Our first week in Chiang Saen

After we got our official schedule from the head of the language department on Monday, we turned up for our first class on Tuesday and were told by the teacher that she actually didn't need us in there that day...we then went around to the rest of the teachers and basically our entire schedule was changed.  Jon and I are serving as supplemental teachers - so we basically take over a class period for the Thai English teachers, so they each have a different way they want to use us.  Two of them, Daniel and Rainbow, have been the most open to us - so those are the only two teachers whose classes we have taught.  I'm hoping the rest will come around though as I know Jon and I can have a huge impact here - many of these Thai English teachers speak VERY little English - even basic communication with them is a challenge... so I know Jon and I can really help them!

We taught two separate classes for Daniel, both for Mattayahom-1, which basically means 7th grade. These students were very low, many of them do not even know the alphabet.  They were very excited to learn though, and I think we can help them a lot in the coming months.  In Rainbow's class, we will be teaching the same class of students on Thursdays and on Fridays.  We are very excited about this as with most of the classes we will only get to see once a week...given that there are about 40 students in each class, it is already hard enough to get to know each student.  Rainbow's students are in Mattayahom-3, or ninth grade, and are also a lot of fun.  They are also at a much higher level of English, so I think it will be really cool to see how far we can take them.

A treat Rainbow brought to school for us to try

One of the highlights of the teaching experience so far has been the students' English nicknames...each child has an English nickname that we use in class. I have NO idea where these nicknames came from, but they range from standard names like Andrew to video game characters like Max Payne, to random English words like Bread, Bad,  and my favorite, Spray.  In the last class we taught I started phonetically spelling the students' Thai names in English for them to use as their nickname, and I think this is the route I will try to push most students towards... I'm thinking it is more useful in the long run, although maybe not as hilarious.

Jon and I introducing ourselves at the school assembly

This weekend has been pretty exciting as Chiang Saen has been celebrating the Queen's birthday, which also serves as Mother's Day in Thailand.  This has meant lots of fireworks (sometimes coming dangerously close to onlookers/trees/buildings/cars) and some special events Jon and I have been lucky enough to watch.  Friday we had a school-wide celebration with music from the marching band, lots of Thai speeches, and different student groups presented a picture of the queen with floral arrangements they made.  Everything was very formal and very cool to experience first-hand.  

Celebration for the Queen's birthday, at our school

Some of the floral arrangements made by the students

Saturday we went to a play/musical/reenactment of the last 750 years of history in Chiang Rai province...also very exciting.  A lot of our students were the actors in this, and it also involved fireworks - including some that definitely set a tree on fire. 

Other than that excitement, we've also had the chance to get to know some of the different people in town.  Jon delighted a bunch of the students by playing basketball with them, and we had one student stop us on the street when we were out Friday night and serenade us with Adele's Rolling in the Deep on his guitar.  We also went to dinner a couple times with Katie, the Fulbright teacher that has been here about 10 months... it is nice to be able to tap into her knowledge and her Thai is pretty good so that is an inspiration to us!  We've also met a couple girls from the U.K. who are here as research assistants at an Elephant Research Camp that's in Golden Triangle just a couple miles away.  They cooked us dinner at Katie's last night, and we will probably go to their research camp next weekend for a tour and see the elephants!  It's nice to know that there are a couple more people to hang out with here.

We're all moved into our new place and it is feeling more and more like home. We're sharing the place with a lot of geckos - most of them just a couple inches long, but we saw one last night that was GIANT - maybe a foot long.  They're a good thing, though - they eat the bugs and are harmless...but it was still kind of unnerving to come up the stairs and see this giant lizard staring at you. We haven't seen it since though...