I was totally out of it Friday, which is part of the reason I didn't write an entry. Plus, since I didn't teach, there wasn't a whole lot to say. My theory was that the funky Thai decongestants the doctor prescribed were zonking me out. So I stopped taking them. I still didn't feel well over the weekend, but I feel pretty good today.

Over the weekend I had to do the first of the four written assignments. We each had to interview one of our students about their previous English study, identify their speaking problems, and devise activities to help correct them. The one I interviewed, Jeab, a 17-year-old female, typified the weird Thai situation. They all study English all through school (14 years, in her case), but come out barely able to have a conversation.

The reason for this seeming paradox is that practically all they study is grammar. Maybe you don't know what the present perfect continuous is, but if a Thai sees it, they will. Unfortunately, all this esoteric knowledge drilled into their brains doesn't help them to communicate.

Another problem is that their teachers are Thai, and speak Thai in class. An emphasis on writing and reading don't help either. The theory says that students should concentrate on speaking and listening before working on the receptive skills. Jeab said her teachers never played tapes or videos of native speakers, which blew my mind.

The net result? A lot of young adults who want to actually learn how to have a conversation in English. As long as the Thai education system remains in its current woeful state, I will be guaranteed a job.

My 40 minute lesson today specified only "controlled and freer practice of can/have to/be allowed to." So I had to come up with my own activities. First I gave them all a piece of paper with a fragment using each bit of target language. They had to convert them into questions, and ask everybody their question. Lesson learned: I didn't give them a place to write down people's answers. So when I can time to pick people to tell us what they learned, some people didn't remember.

I also had a sign exercise, where they had to come up with things like "you can't smoke." Somebody actually said "no smoking." That was correct, but didn't use the target language, so I had to ask if there was another way to say that.

Finally there was a group discussion of laws. I didn't make clear that they were supposed to all be asking questions, and I didn't do class feedback.

Despite the mistakes, overall it went OK, and I got an S.

Some people are really stressed out that we have to teach things that they haven't taught us to do yet. In that regard, I'm at an advantage, since I've seen it all before in the TESOL.

The course is stressful, but for me, a big stress remover is that I don't have to worry about a grade. I know I'm going to pass, and that's all that matters. I just want to do as well as I can, and learn as much as I can from the feedback.

So what do you think? Is all this stuff pretty boring? I think it's interesting, which is good, since it will be my career.