SPORTS DAY

I was over joyed to find out that sports day lasted three days at my school! The first day consisted of the 'opening ceremony'- which nearly topped the Olympics in London. The teachers didn't sleep the night before as they were too busy setting up smoke machines, rehearsing songs and cooking food. The headteacher invited the Chairman of Suphan Buri FC (the son of the former president of Thailand), and some other local 'VIP'S' aka ballers from the area. It was an amazing morning, the kids all had a role to play and got to dress up and eat ice cream all morning before the girls football started in the afternoon- this was equally as entertaining with them screaming and falling over the ball for most of the game, it was like watching myself play!

All of the teachers and the chair man in the middle

 Cheerleaders!

 The four houses- Blue Green Red and Pink

BREAKFAST

I started trying to eat breakfast the traditional Thai way, but it soon got too much- fish, rice and noodles at 6am started to make me gag! So after moving into the blue house I managed to convince my mentors that I could do breakfast myself, it was a joyous moment, check this out...

ETA MID WEEK MEET UP

Through the facebook everyone discovered who was near by so we could meet up during the week for catch ups! This week Liam invited us locals to his 'Thai Aunties' for dinner. It was soooo good, the family were amazing and had gone to such effort to track down takeaway pizza's, fries, and English tv. They spoke such good English, it was so refreshing to hang out with them for the night. They drove us all back to our homes- mine took 45 minutes to get to which at home would be a total nightmare but they couldn't have happier to make sure we had the perfect night!

Sorry- cant find 'rotate' in Thai!!

Another mid week meet up, this time organised by the British Council. It was so good to see a big group of ETA's who traveled from the surrounding areas along with their mentors! We had a lovely meal at a local hotel and arranged plans for September- the end is sadly in sight!

Pui's dinner party!

SCHOOL IN THE SUN

Sat marking books outside and being surrounded by this is really difficult..........

GIFTS

Everyday in Thailand is a different gift. So far the kind gestures have ranged from a house to a bowl of sweetcorn- nothing shocks me anymore! The students and teachers, and in fact everyone that I have come in to contact with have been so generous and kind. In order to feel less guilty I have been buying bags of sweets for the children as rewards in class, buying or just making coffee for the teachers is very much appreciated, and hopefully shows them that I care too!

This is a 'shrimp burger' brought to me at school at 7am, fresh out of the microwave- yum?!

1 bowl of sweetcorn

5 ELLE magazines

Around ten bags of popcorn (amazing)

Fresh fruit- daily

Nail varnishes (every shade, remover and cotton wool)

DVD's

One Direction album

A mosquito swatter

Ice cream

Pancakes

A silk scarf

Teddies

Sweets

Coffee

THE LIST GOES ON!

FILMING FOR THE THAI NEWS

So today 'Morning World' came with the British Council to film me teaching at school. It was all very casual, they informed me I would be filmed teaching, have a short interview which would be aired to around 7 MILLION people in Thailand in about two weeks. Out of the 200 ETA's, I was told that just three of us would be filmed. I'm not sure why my area was picked, maybe it was easy for them to get to- but my director obviously knew about this before me as he popped to the salon for his hair and makeup to be done- I wish I was joking. I chose to sport the au natural look, the sweaty round face is in fact a 'glowing complexion', which took me hours to perfect, a thank you.
Here are some photos from the day. I did 'how often' with the students, they were amazing and answered all my questions perfectly. Probably due to the fact I promised them sweets every day for the next week. I also somehow ended giving the film crew a tour of my house, and had to do a walking interview around the lake/large pond in the middle of the school grounds. For some reason I wasn't nervous. I think it's because I found out about it all half an hour before it happened, so nerves would only waste valuable lesson planning time!

 Getting 'miced up'

SCHOOL WORK

I usually get given activities covering a subject of the teachers choice, so far I have done a lotttt of quizes, games, introductions etc thus allowing the students to get confident around me- not to much pressure and a relaxed classroom environment!

Good subjects that work well within the classroom are:
-Directions- forwards, backwards, left, right, straight on, 5 minutes, half an hour, walk, take a taxi etc. Then asking the students, how do I get to the Maths classroom? How do I get to the supermarket?

-The body- feet, legs, head, arms etc. Then the song head, shoulders knees and toes. Labelling the body etc.

-My favourite- My favourite toy/colour/tv show/ music etc.

-Tenses (older students) Drink, Drank, Drunk. How and when to use the different words.

Test all of this knowledge with wordsearches, matching the sentences, question and answers, quizes etc.

A good way to test the students knowledge is to play 'guess the words'- read out 5 clues and the first team to guess the correct word gets the point. For example-
1. It is a fruit
2. It is big
3. It has green or yellow skin
4. It has black seeds
5. It is sweet and juicy
WATERMELON!

For some of my younger students (12) I strangely decided to make 100 envelopes by hand, with 12 handmade stickers inside of colour blocks. One lesson we did objects (rollerskates, digital camera, electric guitar etc) and then the next lesson, referring to their textbooks I asked them to write sentences in their exercise books saying:
'The electric guitar is red, I have/don't have an electric guitar.' and then put the correct colour sticker next to it. A little more exciting than just writing sentences!

I also made flash cards of fruits: Apple, Strawberry, Watermelon etc