True to Thai form, I was told that I was going to be hosting a teacher camp for matayom teachers just over a week before the scheduled dates at end of day on a Friday, with no further information other than maybe 50 teachers and four days long.
I immediately put out my call for help from fellow volunteers. After making some phone calls on Monday, I find out that actually it’s two camps: first two days for 50 teachers and second two days for 140 13-15 year olds. OK, quick revision on my call for help and making things more flexible for the people who already said they could come and help. Only to find out that actually, the students would be on the first two days and the teachers the second, so more phone calls and logistics with the people who so kindly offered to travel so far to come and help me.
It was also the first week of school for me and I spent my time observing the classes I would be teaching, getting to know the students and my co-teachers’ teaching styles. And when I tried to do a working lunch so I could actually plan for the camps, I was taken away and out to lunch. So as much as I was aware of the things I had in store, I had no real chance to organize anything. I was able to put together a solid plan for the teacher camp, since I had thought it was just going to be teachers and that they were coming first. But I was not able to spend as much time planning for the students.
Student English Camp
I don’t think that my student camp was as successful as it could have been. First, while I sincerely appreciate the help of the Thai teachers who led sessions, I don’t think they understood what I had wanted them to do in the sessions because my planned activities did not actually happen. They ended up doing whatever they wanted, which was worksheets. I think that the games that I had planned and did happen could have been planned for better as well. But in the end, I accept what happened and hope for more prep time next time. I decided from the outset that my goal was to increase the participants motivation and excitement about learning English, and since every one of my surveys came back saying they had fun, I will consider that an overarching success.
Teacher Training Camp
The teacher camp I am much more proud of. I had planned better and was able to be a bit more flexible because of it, by cutting out one session. Nearly everything that I wanted teach was covered and I think that I truly blew some of the teachers’ minds with new techniques.
The sessions started off with teaching them about phonics and the different sounds that the letters make. I had to cut the session that would have allowed them to practice teaching phonics themselves unfortunately. But, we did a session on total physical response which seemed to be received well. And we played some fun games for review of what we did with the hope that they will use the games in their classes. The next day, nearly everyone returned, which I was happy about, and we taught about reusable materials, question words and using stations in the classroom for students to do self-directed learning.
I think that was the session that introduced the newest technique to them as I don’t think Thai teachers have ever considered stepping away from the front of the class and allowing students to learn on their own. I spent a lot of time explaining how it worked and then reexplaining when they said they didn’t understand. We then had them participate in stations and they kind of got it, but it was still a difficult concept for them to keep doing activities after they had done them once. Seeing learning as a process and not a task to be finished is something that is new to them, I think. And is one of my biggest challenges here, that it’s not about the ability to speak the words, it’s about the confidence to have a conversation with someone.
All said though, I was extremely impressed by the teachers’ willingness to try new things and to really put themselves out there. I know that most of the teachers are really uncomfortable speaking English and they don’t hear it that often, so spending two days with two native speakers learning about entirely foreign concepts, and coming back for more, is really courageous and brave. I plan to get in touch with them at the end of this first term and ask if they implemented any of the techniques they learned about. Hopefully one person will.
Future Plans
I think when I have free time, I am just going to plan sessions and make easily created materials for camps, so that in the future when this happens I can just pull out the lesson plans I created already, print out the materials and know that I am prepared for anything.