Last Week of School

Our first semester of teaching finally wrapped up the last week of February.  We were excited to be so close to our "summer break," but the last few weeks were far from a leisurely coast.  Cyrus and I both decided to give oral exams to all of our students.  A teacher before us suggested it, and it sounded like a good idea, seeing as we wouldn't have to grade over 700 tests....little did we know that asking the same 5 questions to over 700 students isn't much better.  Though it was a little repetitive and rough on my voice, it was good to actually talk to each and every one of our kids (people tend to get lost in a class of 40).

I asked my students basic English questions and a few that had to do with what we learned throughout the semester.  Some of my questions were:

          What is your name?
          What is my name?
          What is one thing you do in the morning?
          What time do you go to bed
          When do you feel excited/angry/scared?

I took the students in two's and three's out into the hall to give them their test:

 

 

Two students (Teen and Nut, see below) goofing off as I was giving the test to other students outside in the hall:

The answers ranged from dismal to impressive, and I always knew it was going to be a long session when the kid struggled to answer "How are you?" (which is something they stand up and say at the beginning of every class).  All in all I was glad I gave a speaking exam though, because a lot of kids who never talk in class are actually really good at English (and alternatively there were a lot of kids who knew next to nothing). It gave us a good idea of where we'll be next year, and how we can improve our teaching styles.

I also had all of my students write their names on a little card and then I took a picture of them holding their names up so I can try to remember them for next semester. Some of my favorites students...

 

 

Now that we're done with our first semester a part of me misses home, but I'm definitely not ready to leave yet.  I look forward to spending another semester with my students, because I feel like I just started getting to know all of them and getting a hang of the whole teaching thing. Here's a little snapshot of some of the kids.

A group from my smartest class:

This is Toppy, one of my more entertaining students.  He's a little bit of a trouble maker, but he always makes me laugh.  The first day of school when I had everyone write their nicknames, he wrote "Toppy....like party, love coyote".  I didn't know what it meant then, and I still don't, but I proceeded to call him that every time I took attendance.

The class watching "Up" during our last day.

These are three of my favorite students: Teen, Nut, and Chai.  They love to come talk with Cyrus and me, and like to joke around with us.  And they speak English pretty well, which is always a plus.

Now that school's done we'll be doing some traveling and hosting my mom for a few weeks.  We start school again in the middle of May, so we have a nice, long break to prepare ourselves.

Paige


Paige summed up our last couple weeks of school pretty well. I decided to give an oral exam just like she did and while it was easier to ask questions than grade a test, asking the same five questions over and over for two and a half weeks straight gets really old. The questions that I asked were:
          -How are you?
          -What is your name?
          -What day is it today/tomorrow/yesterday?
          -What month is it right now/last month/next month?
          -When are you happy/angry/sad/excited?

It seems like it would be a really easy test and for most of the students it was. But when you get some students who don't know how to answer "What is your name?" it can become really hard to not get a little bit frustrated or mad at them. But overall it was a good experience. I got to learn a lot more about the students individually and actually talk to all of them as opposed to only a few who raise their hands every class.

One of the other perks of asking all the questions was I actually got to learn a bit of Thai. Whenever I asked the students a question, they would say the question in Thai just to think about it. Eventually, after hearing the same question in Thai about 800 times I picked up how to say the questions and words in Thai.

Sorry we've been pretty slow with the blogs. But we are planning to post a few in the next week or so and catch all of you up on our adventures. Hope everyone is doing well back home and go State.

Cyrus