the tie doesn't bother me too much. And because it's a Thai school the shoes go off before we enter the school, which means that at least I don't have to worry about my shoes being comfortable (which they aren't). :)



More news next week probably, when I'm settled into my permanent classes.

Teacher Richard

Well it's happened, I found a real job as a teacher!

Last week I did a 5 day TESOL course to get a certificate and learn how to really teach, this monday I had two job interviews and actually they both wanted me to start working for them. I decided to pick the school in Bangkapi, my neighbourhood in Bangkok. I will teach four classes, grade three and four, about 25 kids in each class.
They first said they wanted me to start coming monday, but when I was there this morning they asked me to fill in tomorrow and friday for another teacher, so my last quiet week has been cut short and I'll be thrown into the deep end tomorrow, no time to prepare anything. 8-|

Wish me luck and I'll let you all know how it went after a few days...

Chiang Mai

Something a bit lighter today, I just uploaded a bunch of photos to Yahoo of our trip to Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, we took about 300 photos, but don't worry, I've narrowed it down to just over 30, what I consider the highlights.
I don't think anyone would survive sitting through all 300 photos of flowers, mountains, waterfalls, temples, sunsets and sunrises... :)

If anyone thinks they need to see more flowers or sunrise or whatever, just email and you'll get another 50. ;)

We spend the night camping in a little tent on a freezing mountain (Phu Chi Fa) to get that sunset, so you'd better enjoy those photos and the white temple in Chiang Rai was really unique and quite stunning.