Teaching in Thailand, Get Ready With Me!

I filmed a little get ready with me video, which you can check out below.

 This is a realistic, every-day morning for me in Thailand before I hop on my motorbike to school as a teacher in Thailand. Just a little fun video to show you a few things like the time I wake up, my breakfast, my (cold) shower and products that I use as well as what I wear to school and how I get there J

I hope you enjoy it!

Cola 

How to inspire English Language Students!

How to Inspire Your English Language Students - Awesome Lesson Plan Ideas

Lesson planning is one of the most important things you can do as an EFL teacher.

There have been plenty of horror stories from teachers who took a teaching job abroad, with no formal training and little in the way of support from their new school. They were thrown in the deep end; expected to teach a classroom of students without a curriculum, never mind a textbook.

Those teachers quickly learned that they would have to start planning lessons. Fortunately, there are lots of resources on the internet to help. This is one of them.

Here are some tips for creating awesome lesson plans that will engage, inspire and motivate your students. And make your job a joy! These tips can be tailored to your students’ level too.

Useful Lesson Planning Resources

The wonderful thing about the TEFL community is how generous they are with their knowledge and experience. You don’t have to go it alone and create incredible lessons entirely from scratch. There are lots of wonderful websites providing free templates and plans that you can tailor to your classes. Here are some of our favourites:

·       English is a Piece of Cake

·       English Banana

·       Fluent U

·       TEFLicious

Outline the Goal of Your Lesson

Before you dive into planning it’s important to settle on a few goals for your lesson. Here are some things to consider:

·       Will you be teaching absolute beginners or students with some prior experience of the language? Make sure your lesson is appropriate for their level of understanding.

·       Is the focus on writing, reading or speaking? A combination of all three? Does the school have a preference?

·       Are you teaching alone or will you have support from a co-teacher (who can translate the rules of games etc)?

·       How will you measure progress?

·       And are you prepared for students who learn at different speeds?

Two Ways to Spice up Dull Lessons

Keep the students entertained and coming back for more.

Fun and Games

Language games are a fantastic learning tool for students of all ages. They’ll add an element of fun to your lesson that students will appreciate.  

Games can serve as a great warm-up at the beginning of class or a nice way to sum up what you learnt at the end. You can use games to practice conversation, test vocabulary and grammar, improve reading comprehension and so much more.

There are hundreds of games you could play, but this list is a great starting point (and other teachers are sharing their favourite games in the comments.

Interactive Media

We live in a digital age. Pen and paper are no longer enough to sustain the interest of students. Incorporating video games, smartphones/tablets, music and film into your lessons can be a great way to combat this.

This is called Computer Assisted Language Learning. It may not be feasible to create an entirely interactive classroom (it can be costly or the school may prohibit it) but it’s certainly possible to introduce at least some interactive elements.

Video games allow students to learn while they play. Apps offer a multitude of ways to learn. Online visual dictionaries help students remember words. The list goes on...

We hope our advice has provided some food for thought and inspiration for future lesson plans. Have any tips of your own? Share in the comments below!

This is a guest post by Mark at icaltefl.com. He asked me if he could write this article about how to inspire English Language students which I thought would be a great idea for my blog! There are lots of great tips in this article! I hope you like it as much as I do :)

Watch me teach!

Here is a little snippet of a class I taught on the topic of ‘Shapes’ to my Kindergarten class in Thailand. In the video, I show a little warm up we do at the start of each lesson, I think it’s always good to start with something fun to get the students excited and ready to learn English.  I find the topics of ‘body/actions’ are great for warm ups as they’re really simple and fun! During the lesson I try to keep as much energy in the room as possible, I remember when I was in school, I'd always pay attention more if the teacher was more energetic! :)

I hope you like the video!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Tips for a Novice English Language Teacher

  Firstly,

Plan!

I personally think teaching is really easy if you plan. I can definitely see the difference in a lesson that I have planned out well and one that I haven't. In a well planned out lesson both me, and the students come out smiling at the end of it, in contrast, if I've not given enough time to planning a lesson, I find it doesn't run as smoothly and it general it is just not as enjoyable! So try and plan something fun and engaging! I've found that breaking up the lesson into small parts keeps students the most interested. 

Secondly,

Communicate clearly!

I think it is important to remember that when you’re teaching a language you must speak slowly and clearly so that you are more easily understood by your students. As well as this, try and use actions and visual aids to further clarification. I’ve found when I speak slower or use actions to describe things, my students will definitely ‘click’ more with what saying and amazingly they will also respond with questions using actions or visual aids too!

Thirdly,

Get to know your students!

I think it is really important to get to know a little bit about your students. In my experience if you know students names and can remember them and what they're interested in, then they're a lot more attentive in class because they feel valued. I believe that if you as the teacher are putting in the effort of getting to know your students, then they're going to put a lot more effort into your class! Knowing the names of students is also really helpful when it comes to selecting students in the class and marking work or giving grades!

Fourthly,

Allow your students to speak!

Even though you're the teacher, make sure you are not doing all of the talking, allow your students to speak too! After all, it is a language lesson! With this, try not to be too critical when your students are speaking. From my experience, I have found that it’s important to let students speak from understanding first and then evaluate their speech afterwards. Try not to correct students whilst they’re speaking, doing so may hinder their confidence with speaking, exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to gain!

Lastly,

Reflect on your teaching!

I think when you're a beginner teacher it's really important to reflect on each lesson you teach so you can see what worked and what didn't and most importantly and how you think you would change it next time. If you have an assistant in the room you can ask for their feedback too! When I first started teaching I remember asking my assistant for some feedback and she said that maybe I spoke too quietly, something I had never even considered, but I took her advice and in the next class I spoke a lot louder and it was amazing how much more focussed the students were.

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Watch the video here:

Please subscribe to my youtube channel for more videos :)

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Halloween Kindergarten Lesson in Thailand

So tomorrow is Halloween *squeals* and tonight there will also be a full moon, which is apparently the first one on Halloween night for several years, spooky! I love Halloween and will sure be settling down with some popcorn to watch 'Hocus Pocus' later. Something I do ever year. Yep. Living in Thailand won't stop me celebrating! There are no 'Trick or Treaters' unfortunately, but luckily for me I have a bunch of giddy Kindergarten that love sweets and a bit of a scare.

Told you.

I thought I would show you my Halloween lesson for my kindergarten students in Thailand.

It's a really simple lesson as I only had half an hour to teach!

I found trying to explain the story of Halloween to my Kindergarten (4-5-year-olds) quite tricky (my Thai is not THAT good). I nevertheless managed to summon the words for 'ghost, witch, wizard and haunted house' and a few other things in Thai! Go me! Being able to translate certainly helped and added to the fun!

If you're interested here is what they are...

GHOST:  [Pee]

Witch: [Mer Moss]

Wizard: [Par Moss]

Haunted House: [Ban Pee Sing]

Scared: [Glua]

The flashcards I used were from here:

http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/topic/faiths-festivals-celebrations/halloween.html#.VjMbAmThAy4

Sparkle box is such a fantastic resource for flashcards.

For the game I simply used some tack to stick the flashcards to the whiteboard and these:

(Bought from Central Department Store)

The students basically had to run, pick up the spider and hit the right flashcard then put the spider back in its' web :)

There was of course candy for the winning team.

www.youtube.com/teachercola

Lots of love 'n' stuff 

Cola

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My top 5 Tips For Teaching in Thailand

Hello, everyone! I've been teaching in Thailand for over four years now. Crazy I know! I really love it here now but when I first arrived I found it quite hard to understand completely what was expected of me and I had a few problems understanding the culture and settling into my school. And that's why I'm writing this! I wanted to make this blog in case it would help any teachers who are just about to come and teach in Thailand.

Tip 1: Be punctual

Whilst "Thai time" is definitely a thing, it does not apply to working hours, so remember to be on time! The other teachers will not appreciate it if you are late. Also, remember if you're coming to Thailand to teach because you mainly want to travel Thailand, keep the travelling outside of the teaching hours, again, in Thailand they won't appreciate if you're off sick a lot because you've been off galavanting (or island hopping).

Tip 2: Dress politely

Teachers are very highly respected in Thailand so it is of the utmost importance that you dress polite conservative 'teacher' clothing! Girls, they like it if you wear skirts, make sure it's on your knees or below your knees, failing that wear some tailored trousers (if you can stand them in the heat!). Boys, you have no choice unless you can rock a skirt.  Everyone will need to wear shirts which cover their shoulders and that are in no way see-through too (students will pick up on that bit of bra showing, trust me.) Finally, you will need to wear closed-toe shoes.
Oh and if you have any tattoos on show, try and cover them up.

Tip 3: Smile

Thailand is known as the land of smiles as you probably will already know and they really like it when you smile! From my experience, I've learnt that Thai people tend to like teachers who smile a lot and try and communicate. Students will love it if you're smiley and happy too!

Tip 4: Have fun

Have fun whilst teaching! Students love to play games and just laugh! 

Don't try and make the teaching too serious, that will probably just scare the students and make them not want to learn English. A lot of students in Thailand are fine at things like grammar and writing, as they learn this a lot from the teachers - they're just not confident in speaking English. So yeah! Make your lessons fun and try to give the students a chance to speak and hopefully, this will build up their confidence with English!

Tip 5: Don't stress

Thailand can be a bit disorganised sometimes. Not in a really bad way, they just aren't as planned out as we are in the West.  Try not to stress about it and just go with the flow because one thing I have learnt is that things in Thailand thing just have a funny way of working out!

 I have no idea how but they just do!

:)

Lots of love 'n' stuff

Cola

Watch the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbAwcVcsOAg