TEFL Program In Thailand – Part 4 of 4 – Graduation And The Next Step

We have completed our TEFL program in Thailand and week 4 of teaching is over. We also took our final exam this week. Shelly beat me again with a 98 percent. I only had a mere 94 percent. Both good scores and we are really happy to have passed our TEFL/TESOL course with UniTEFL.  They have been incredible and have taught us well.  We have had the best possible teaching experience in Thailand and we are glad we did.  I can't imagine doing an online TEFL and then going in to teach children.  We feel very accomplished with this course.  Before we graduated, we had to teach lessons 7 and 8.  We taught lesson 7 at Bua Krok Noi School and finished up lesson 8 at the Wat Sri Ping Muang School where it all began 4 weeks ago.

Bua Krok Noi School Practical Lesson #7

My lesson at Bua Krok Noi was great! I taught them the difference between SH and CH words, Shelly and I basically did the same lesson. I taught that Shrek eats chicken, chocolate, chilies, chips and cheese.  And Prince Charming eats sushi, shrimp, mashed potatoes, shells and fish. There is no SH or CH sounds in Thai, therefore this can be a challenging lesson for them to get.

Shelly doesn't feel her lesson went well because her kids were having difficulties and she wasn't able to get to the activity portion of the lesson due to time constraints.  She still got great marks on her observer review(our instructor) and everyone who saw her said she did great! Shelly is a great teacher and so am I.  We are both naturals at this, and really connect with our students. 

I was able to get the students engaged through the lesson (which is somewhat boring) and by the end they were getting the concept well. We taught them by holding our finger to our lips during sh sounds and snapping our head forward as if to sneeze to get them to do the ch sound. A lot of them will say only an S sound for both. It was great teaching the kids at Bua Krak Noi School . They are great kids and really appreciate the lessons. None of the schools we are affiliated with, have an English program, so basically we are it.  Only one more lesson in our TEFL program in Thailand left.  It's bittersweet.

Wat Sri Ping Muang SchoolPractical Lesson #8

Our last lesson was to be a redo of a lesson that didn't go so well.  I was going to pick my "Should and Shouldn't Lesson" as it was the only one lesson over the 4 weeks that went horrible in my opinion.  But was told it would be too difficult for the students I would be teaching at Sri Ping. I decided to do my "Princess/Prince in a castle lesson on prepositions. This lesson didn't go great for me the first time I did it at another school, so I really wanted to give it another try.  Shelly felt her lesson with CH and SH didn't go so well, so she decided to give that one another try.  She was also told that her "Can and Can't" lesson was too easy for her students at Sri Ping.

I bought a couple hula hoops to demonstrate prepositions "in, on, beside, behind, out of." I still used my castle poster I created for my other lesson, for one activity, but changed things up a little to be more organized. I had a hula hoop relay race, and an ice-breaker, where everyone joined hands and two hula hoops had to be passed from student to student until it had been around the circle. I had all girls (funny enough the same ones I had before when we taught at Sri Ping) They liked me so much before they picked me as their teacher this time too! The end game was bowling. They knocked over 1.5 liter water bottles that had a little water in the bottom with a plastic ball. Each bottle had a picture of one of our variables. They then had to say the dialogue with those variables for points. It was great! The lesson went off well and I got a 1, which is the best score you can get!  Our teaching portion of our TEFL program in Thailand is finished!

Top Marks

Susan my observer said she had goose bumps. The kids all got the concept really well, and were able to say the dialogue at the end and that she had seen a huge improvement from the first time she saw me on day one. Shelly also got a 1! Her lesson was awesome! She had some boys and girls who were shy at first, but warmed up to her and were laughing and having a great time by the end. She also did bowling and played "pass the parcel". 

Shelly put some chocolates in a shoe box and then put a picture of chocolate on top(one of her ch words). Then she wrapped it with newspaper and taped another picture of shrimp on that layer, then continued with the layers and variable pictures until it was wrapped 8 times with 10 variables( 5 CH words and 5 SH words).  She then handed one of the kids the box and played some music. They had to pass it from one kid to another in the circle until the music stopped. She then had the kids peel a layer of the parcel and say whatever variable was uncovered in the dialogue. She used Chuck and Shelly this time. It worked AWESOME!!! The kids loved it when they got the question right and could get a chocolate out of the box, you could see their eyes light up playing the game.

Confidence Building and Graduation

Great week of teaching. We both feel incredibly confident that we can go out there and teach whatever we need to teach to pretty much whatever age level. On Thursday we had a dinner and mini-graduation ceremony and then all went out for dancing and drinks afterwards. It was such a great time! We laughed all night and had a wonderful time with the people in this course and staff at UniTEFL. We all got along very well and were able to bounce ideas and help each other out. (there I go ending a sentence with a preposition)  🙂  I'm glad this is a blog and not a literary masterpiece. We are now officially TEFL and TESOL certificate holders and feel incredible!

Next Step - Become Teachers

Our next step is to go to Vietnam and teach in Hanoi. We are heading out this Saturday and have already bought tickets and started our Visa process which only takes a few days to complete. We have to fly to Hanoi separately due to Buddha. It is nearly twice as much to fly an airline that accepts any dog at all in cabin, so Shelly is going that airline, and I am going the budget one. We both fly together to Bangkok, then I fly out at 1pm and Shelly flies out at nearly 6pm. I will get to Vietnam and go get a hotel and sim card for our phones, and then pick her up from the airport.

Change In Perspective

It is kind of weird traveling alone. This is the first international flight we have done so. We are so used to traveling together that when we travel by ourselves it feels strange.  Finding someone you can share this experience with and traveling as extensively as we have is a blessing.  We are completely optimistic we will find work in Hanoi, and cannot wait to start our life teaching. We are in need of money and we are going to Hanoi because it pays nearly double what Chiang Mai and Thailand pays for the same job. There is also a greater demand for teachers in Hanoi. 

Life is falling into place for both of us and again feel we are right where we are supposed to be. Do you feel as if your life is right where your life is supposed to be?  It is you know.  Wherever you are in your life, you need to understand that you are right where you need to be at this time in your life.  Life is not something that is built on our desires and wishes, it's built on where we have been and where we are at this moment.  There is a reason why we are where we are in life.  We learn from the past and are where we are because of the choices we have made.  I don't think we go through life making bad choices. We make choices that (at the time) we think are the right ones.  The consequences of our choices are the only indicators of whether it was a good one or bad one.  

But, are the choices really bad or good?  I don't believe they are. Again we make our choices based on many factors that we decide are the best for the time.  Have faith that they are.  Even the decisions without favorable consequences we learn from.  We learn something that makes us wiser for the next step in life. We decide our next move based on these step we have learned.  Therefore, I really think that the decision to go to Hanoi isn't a good or bad decision.  There is no telling how it will turn out and what the consequences of our decisions will reap. I do know, that no matter what happens I will be right where I need to be to get to the next important step in our life.