Back to Thailand and Rayong- The Beginning of a New School Term

With April finished up and May just beginning, it was time to get back into the groove of school.  Thai government schools such as mine begin the first term in May and go through September.  The second term begins at the end of October, and finishes up at the end of February, leaving all of March and April free.

I arrived back to Thailand from my trip in Singapore on a Wednesday afternoon and then made my way via bus back to Rayong.  I was back to my bed by 9pm that evening.  It was nice to be back 'home' and get settled in again.  I really enjoyed my travels, but I was eager to get back to my routines at work and see my students.  I was also ready to get back to a job I knew how to do, as opposed to when I first began and I was totally clueless as to what the next few months would bring.  This time around I was more prepared and therefore more excited.  I knew it would be a good term filled with great learning opportunities both in school and out of school.  I also really enjoy the pace of life in Rayong, so I was excited to be back for another 5 months to learn more about life there and continue to connect with Thai friends and people in my neighborhood.


That Friday, May 6th I had to report to school to organize my desk, get new books, and do a little bit of planning and prep work.  It was really nice to see my Thai teachers again and share stories about the two months off.  

Monday brought the return of the students.  I had two groups of students that I'd had the previous term- the new M5-2 and M2-2 students (previously M4-2 and M1-2) and two groups of new students- M1-2 and M4-2.  M1 = 7th grade, M2 = 8th grade, M4 = 10th grade, and M5 = 11th grade.  the '2' refers to the level.  Each grade has a different amount of levels depending on how many students are enrolled in said grade, but at my school there's roughly 12-15 levels for the lower secondary grades (M1-M3) and 8 or 9 levels for the upper secondary grades (M4-M6).  At my school '-2' refers to the Mini English Program or MEP for short.  These students are slightly more advanced English speakers or willing to pay more for a special program other than the regular Thai curriculum.  In MEP students take more content classes in Thai and English as opposed to the regular program which provides all the content in Thai and only two English classes- a  grammar and a speaking English class.

I knew an exciting year was in store when I met with my M1 and M4 students, the new groups for me.  The M1s were a bit nutty and excitable, but lovely as usual.  The M4s were a bit more serious, and shy with me at first, but again, very sweet.  Some students haven't studied with a foreigner before so they're a little nervous to speak at first.  But since I'm so scary, I forced them all into liking me and only speaking English all the time.  They opened up really quickly with that method.  

Like I said I knew my M5s and M2s from last year, so I was just excited to talk with them again and see how their summer break was.  The M5 class is really small, only 18 students (the smallest class I had and the smallest class in the school as well) and there are a lot of different personalities in that group, making every class pretty entertaining.  My M2s was my largest class, but an average Thai class size- 43 students.  I was happy to see them bounding into the classroom with big smiles on their faces.  We immediately began joking and laughing which is a great way to start any term.

Well, more to come about school, school activities and Rayong life.  Here are some pictures from the first days of school.

First day attendance in the sala (first floor)

Mattayom 5-2.  Always a good time. Left to right back to front: Nhut, Tiger, Justin, Non, Mai, Ploy, Moe, Sai, boy I don't know because he's not in my class but ran in for the picture, and Mike. 

More M5-2: Yam, Jao, Chompoo, Dream and Pond

Tae and Mark

M4-2 serious and busy- doing an introduction assignment I gave them

Hanging out in the hallway between classes

Some M6 gals

View from right outside my office

View from outside my office- Watpapradoo Temple.  My school is a 'school of the temple'- my school and the temple share a name.  Monks comes to school for special occasions and to teach classes about Buddhism in the Thai culture classes.  Not all Thai government schools are affiliated with a Buddhist temple.  I walk through the temple to get to and from school.


 Take a look at some introduction videos I took of my students in the first week of school.  The first one is Ked, in M4-2.  Second is Mek, M1-2.  These two students are two of the more confident English speakers I have in class.  they were more eager to make the videos than others.  Just to give you a sense of what Thai students are like when they speak a foreign language.  In these videos they seem pretty serious, but in reality they are really smiley and lively and like to joke around.  These students are reading from a notebook so they're concentrating on speaking their writing correctly.