Teaching - Samut Sakhon, Thailand

So Stace and I have been teaching for two full weeks now and are really enjoying it. Stacy teaches Math to P1, P2, and P3 (basically first, second, and third graders) and I am teaching Health and Science to K1, K2, P1, P2, and P3. I am slowly getting the hang of the teaching thing and really love the kids...especially the little ones. It is hard in that they don't always understand what you are teaching and trying to teach Science to little kids has been a challenge. We start at 7:45 and go till 4:30 everyday, so we have a pretty long week. We only teach around 16 classes a week though so it's not too bad. On Wednesdays we have to arrive at the school by 7:30 for Gate Duty which is where we greet the kids and watch over them till school starts. The school itself is pretty nice. We get lunch brought to us everyday and all the teachers have really welcomed us. Our uniform consists of skirts everyday and then depending on the day we have to either wear pink or blue and purple on Thursdays. Mondays and Fridays are Blue, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are Pink and on Thursdays we ware Purple with sometimes having to wear Orange. We of course had very little suitable clothing with us and the shirts cannot be cotton or stretchy material so we have been shopping a couple times and lets just say we don't exactly fit into the more fashionable pieces. We are each homeroom teachers which means that anytime we are not teaching a class we are in our homerooms helping the current teacher and also watching the kids. One of my perks is that my homeroom kids have swimming lessons on Wednesday afternoons and since all my classes are in the mornings I get to join them at the pool and go swimming too.  I will get paid to lay in the sun and help the little ones learn how to kick in the water.

We are also getting to know our little city better. We found two places to eat at that have English speaking owners and this makes ordering possible. We also found a small bar just across the street that is pretty fun. But we have still been going into Bangkok to visit friends every weekend. It is only 40 min. to get there and less than $1.50 so it works out really well. The Red Shirt/Yellow Shirt protests in Bangkok have calmed down for the time being, but we shall have to just wait and see what happens.

~ Randi

Latest from Thailand

We've moved to Samut Sakhon, which is 40 min Southwest of Bangkok. We live within walking distance to our school and have two elephants living in our apartment building's backyard! Although, I get to see my favorite animal every day, I wish they didn't have to live in the city in a field scattered with garbage :(  Randi and I have separate apartments, but we're on the same floor. This weekend, we look forward to exploring the area and visiting the sea.

Today, our first day at the school, was spent observing and comforting crying children. The teachers are all extremely kind and helpful. The head English teacher has made it her personal mission to find us Thai boyfriends, despite our protests. This should be interesting??  We're required to wear either blue or pink shirts depending on the day. On Thursdays, however, the only requirement is to dress "beautiful"...whatever that means.

We're both loving Thailand!

~ Stacy

AYC - Thailand

Stace and I both know it's been awhile!!! So here is a brief summary of the past couple of weeks. We arrived back in Bangkok after a month of travel. We had an amazing time and were able to get a lot of sun. When we arrived back in Bangkok, there were many new faces at our guesthouse. Many of the new teachers began arriving daily and it was great to not only catch up with our old friends, but also meet many new ones. We had five days to kill before leaving for the seminar, which is required in order to be a foreign teacher in Thailand.  We spent this time getting better acquainted with Bangkok and spending every night getting to know everyone. We spent one day going to a weekend market, Chatuchak, which was extremely busy and a lot of fun to just walk around in. We also traveled to China Town which was also pretty cool.













The seminar was very useful. It included Thai history and culture, lesson planning and classroom management.  We, also, gained some insight on how to find apartments and get settled. It didn't hurt that we got to stay at a nice hotel for 5 days with free food. The hotel we stayed at was actually on the river Kawai and was a shooting location for the movie, The Bridge Over the River Kawai.

We spent each night at the pool and  participated in karaoke - no worries Stace and I made sure we were not the ones holding the  mics ;). The seminar also gave us a chance to get to know all of the AYC teachers, there are about 70 in all. This was great because Stace and I are the only ones placed at our school.  This way we now have friends teaching in various cities all over Thailand, it will be great to reconnect on weekends and holidays.. We had two days back in Bangkok to say goodbye to everyone before leaving for Samut Sakhon.

~ Randi