Oh, Say Can You See..: this little piggy went to the market

This week was week #1 of our practicum. I was so stoked to get placed in a 3^rd and 4^th grade class. The kids are so cute and so well behaved. But, there were a lot of struggles too.

My Thai co-teacher does not speak English. She is the English teacher at her school, too. Whenever I needed to speak with her about lesson planning, a translator was needed. It was really frustrating not being able to communicate with her so very little co-teaching actually took place. But she is one of the nicest people ever. She was more than willing to help us get materials ready and even wanted to spend her lunch break crafting with us.

I taught my class Tuesday-Friday. I started out teaching basic vocabulary about families. Then we tried to make simple sentences. Crash and burn. The topics I tried to teach on Wednesday and Thursday were just too difficult for these kids to understand. However, I was able to do a review on Friday where the kids rotated through 4 different centers and it worked out wonderfully. Next week we will be doing centers again, and although there are a lot of communication problems I hope that my co-teacher will at least try using some of my ideas in her class after I’m gone.

Saturday was sports day! We were split into teams and had to play some Thai sports and even do a somewhat inappropriate relay race. It was a lot of fun – even though my team did not win. I got to end the day having a delicious dinner with friends : )

Sunday is funday every week. My friend Jessica and I are taking turns spending the day with each other’s families. This week I went with her. We traveled to a gorgeous flower garden and aquarium. We walked around taking pictures of flowers then decided to go and see the crocodile show. I love watching animal shows back in America; when I was just at Busch Gardens I saw the alligator show and was entertained just listening to a zookeeper talk about them. The crocodile show was NOT like that. Two men came out dressed in costume and literally jumped into a pool filled with hugeeee crocs. These guys were splashing and tugging them around. They repeatedly stuck their entire arms into the mouth of numerous crocs. The finale was a man sticking his head in the mouth of a crocodile. Let me repeat this: A man stuck his head into the open mouth of a crocodile. It was awesome.

We finished the day just like any other day – eating rice.