Today I started my first class through the American TESOL program (Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages) that is conducted right at the resort where I am staying. There are 27 students in the class from America, Canada, Ireland, Indonesia, India, and the United Kingdom. We all come from such different backgrounds. For example, we have a retired doctor/stockbroker, a former high school principal, a dietitian, teachers and everything in between. Most people range from about 25 - 30 years old, but there a few older people who are taking the course as a fun retirement job! Our teacher, Sangeeta, is from South Africa and has taught this course all over the world.
The class includes 80 hours of classroom work for us and 40 hours of teaching and observation in 2 different schools. We learn different formats and teaching techniques to help prepare us, because we are not allowed to speak Thai to any of the children. From my understanding all the students we will be teaching will have learned the English alphabet and numbers, but that is the basics. This is a very intense 3 week course that includes a lot of lesson planning and homework outside the class, but I am excited to share ideas and practices with all these well educated people.
It is now also required that teachers coming into Thailand have 20 hours of cultural training at the completion of the course. Our TESOL leaders here in Chiang Mai will go through that will us on November 29th and 30th.
2 comments:
Good Morning my lovely!!! Reading your last post makes me SO excited for you!! WELCOME to the teaching world, you are going to GREAT!!! Your group sounds very diverse and interesting. I have been sicker than a dog all week, but am FINALLY going back to work today! YIPPEE! Just wanted to let you know I have been thinking about you! LOVE YA! Kali
Oh my gosh!! I thought of you the other day and I was like I need to call Jen because I haven't talked to her in a while even though when you were here we only lived 10 minutes way and never saw each other and then I had to stop myself because you aren't here and I miss you a lot. I wish I could experience this with you and I'm so jealous but I can't wait to hear your stories. I love you lots and I can't wait to read more blogs.
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