Author: Emily Dougherty

It’s official: I have completed my first week as an English teacher in Thailand.

(Well kind of… but the military coup happened…)

It’s almost been a month since I have been living in my new home over here in Thailand. For the past couple of weeks I have been preparing for my first week of school, which as of Friday I just completed. With my placement I was fortunate enough to have those couple weeks of preparation. It is not unusual for people to find out a placement and begin teaching in the next few days with zero time to think or prepare. It is actually quite common. The couple weeks leading up to my first week consisted of lesson planning, familiarizing myself with the English, math (which everyone refers to as maths with an s, but I refuse to because it is math), and science curriculum’s, creating pre/post exams, and so on. 

My typical school week is going to consist of me teaching English to my fourth grade students five times a week, science twice (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and Math three times a week (Mon., Wed., and Fri.). I teach each lesson for a duration of 50 minutes and I have 19 students in my classroom. I also am very fortunate enough to have an assistant teacher, Pai! On top of my English, math, and science classes, I have to teach a conversation class every day. The conversation classes are a complete nightmare and I will go into them in more detail later on. I teach conversation to two other fourth grade classes (not the same as my English, math, and science students), two sixth grade classes and one fifth grade class.

Friday, May 16th was approaching quickly and it wasn’t till about that Thursday before when the nerves started to kick in. Not only was I starting a new teaching job, but I was starting a job with children who speak very little English. I had no idea how well they were going to understand me or if they were going to understand me at all. That Friday I woke up and started getting ready for school trying not to think too much about the day, hoping the nerves wouldn’t kick in too bad. As I got closer to school (on my awesome new motor bike which I have come to love) I could start to see all the cars backed up waiting to pull into school. Now the nerves were kicking in. Well I arrived at school, signed in, and walked up to the staff room. Once I entered the staff room, I was informed that we wouldn’t be having any classes today after all. My first reaction was a sigh of relief. The students were going to be busy on the Thai side with their Thai teachers and attending assemblies all day. The only thing I had to do was show up to an assembly at 8:45 to introduce myself to the students. Sounds easy right? Well once I arrived to the assembly I was immediately motioned to go to the front and stand with the other new Thai teachers. They were passing a microphone down the line and each of them were talking, but of course talking in Thai. I had no idea what I was supposed to do/say, but luckily my assistant teacher was next to me and told me to just state my name, where I am from, and what I will be teaching. So I did that. And of course all the students laughed. So that was that. The rest of the day was spent doing a whole lot of nothing with the other English teachers. Technically my first day of teaching was done even though I didn’t teach or meet any of my students. 

Monday morning was the same routine as Friday, but this time when I arrived to school I knew today I would in fact be teaching. My first class was period 3 (10:20-11:10) teaching English, followed by math (11:10-12:00). I wasn’t too worried because today was going to be made up of introduction activities to get to know one another. I had a few fun games for the students to play and a few activity worksheets as well. Once period three arrived, first thing was first: name tags. I needed to learn their names and quickly so first on the agenda was for them to make their own name tags. I wasn’t too worried about memorizing their names more than I was being able to pronounce their names! In Thailand when a child is born, they are given their birth name and they are also given a nickname by their parents. The nickname given to them is the name they go by. Their nicknames are most definitely interesting. A few examples: Yogurt, PowPow, Boom, and Cream. That Monday I spent periods three and four getting to know my 19 new students. The first day (technically second) was complete.

The next few days were spent figuring out what level my students were at with their English and introducing the first English, science, and math units. I can’t wait to get to know my students better and see what this school year has to bring. It will most definitely be a challenge with the language barrier, but I am already surprised at the level of English they have!

Conversation classes: 50 minutes spent of me yelling at 35-40 students who don’t understand English to be quiet and sit in their seat. The other teachers warned me of these classes and little did I know they were not lying. They are a nightmare. I have five each week (one every day) and out of those five there are two that are reasonable (a fifth and fourth grade class). The students in the conversation classes know very little English and the conversation class is their only English lesson in school (so once a week). My favorite part of conversation classes are the students talking to me in Thai like I understand them or when I have 40 students all yelling ‘Teacher, Teacher!’

Okay so last, but not least: THE MILITARY COUP!

Just as I was about to complete my first week of school, the military coup happened. Thursday night around 8 or so I was on social media and started noticing a lot of posts about the military announcing a coup in Thailand. A little while later I got a text that school was going to be closed tomorrow. Due to the military coup all schools in Thailand were shut down on Friday. I was finding this coup very interesting. Where I am in Thailand nothing is going on. Everyone is going about their everyday business. Protests and such are mainly centered in Bangkok and Northern Thailand. I am very far and safe from all the action! So thanks to the military coup I was able to enjoy a long weekend! I’m really not worried at all about the coup and hopefully things will be resolved soon, so people back home should not worry either 🙂

That’s it for now! Thanks for reading : )

It’s been 2 weeks since I have moved into my new ‘home’ here in Thung Song. Pronounced like tune song for all you that have been referring to it as thong song back home! However, I have noticed when I am having a conversation with a local thai and they ask me where I live and I say Thung Song like tune song, they act like I pronounce it wrong, but pronounce it back to me the same way I said it so who knows!

Thung Song is located in southern Thailand in the Nakhon Si Thammart province. I will admit when I first found out that I was going to be moving to Thung Song I had quite the panic attack. I typed Thung Song into Google and barely anything was coming up about this so called ‘city’. I couldn’t find any information and was freaking out that I was going to be living in the middle of nowhere! So I did what I do best and started to cry and panic. After a good nights sleep and a Face Time call with my parents the next morning, I was much more calm and was trying to look on the positive side of things. Over the next week or so I was able to talk to a few more people who had information on Thung Song and it wasn’t sounding all that bad. I mean it is in the south and in easy travel distance to all of the major islands down here! My friends from the TESOL course started getting their placements and they were in the same situation as me trying to find information on their future locations, so that was making feel a bit better as well.  I wasn’t truly going to know what it was going to be like until I got there so I did my best to keep a positive attitude and kept telling myself that everything happens for a reason and that this is where I am meant to be at this time.

Thursday night, April 24th I left Hua Hin on a night train and traveled 9 hours south to Thung Song. And that train ride was not an enjoyable one let me tell you. First off, the train was supposed to be a sleeping train with A/C. Well there was no more A/C carts left when I bought my ticket so problem number 1. I obviously packed way too much coming over here too. I thought that I packed pretty decently for a year trip, but I did not. Two suitcases where one is basically like a body bag is way too much. In typical thai style the train that was supposed to leave at 9:50pm didn’t arrive till 10:45pm. This country is always on thai time which is basically never on time. I have to give a shout out to one of my best friends Jacque because if your reading this which you best be… this country was made for you… no one is ever on time 🙂

Anyways once the train finally had arrived I had about 3 minutes to find my section and get on. Well getting my massive luggage on to the train was a SERIOUS struggle. As I was pulling up the second suitcase (I barely had it on the train) the train started to drive away. Luckily myself and my luggage made it on the train at the very last second. Struggle number 1 was done. Now I had to get my luggage into the over head compartments. Struggle number 2. I got the first one up after almost dropping it on a Thai ladies head.Woops. There was NO way I was going to be able to get my body bag up there so after a few hand gestures and some broken up English to a Thai woman in the front she understood I was trying to ask to leave my luggage in the open space and she kindly nodded her head. Okay so that’s all done and now I am sweating. I look up to start to head to my seat and everyone is just staring at me probably wondering what the heck is this white girl doing here. I am the only white person in my train cart.  Of course once I find my seat someone is sitting in it, so I find the next available seat next to an old very large Thai man who does not look thrilled to have me sitting next to him, but oh well I sat there anyways.

Okay, so I am on the train and it is gross and I mean gross. All the windows are wide open so luckily it didn’t matter there was no A/C because there was quite the breeze. It’s a little after 11 at night at this point and I just want to sleep I am so exhausted, but unfortunately for me I do not sleep well on public transportation. So I read a bit of my book and started to doze off. Woke up around 12:30 a.m. and wanted to cry thinking that I had 8 more hours left on this train. Did I mention it was pretty cold with all the windows down so I was using my purse for a blanket (it was all I had and no it did not work) plus my hair wouldn’t stop getting in my face even with it up. I looked around and there were people sleeping in the aisles and under their seats. Anyways I nodded off and on the whole night. Luckily around 5am the two girls sitting in front of me got off and I was able to take their spot and lay down. The sun came up around 6 or so and around 7 I was up. The ride was actually nice with the sun out being able to see the views. My arrival time in Thung Song was supposed to be at 8:55a.m. but seeing how we got off to a late start I wasn’t too sure. Oh and as you could imagine everything was written in Thai. Luckily around 9:45 a.m I had made it to Thung Song. The only reason I knew it was my stop was because I looked at the lady next to me and pointed/asked “Thung Song?”

 So glamorous

Alright so I am here and it doesn’t look like the middle of nowhere. Good sign. A lady from Tantiwatra school (the school I will be working at) was picking me up to bring me to my apartment. I was very impressed when I saw where I will be living because it was new and more modern than I expected. Good sign number 2.

After being shown my room, I had a few hours to shower and get settled in before I was getting picked up to go to my new school to be shown around. I arrived to my school and I was surprised to see how big and nice it was! It also had a random, but pretty awesome dinosaur park out in front. There is a pool and all the rooms are air conditioned. Once there I met the director of the English Program and a few of the other foreign teachers. Well in true Thai style once again, I was informed that I wasn’t going to be teaching Kindergarten anymore. I’ve learned not to count on information given to you until whatever you were told about is actually happening because nothing seems to be set in stone over here. Anyways I wasn’t that devastated, instead of kindergarten I am going to be teaching 4th grade now which I am still super excited about! I will also be teaching them math and science and not only English. School starts May 16th (which is a Friday kind of strange). So for the past week and a half I have been going to school to start getting lesson plans and all that good stuff ready for the first term.

Tantiwatra International School where I will be teaching!!

A few things I am thankful for in Thung Song…

Yesterday a group of about 30 of us decided to go explore the Phraya Nakhon Cave. We left Hua Hin around 10am on 2 songtows and drove about an hour out to the Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park where the cave is located. The drive alone was awesome because we were leaving the city and heading out into a more rural area of Thailand.

Pictures from the ride there

The National Park was located right on the water so when we arrived we went out and took pictures of the beach and then decided to have some lunch before we began the intense hike to the cave.

We had two options on how to get to the cave we could either take a boat over or hike. Most of us decided on the hike. We heard it was about a 45 minute hike but we did not know how intense it was going to be. We first started the hike up and had amazing views of the water. The stairs or more like rocks I should say were quite the challenge to climb up, but even harder to climb down. After hiking up for a while we started going down to where we ended up on a beach. We walked along the beach for about ten minutes following signs to the Phraya Nakhon Cave. Following the signs led us to the start of another hike that took us about 30 minutes to climb (this was the hardest one, but well worth it). It was incredibly hot and we were all dripping sweat.

 The beginning of the first stretch…

Gorgeous views of the Gulf of Thailand

 The start of the second stretch…

In the end the hike was a million times worth it. The cave was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in my life and definitely by far the best experience I have had in Thailand thus far. I was completely in awe upon entering the cave and couldn’t believe my surroundings. There is a temple inside the cave called the Tetrahedron Pavillion that was made by hand in Bangkok and then brought to the cave to be assembled. The whole day was amazing and a great experience with great people! I posted a few pictures below from the cave, but once again pictures don’t do it justice (I feel like I’m going to be saying that a lot)

 Sunday, April 13, 2014 was when the Thai New Year was celebrated this year and I was so fortunate to be able to be a part of it. It was one of the most incredible experiences. The celebration actually began that Saturday night. Me and a few of the girls were debating whether we should go out Saturday night or save ourselves for Sunday because we were starting early Sunday around 10. Well we ended up deciding on going out Saturday and I was SO HAPPY we did!!! We were warned that people would start throwing water on us Saturday around midnight because that’s what Songkran is: a huge water fight, but we didn’t think it would be too crazy. We were SO wrong. As soon as we arrived to the bar scene in Hua Hin there were people everywhere with water guns and buckets of water! We weren’t even out of our tuk tuk yet (taxi) and the thai people were soaking us with water. They also have this clay type of stuff that they come up to you with and spread it on your face. Yes I know, it sounds strange but after the first couple times you get used to it and embrace it. 

Here’s the link to the Songkran video you should definitely check out!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6FKzteULEw

 Khao Tao Temple- Hua Hin. We visited here the second day in Hua Hin. The temple sits right on the ocean and has an amazing view. After exploring around the temple we were able to go into a small room where we sat on the floor and were blessed by one of the monks who live at the temple which was an awesome experience.

A very large Buddha statue at the top of the Khao Tao temple.

Pineapple farm! We visited a pineapple farm where we had the most delicious pineapple ever! The fruit here in Thailand is amazing and they have fruit carts all over the streets. I would be perfectly okay if I had to live off fruit for my entire time here.

Bringing the pineapples to the elephants!

ELEPHANTS! Here I went to an elephant sanctuary where we were able to meet three elephants and a baby elephant named Songkran. All the elephants have been rescued from being abused. One in particular was an elephant who was used and beaten in World War II. We fed the elephants bananas and pineapples we brought from the pineapple farm.

THE MARKETS! There are awesome markets all over Hua Hin with awesome food, clothes, purses, souvenir stuff, etc. Oh and they are super cheap just like almost everything else in Thailand.

Some of the awesome food at the night market

 Banana fruit smoothie!

Curry!

Iced coffee in a bag, in a bag, in a bag… best thing ever!

Tuk Tuk! One of the modes of transportation in Thailand. Basically a taxi.

Songtow… A public form of transportation and what we usually take around if we don’t just walk. They pack people in and people hang off the back. Only 10 baht too!

Don’t think I’ll ever quite get used to seeing this and you see it everywhere. Motorbikes are a very popular way to get around Thailand and they pack people on there. You see mothers holding new born babies on these things. It’s crazy!

Its hard to believe that I only have two weeks left in Hua Hin and that all the people I have met so far are going to be scattered through out Thailand. I’ll have plenty of people and places thought to visit! I can’t wait to find out where I get a job and where I’ll be moving to! I’m hoping to know by the end of this upcoming week!

Well that’s pretty much all for now. This past weekend was Songkran which is the Thai New Year. It was the most incredible experience of my life and one of the funnest weekends ever! Words cant even describe the craziness of Songkran. I’ve never been around so many happy people. The energy was amazing! Photos and videos will be coming very soon so stay tuned!!!