Starting the TEFL Course 1st week of School

So it finally arrived, our first day at the TEFL course (bricking it a bit ;-). 

It’s been while since we were both in school, probably a decade now, so hoped the brain could still function at taking in information that wasn't related to what boozer I’m going to on the weekend and what teams to pick for my accumulator (gambling is illegal in Thailand, which is another good thing as I (Stephen) was useless at it :-)

Our training consists of a 6 week course Monday to Thursday (3 day weekend baby) and each Thursday from the second week on-wards we would be straight into the classroom, teaching 3-4 kids they round up from around the area.

1st day of school

Day one we woke up early, knocked into our American neighbor and class mate and set off on the red rocket 5 minutes down the road to where we would be taking the class. 

We went in early to get breakfast in the complex and of course had to take the first day of school picture, like the ones that engulfed Facebook back at the start of September.

The complex was huge and had 30 food stands with all types of food and juice bars to pick from.

My breakfast usually consists of chicken, rice and a fried egg, whereas Kristine is a lot more adventurous an has tried nearly everything they have to offer at this stage.

Teacher Boris

We got to class early and met our new mentor for the next 6 weeks (Teacher Boris). In Thailand the kids refer to you by first name so we will soon be teacher Stephen and teacher Kristine... We can’t wait.

We filled out the required forms and where given a rundown of the course and then went straight into grammar and the 12 tenses...WHAT! 12 tenses!!... Past present and future and each one having 4 tenses within... At this stage I realized how little I knew about my first language and got very nervous about the thoughts of teaching but as the day progress it all started to come back to me, Kristine was the star pupil on the first day, as she had done this more recently and that night helped me understand and memorize everything I needed, she was awesome. 

I think the last time I had to learn this stuff was when I was 6 or 7 years old and the fact I struggle to remember what happened last week, I knew this would be a challenge. 

The first week we went over everything we need to know about conjugating sentences and the difficulties we would face teaching Thai kids, as the Thai language doesn't have tenses, articles and prepositions.

So if they talk about going to the market it’s usually summarised as:

- I go  market yesterday

- I go market today

- I go market tomorrow

It was the same with plurals if they want more than one of something they put the number at the end i.e.: "bowl rice two, please" instead of: "I would like two bowls of rice please." and it will be our job to teach them the correct sentence structure. We continued the week in this manner and did some presentations and practice sessions while studying at night and were glad when 4 pm hit on Thursday and it was the weekend and we could relax. 

And then the drinking could begin...... :-)

Aaron, Kenny, Kristine and Stephen