I'm a teacher!

Well, the time finally came. On October 11th I began my job here in Laos - teaching English at Nita School. Nita is a private Lao school in the village right next to my house. It started as a primary school, but has been adding a grade every year - next year it will have all the grades and graduate its first class of students. There are about 1,300 students in total. I teach the secondary students: M2-M6 (the equivalent of grades 7-11 in the US). The school is gated off from the road and there are two main buildings of classrooms with a big courtyard in between that has lots of trees. I love it. Whenever I look out of a classroom, I am always sure to see a lot of green. It's wonderful. One building has two stories, the other has three. The students stay in the same classroom all day, so I end up moving around to rooms on the second and third floors in both buildings (the primary students are on the first floors).






I teach 22 class periods a week (although 16 of those are double periods: the same class for two 50 min blocks back-to-back), with 10 different classes: three 7th grades, two 8th grades, two 9th grades, two 10th grades, and one 11th grade. The big challenge is that the younger grades are the ones with the most students!! My middle-school age classes all have around 50 students each and then it dwindles from there down to 22 students in M6 (the 11th grade class).



One of the biggest challenges is the fact that the students do not have the English books (well, there is actually one class where about every other student has a book, but Im not sure why they have them and the others do not...). So I am left with me, one book (they provided me with a copy of the student book, not a teachers manual), a chalk board, and the students notebooks/pens. It is definitely a challenge! I am still trying to figure out the best way to do lessons. Right now, when there is a passage to be read, I write it on the chalkboard and the students copy it...but that means sometimes half the class period is spent copying texts! one

Also, the Lao educational environment is very different than America. Students are not used to the "raise your hand to answer a question" thing or to the "work in small groups/partners" thing: almost everything is done together as a class. So what ends up happening is few smart kids answer every question and it is very easy for the bad students to sit in the back and learn nothing. I am working on asking specific kids questions, but it is also very easy to lose the attention of the rest of the class if you do any sort of "one-on-one" help. Like I said, it's a challenge but I feel like I am getting a little better every week. There is much more to say about the Lao school system (it is definitely...different), but it will have to wait for another day.


This is actually a strange picture - I usually always have my shirt tucked in...it's kind of part of the teacher outfit...not sure what happened this day...but anyway, this is just a quick little update on the teaching job. There are definitely many more stories to tell (like how I often get asked to sing for my students and have even sung "My Heart Will Go On" by request!) but I have run out of time - I need to go back to school!!

I will definitely try to post more soon. It has been hard to find time to upload the pictures and write. I only get to a computer once or twice a week and then I usually end up on facebook or doing emails or skyping. however, I really do want to share some of the many fun things that have been happening for the last month! Look for more updates soon!