First day at work

Just a quick post.. I might try and spruce it up with a picture or something later!

Just got back from my first day at work at a new school in Thailand..

I was getting rather nervous by the morning.. but I calmed myself down with a bit of music.. stepped forth into the classroom.. and..

everything went fine..

My first class were lovely, second group were a bit lazy but nothing too serious and both classes were only small (around 10 students)

I planned the first lesson to be a nice gentle introduction.. They enjoyed the games and made reasonable efforts with the more creative stuff..

I had a game where they had to ask questions about me using objects I'd brought in as clues and then students had to guess the answer to the questions. The balloon I'd brought in to represent my rocket show at the musuem prompted one girl to think I'd been working as a clown in London!


I knew I'd feel much better when I got through the first day..

Just got to get going on planning some more serious leesons for next week now.

Rich x

Chicken Is Burnt!

I've just got back from my first "English Camp".. These are arranged in the school holidays in Thailand to give Thai kids a kind of total immersion language experience..

From my limited experience teaching Thai kids they are INCREDIBLY shy.. so the idea of these camps is to help make English fun and accessible and give a purpose to communication through games and activities..

As part of our preparation for the camp we were given a sheet with suggested English songs.. this included such classics as "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "Old McDonald Had a Farm"..

There was however one song which immediately stood out..

The song is called "Chicken Is Burnt" and the somewhat disturbing lyrics are below;

Chicken is burnt, chicken is burnt

It will be stabbed, it will be stabbed,

Stab to the left, stab to the right

Very hot, very hot, very hot

I assumed this must have been some kind of unfortunate translation but when I mentioned the song to my flatmate he immediately started singing in thai whilst performing a bizarre dance routine.. so it appears that Thai children actually do cheerfully sing a song about burning and stabbing chickens!!

The English camp itself was quite an experience.. I had a lot of fun, even though it was pretty tiring.. my role was more to be an MC and a clown than a teacher.. trying to be silly enough and make a big enough fool of myself that the children would relax and speak a bit of English.

The children were organised into six groups of 13, and I was the leader of the "Flying Elephants".. we had our very own song and flag.. and my team actually WON the overall prize.. (obviously they must have had a good teacher!)

We played lots of games with blindfolds, pin the "head, legs, mouth, nose hat AND tail" on the donkey, food making and tasting (I made the slightly naughty girl in my group eat a raw chilli). One of the highlights was the game "make up your friend" students had to apply lipstick, powder and blusher to a partner while blindfolded.. the look on the boys faces when they realised what was going to happen was enough to make the whole camp worthwhile..

I'd say the camp was a big success.. on the coach on the way there the children all sat in a subdued silence, terrified that the scary farang teachers might ask them a question.. on the return leg Jeremy and I had to fend off a mob of kids wanting to ask us questions, give us food and teach us Thai..

I'd definitely recommend working on one of these camps to people who are new to TEFL teaching. It's a great chance to try out lots of games and see how kids react to them.

That's it from me.. need to sleep now.

Did I mention we were up at 6.30am on the second day doing dance aerobics??

Phetchaburi and Cha-Am

At the start of October my friend Jonathon came to Thailand so I had the chance to be tour guide and visit a few interesting places..

First stop was Cha-Am a coastal resort town a few hours South West of Bangkok on the Gulf coast. We arrived in a thunderstorm but we stayed in a very posh hotel (with bell boys and everything).

The resort had a rather plush (completely empty) karaoke room where we "entertained" the staff with a unique version of "The Final Countdown".

We were keen to get away from the coast and do some trekking in the jungle, and in Cha-am there were a range of tours available to.

We plumbed for a trip to Pala-U waterfall, close to the Burmese border. We stopped off on route to see Wat Huay Mongkhon, the largest statue of Luang Poh Tuad in the world.

For the uneducated, Poh Tuad was a Buddhist monk who lived around 500 years ago and became famous for a miracle in which he turned salt water fresh by soaking his legs in the sea.

The waterfall is made up of 15 tiers and reaching the top involves a fairly arduous walk up over slippery rocks and rickety bridges.

The main falls are impressive but probably the most entertaining feature of the falls is the abundance of catfish.

Bags of fish food are available in the car park, which when thrown in the pools cause a commotion, with fish scrambling over each other and throwing themselves out of the water to get a piece of the action.

You can walk and swim in the pools but after the violence with which the fish attacked the food pellets I was somewhat apprehensive.

In reality the fish were more scared of me than I was of them so after wading into the water I found myself surrounded by circling fish, sniffing and checking me out but not daring to touch me.

Curiously every tour offered a visit to a pineapple plantation and the opportunity to "meet the planation owner and talk to him about his work".

Sadly when we arrived at the pineapple plantation the owner wasn't there, so my burning pineapple questions remain unanswered.

As our tour guide rather quaintly pointed out, the pineapples "no have babies".



On the way back to Bangkok we stopped off for the night in Phetchaburi, a sleepy town packed full of wats.

Much to my excitement the place was full of monkeys - they were sitting on the power lines, hanging off the roof of our hotel and casually swinging on the trees in the park.

My initial enthusiasm was soon tempered though - the monkeys are to Phetchaburi what seagulls are to Brighton - a pest and a thorough nuisance. And with teeth like that you don't want to mess with them.




On our way up Khao Wang mountain the next day, Jonathon failed to heed the warning that "the monkeys might do harm if they are hungry, agitated or disturbed".

As Jonathon chewed on his chocolate bar, a particularly ugly looking macaque strolled over to him holding out his hands for a snack.

He wasn't requesting so much as demanding and within seconds he was upon Jonathon, clawing at his shirt and baring his teeth. I think you can guess who ended up eating that chocolate bar.

At the top of the mountain were a number of wats, a museum and the royal observatory, together with some spectacular views of the surrounding area.




The final item on our agenda was a visit to the Khao Luang cave, a short songthaew ride from the city. Accompanied but a guide who fended off the monkeys in the car park, we descended a steep staircase until we reached the first chamber of the cave. The scene inside was truly beautiful with giant Buddha statues illuminated by shards of light from a hole in the roof of the chamber.