The New Job

So I've been working at a primary school called Ubnwit for the last three weeks, and Thai students are as difficult to manage as I'd heard. The school is huge, with about 2400 students altogether (including kindergarten) and 100 teachers. There are six foreign English teachers: three from the Philippines, one from Germany, one from England, and myself. I'm teaching English to grades 3 and 5, and in a week I teach roughly 640 students, which is insane. I know less than 10 of their names, due largely to the fact that I don't have student lists for all classes, and that all of these names are new to me.

Ubnwit is considered a "world-class standard school" - whatever that means. I've heard that some 500 schools throughout Thailand were selected for the title, but I'm not entirely sure what the "standards" refer to. This is only the second year they've had foreign teachers, so there's still a lot of groundwork to be done, but it seems to be a good school. We don't have an English Program like most of the more expensive schools around, where other subjects are taught in English - in fact, at this point in time there's no English curriculum.

Every morning starts with all the teachers and students gathering in the middle of the school for the flag-raising ceremony, national anthem, and various announcements. It generally takes about 20 minutes. During this time, the kids (or at least the grade 3s) talk amongst themselves and generally ignore what's happening on stage. I try to get them back into line but without any Thai it can be difficult. No, in fact, that's not the problem. The students know what I mean. Sometimes they just don't want to obey - but that's just the Thai way.


It's often the same in the classroom. Classes range from 38-45 students, and having everyone's attention is, for me, the biggest challenge. Students chat amongst themselves, play with toys, even talk on their phones. I'm pretty hard-ass against this kind of behaviour in my classroom and I often finish class with a desk-full of confiscated items, but the truth is a lot of these kids don't care enough. I can usually keep their attention well enough when I'm at the front of the class presenting the lesson, but as soon as it comes time for them to do some work, it's impossible to keep every student focused.

Last Thursday presented a unique situation where an 11-year-old student threw a chair at me. He was fooling around all lesson and when it came time to do some work, he scrunched his handout and shoved it back at me. When I reprimanded him, he went ballistic and started screaming profanities and such. Then he stood up, picked up one of the bulky wooden chairs in front of him, and came at me with it. I dodged the chair and moved in to restrain him. I pulled him towards the door, trying to calm him down and get him out of the classroom, while at the same time he was still screaming and crying and trying to bite my arms. Eventually some Thai teachers came to take him away, and only then did they tell me that he has problems at home and gets beaten by his dad. Always good information to have before dealing with a student like that, but I've learnt quickly that communication isn't one of Thailand's strong suits.


But that's only one student. A lot of my kids are really funny, like the tubby 9-year-old who said once during the flag-raising ceremony, "I'm fat." And then, as if I might not have understood, he said, "I'm heavy." I'm not quite sure why he was telling me that. Was he trying to intimidate me? Then there's the 9-year-old girl who came up to me one morning to use her only sentence of English: "Teacher, you look so charming in your day today." She's now learned to say this every time she sees me, because she gets a hi-5.

Lunchtime is at 12 and every day they give me a plastic coupon worth 13 baht (about 42 cents). This is enough to buy lunch at the school canteen, where I can choose from a number of delicious traditional Thai dishes. Sometimes some of the Thai teachers, who bring their own food, let me try theirs as well. It's usually really spicy, but that's typical of Isaan (northeast Thailand).

It's a totally different teaching scenario from my previous job and it's a challenge, but I'm keen to stick with it for now. The teachers are great and there are a lot of things I can learn here. And, as long as students are throwing chairs at me, it's good for my reflexes, too!