Thainglish

The language barrier here has proven to be a pretty difficult bridge to cross when teaching. When coming here to be an assistant teacher, I assumed that the children would already have basic English communication skills having studied English since Primary School, but it appears not to be the case. I am in no way criticizing the Thai way of teaching as it is obviously incredibly successful, as I have never seen kids so driven and so respectful in my life! But it seems that although some of these children could write for hours in English - they have no idea what they are actually saying.

Every single student I have interacted with responds to 'How are you?' with 'I'm fine thank you, and you?' and if I answer with 'I'm good' instead of 'I'm fine', they get incredible confused. It's a shame that they have only been taught one way of answering this question, as I really do want to know how they are! In the same way when I ask 'Understand?' in a lesson, they respond with a united 'YES!', even when I can tell they have not the slightest clue what the crazy white girl has been talking about for the last 5 minutes.

Although the school have asked me to stick to the text book and cover as many pages as I can each lesson, I'm taking one page at a time, making sure they completely understand the words on that page, can pronounce them correctly, before playing a game and then testing them on it. And then I move on to the next page. I don't see the point in me reading out a page long passage about Tim, and how Tim loves playing Basketball, and plays this position, and after Basketball goes for Pizza with Bob who has brown hair and green eyes.... When the kids obviously have no clue what I'm on about and just passively repeat the words I say. That is a method of teaching a Thai teacher can use, but it would be a pointless use of my time here. To teach them the meaning of the words and pronunciation is something a Thai teacher cannot do, as it is not their native language. Enter Teacher Roo! I love watching it click, and love marking a piece of homework that is 10/10 and knowing that it is down to my input.

First bit of marking!

I can't deny how much I wish I could speak and understand Thai whilst at school though. It can get very frustrating when on the few occasions I've taught a lesson without the aid of another teacher, the kids don't understand me. At this point, I always get one of favourites (yes, I have favourites, apologies) who has understood me to stand up in class and explain to the rest of them. I almost feel guilty at my lack of Thai language skills, when they make such an effort over here to learn English! This is the same outside of the classroom; every single Thai person I have encountered - whether a waiter, bus driver, shop assistant - has known enough of the basics for me to be able to communicate what I need. English people generally speaking are so lazy with learning other languages (myself included big time), and it's only coming here that I've really noticed that.

Being mean and making them read out in class.

I would love to know what people are saying when they point at me and giggle - teachers, students and locals. I would love to know what one of my lovely students with a learning disorder is saying when he speaks at me for a solid half hour, convinced I know what he is saying. But the language barrier has also been a means for some very funny moments in the last month.
Firstly, when my students need the toilet they always say 'I am the toilet please?'. My inner child comes out as it cracks me up every time, and I always teach them the correct way of asking this question but it will take me a while to get round to everyone.
Another funny moment was a very specific bus journey with Miss Aimee Short that I won't forget for a while, on the way back from Sai Ree Beach to Chumphon. This man - clearly drunk man may I add - decided he quite liked young Aimee. He sat next to her on the bus, far to close, and spoke to her solidly for about 20 minutes in Thai whilst touching up her tattoo. However much she kept saying 'I'm sorry, I don't understand you', he was not getting it! We both just ended up crying with laughter, nodding and smiling at this man, until he got what I can only guess was a bit of a bollocking from the bus driver as he proceeded to take his top off to show Aimee his tattoo. A quick 'I love you' as he got off the bus and stumbled down the street, and we just turned to each other and said, 'Did that actually just happen?'.

Aimee on the bus, seconds before drunk man entered...

We also do have a laugh at the way Thai people pronounce words. They sound like they are constantly sirening (those of you reading that are singers will know what I mean). Basically when you make the 'ng' sound of 'sing'. (You just tried to make the sound, didn't you?) The whole weekend in Phi Phi - more of Phi Phi later - was spent with us all 'sawadeeKYYAAAAA' ing at each other and cracking up. Briar waking up Tom - one of the lovely travellers we met - by screaming it in his ear has to be a highlight of the weekend! Hilarious

I asked my mentor about how difficult it was to learn a whole new alphabet, and she surprised me in saying it wasn't to hard, as it is much easier than Thai. Whilst English has only 26 letters in the alphabet and 5 vowels, Thai has over 40 letters, 30 of which are vowels. Hence the many funny noises!
I really would love to learn more Thai; I'm a bit embarrassed at how little I've learnt. But people are so keen on speaking English to me that it's very difficult to pick up. Especially when I have to try and force my mouth to make vowel sounds it never has before. But hey, there's still 3 weeks to go! I could get fluent in 3 weeks right?