Today at school, I had the pre-school, 1st, and 2nd graders. They're always good for a laugh, but it comes with the price of utter and sheer frustration at times. They don't know how to write/read Thai words yet, so they certainly don't understand when we try to teach them the English words.
We brought with us some tracing sheets for the pre-schoolers (ages 4-5) to work on that we had drawn up yesterday. They were the letters "F" and "G". As long as we provide them with a faint outline of each letter on the page, they are able to trace it, erasers always at the ready. This happens most often with the older kids, but we sometimes even see it in pre-school and kindergarten: they will erase an entire page of work and start over if, at the end, they deem it not perfect. Thai children are absolute perfectionists when it comes to handwriting--my 4th teacher, Ms. Pengov, would be so proud (she was a stickler on penmanship). I think it must be because their characters/letters for their alphabet are so numerous and intricate that if they make a mistake, it would be unreadable, but sometimes we are forced to confiscate white-out and erasers just so they can get through the class.
After we had them work on the sheets we brought, we had them get into a circle and played some duck, duck, goose. It was the first time we'd played that with them, and they positively screamed with glee every time someone ran around the circle. We had some pretty harsh looking wipe-outs, but no one seemed too badly hurt, and the games continued.
My patience was tested most today with the 1st graders. We had decided to try to teach them how to sound out words, so I wrote Cat, Bat, Rat, Sat, Fat, and Pat on the board, and explained this in as logical and simple a way as I could possibly think of. I guess it wasn't simple enough, though, because I drilled them over and over on the words, pointed out "at" in each word, enclosed the "a-t" in boxes to show the similarities, and painstakingly went over the sound of each letter multiple times. They still didn't get it or wouldn't say they got it. I could tell I was getting frustrated, and I was angry with myself for not being able to explain it in a manner they could understand--it made perfect sense to me the way I was doing it. At one point, I irrationally told myself they were being stupid on purpose. Obviously not true. Anyway, Maggie could obviously tell after fifteen minutes of this that I was too frustrated to continue, and took over, sadly, to no success. We gave up after another five minutes and gave them a color worksheet we had on reserve in case of just such a situation.
Second grade was easier because we had decided to have them make name tags. It was difficult to understand their names and write them correctly in English, as their accents make it hard to distinguish "r's" from "l's" and "d's" from "t's" or "p's". We got most of them, though, in the end thanks to a helpful boy named "Junior." He sorted out several mistakes I made with the kids sitting around him. There's usually one or two kids in each class who are ahead of the game in English, at least from 2nd grade on. Pre-K through 1st are usually free-for-alls.
I came to the Airport Plaza this afternoon to see a movie and be in the air-con for awhile. The power's out at our house, which means we have no fans, no lights, and worst of all, no toilet or shower. I'm not sure why we have no water but I guess they're both pumped in using some kind of generator. That will be a definite problem tonight.
We brought with us some tracing sheets for the pre-schoolers (ages 4-5) to work on that we had drawn up yesterday. They were the letters "F" and "G". As long as we provide them with a faint outline of each letter on the page, they are able to trace it, erasers always at the ready. This happens most often with the older kids, but we sometimes even see it in pre-school and kindergarten: they will erase an entire page of work and start over if, at the end, they deem it not perfect. Thai children are absolute perfectionists when it comes to handwriting--my 4th teacher, Ms. Pengov, would be so proud (she was a stickler on penmanship). I think it must be because their characters/letters for their alphabet are so numerous and intricate that if they make a mistake, it would be unreadable, but sometimes we are forced to confiscate white-out and erasers just so they can get through the class.
After we had them work on the sheets we brought, we had them get into a circle and played some duck, duck, goose. It was the first time we'd played that with them, and they positively screamed with glee every time someone ran around the circle. We had some pretty harsh looking wipe-outs, but no one seemed too badly hurt, and the games continued.
My patience was tested most today with the 1st graders. We had decided to try to teach them how to sound out words, so I wrote Cat, Bat, Rat, Sat, Fat, and Pat on the board, and explained this in as logical and simple a way as I could possibly think of. I guess it wasn't simple enough, though, because I drilled them over and over on the words, pointed out "at" in each word, enclosed the "a-t" in boxes to show the similarities, and painstakingly went over the sound of each letter multiple times. They still didn't get it or wouldn't say they got it. I could tell I was getting frustrated, and I was angry with myself for not being able to explain it in a manner they could understand--it made perfect sense to me the way I was doing it. At one point, I irrationally told myself they were being stupid on purpose. Obviously not true. Anyway, Maggie could obviously tell after fifteen minutes of this that I was too frustrated to continue, and took over, sadly, to no success. We gave up after another five minutes and gave them a color worksheet we had on reserve in case of just such a situation.
Second grade was easier because we had decided to have them make name tags. It was difficult to understand their names and write them correctly in English, as their accents make it hard to distinguish "r's" from "l's" and "d's" from "t's" or "p's". We got most of them, though, in the end thanks to a helpful boy named "Junior." He sorted out several mistakes I made with the kids sitting around him. There's usually one or two kids in each class who are ahead of the game in English, at least from 2nd grade on. Pre-K through 1st are usually free-for-alls.
I came to the Airport Plaza this afternoon to see a movie and be in the air-con for awhile. The power's out at our house, which means we have no fans, no lights, and worst of all, no toilet or shower. I'm not sure why we have no water but I guess they're both pumped in using some kind of generator. That will be a definite problem tonight.
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