MBK

Tomorrow I start the CELTA, so my free time should become quite limited. I may try to write a little blurb about the class every day, in the hope that I can help others thinking of taking it. I make no promises, though. Whatever the case, I imagine I will not have time to update the site more than once a week. Less if my site remains inaccessible, which it is now, for some reason.

I was hoping to be at peak capacity for the course, but unfortunately, about as soon as I arrived home, I contracted some kind of deadly super-virus. I lost my voice, had a persistent cough, and major congestion. Two months later, I am still so congested that my hearing is reduced, and I'm constantly blowing my nose on tiny Thai napkins. Taking decongestants helps, but doesn't solve the problem.

It's nice to have free time every day, but I really have to do something productive with my time, so it will be good to be busy. I'm spending my last day at MBK, Bangkok's huge shopping/entertainment complex, and the ultimate time-killer. I'll do internet, pick up some stuff, eat ice cream and read, and go see The Last Samurai.

It happened again. What is it with me randomly running into people I know in Bangkok? It shouldn't have even happened, if I wasn't so forgetful. I was going to go to Central Department Store to buy dress shoes with my 20% of coupon. En route, I stopped at one of those sidewalk restaurants with pans of Thai food on display. It all actually looks pretty disgusting, so I just pick two at random, point, and say kaw an nii ga an nii krap, I want this one and this one. It usually ends up tasting OK. The stuff they cook up fresh is always much better, but you have to ask for what you want by name, and I only know fried rice and noodle soup.

When I finished I realized I had forgotten my coupon, so I had to walk back down the soi to my apartment. I was behind a blond farang guy walking with a Thai woman. The back of his head look suspiciously familiar. I eavesdropped and heard the giveaway: the Irish accent. I was Rourai from my TESOL class. Rourai is gainfully employed now with Siam Computer. Maybe the old TESOL gang will be getting back together.

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Last night I was exhausted again for no reason. At 10 pm, I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and fell asleep. I slept like the dead until 8 am. I woke up feeling, while not too sick, not too well, either. In addition to my extreme nasal congestion, I had a sort-of sore thought, a headache, and a lack of energy. I wanted to just lay around all day, but I had to go to the CELTA orientation session.

They’re starting us right out on day 1, so that had us all meet the day before for four hours to get to know each other, do administrative stuff, and get our teaching points for day 1. That’s right, I will have to teach tomorrow. A group of 12 intermediate students. In addition, five of my peers will be observing, and our instructor. We’re all doing a 15 minute chunk of a two hour lesson, and we will be following a pre-made plan, so it shouldn’t be too bad. But still, they are real students, which means they will be unpredictable.

I was feeling foggy and distant all day, but about halfway through a very bad headache set in. It didn’t feel like a normal headache, but a fever headache. After I stumbled home, I took my temperature, and sure enough, had a fever of 99.8F. Great, another symptom. Hopefully this means I will be getting better soon. It will suck having to teach while my brain is at reduced capacity. It’s 10 and I’m going to go to bed now. The rock concert at the school next to my building just finished, so I should be able to sleep well. Hopefully I will wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed.

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I woke up feeling crummy again, but no fever, at least. The lymph node on the right side of my through is, so it looks like I have an infection, now.

I have to wear a dress shirt and tie when teaching, so today was my first day wearing a long-sleeved shirt in Bangkok. It’s getting hotter by the day now. I thought I was prepared by wearing a sacrificial undershirt. But by the time I had finished tying my tie, my sleeves and collar were all sweaty. You never see a sweaty Thai person. In fact, they look down on our poor hygiene. Unfortunately, much of this opinion is based on dirty, tattooed Khao San Road hippies. If you’re dressing professionally, you have no excuse to be sweaty, since the Thais manage to keep clean. So I blow dried my sleeves. Tomorrow I’ll try using talcum powder, and will run the AC when I get dressed.

The CELTA is much more formal and professional than the TESOL, with lots of handouts and paperwork. The mornings are spent in “input sessions,” where our two instructors talk about theory with us. After lunch, our group of 12 splits in two, with half teaching beginners, and my half teaching intermediates. We talk about lesson plans for an hour first. At this stage, they are telling us exactly what to teach, and how to teach it. That’s fine for now, since there is a lot of other stuff to worry about. For me, my concerns are timing, and the unpredictability of the students.

Then comes the heart of the course: the hands-on teaching practice. I had to do a 15 minute chunk. I went second, after a guy who only did “getting to know you” games. The students are nice, a mixed group of young adults, ranging in ability from a Burmese refugee, up to a petroleum engineering student. Many of them come back month after month, since they only have to pay about $10 for a month of lessons. It’s sort of like getting your hair cut at the barber college for free, I guess.

My lesson went OK, considering it was my first time, and I wasn’t feeling that well. I had to teach a rather tedious review of questions words. I would have to say “I live in London. Question word ‘Where,’” and get them to say “Where do you live.” Most of them were above this level, so it went really fast. The thing I learned here was that when you ask a question, and the whole class shouts out the answer, you should call on a student to say it. Things like that only seem apparent after you experience them.

Next, I had to have them ask questions to a partner. They seemed to enjoy doing this. But I sort of lost control of the last part, where I had to get some of them to tell us about their partner. Nobody volunteered, so I called on someone. He didn’t speak very loudly, and the other students didn’t listen and kept on working on their questions.

I was very critical on my self-evaluation, but the instructor wasn’t too critical, and pointed out a lot of things I did correctly. I’ll have to teach tomorrow for 35 minutes.

I started feeling bad after the class, so I staggered home, buying some meat on a stick for dinner en route. When I got home I had a fever again. So I called up the hospital, and made an appointment with a doctor for tomorrow night.

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Felt bad again this morning. After the Tylenol kicked in, the headache was gone, but I still wasn’t up to snuff. It’s looking like the morning input sessions are going to be exactly the same as what was covered in the TESOL. They advertise the TESOL as an introduction to the CELTA, but it’s more like the CELTA without the teaching.

But the teaching, with feedback, makes the CELTA worth the money. I taught for 35 minutes this time. The lesson plan, once again given to me, started with some listening, and culminated with a class survey exercise. It flowed really well, and I got some good positive feedback. The survey is what’s called a “freer” exercise, since it gives the students more freedom to practice the target language on their own. I gave them survey forms, and had them stand up and ask each other the questions. It’s been tricky to get this group to mingle freely, but eventually, they got into it.

I’m learning that these freer exercise are my friend, since they are extremely flexible. If you have a good one, the students can do it for a long time. Conversely, you can cut it short, if necessary. So it can expand and contract as necessary to use up your time.

I taught first, with meant I had to deal with “Thai time.” All Thais are on this system, which means they can be up to 30 minutes late for an appointment, weather it’s an English lesson, or a movie (never sit on the end of a row, unless you want to keep being made to get up). I made sure to get each late-comer up to speed on what we were doing.

After class I went to see a doctor. It’s nice that in Bangkok you can see an internationally-educated, fluent English speaking doctor for $10. In the USA I had to pay $80 to see a stuck-up prat. The doctor said I have a respiratory tract infection, and put me on a regimen of Tylenol, decongestants, and antibiotics.

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Now it’s starting to get time consuming. They gave us their formal lesson planning template today, so I had to write up the lesson plan in exhaustive detail. Planning is of course necessary, but making a few informal notes is fine. Of course, they want us to fill out a huge form for each lesson, with lots of esoteric sections such as “aim” and “objective.” Those words are synonyms, but not to the CELTA folks. I’m also becoming more and more worried about doing what they want me to do, rather than what I think will be effective. The CELTA is a bit of an exercise in jumping through hoops. Between looking for pictures of sports activities on the internet, and making my two plans (one to turn in, and one that I can actually use while teaching), I was up till midnight.

At least I’m starting to feel better. I can even breath through both nostril for the first time in two months.

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It’s amazing how busy they are keeping us. I was going non-stop today from 9 am to 9 pm. Input sessions from 9 to 12:30. Then we get an hour and a half for lunch. I spent a half an hour getting the materials for my lesson ready. Then I was going to grab a quick bite to eat, when the student I was going to interview at 1:30 arrived, so I talked to her for a half hour. Then I had to review my lesson plan.

I thought my lesson was really flat. I still felt crummy, I didn’t like the material, and there were only five students, so it seemed awkward. But my instructor assessed it at an “S+,” or above standard. I did do the vocabulary eliciting well. When we teach vocab, instead of just feeding the students the words and meanings, we try to get them to say it for us. I was doing sports activities, so I would show them a picture, for instance, of a guy rock climbing, and ask if anyone knew what he was doing. As I expected, nobody came up with “rock climbing,” but somebody did say “climbing.” Then it was just a matter of pointing at the mountain, which got that word, and asking what the mountain was made of: “rock.” Then someone said “climbing rock,” I got him to flip it around. It’s fun, because it’s sort of like hosting a game show. The tricky part comes when you say it, then get the class to say it, then group, then individuals. You have to listen for mistakes, and correct them. But just saying it for them yourself isn’t always good, so you have to try to identify someone saying it correctly, have them say it, then go back to the incorrect student.

I think a good rule of thumb is to be a “lazy teacher.” The less you say, the better. Your just there to facilitate student-student communication. They call this the “communicative approach,” and it’s different from anything I’ve ever encountered before in my own education, where teachers just talk at (not to) the class, and I sleep. (Even though you minimize your talking time, you have to work hard to get them to talk, so you are being anything but lazy.)

Even on a “night off” (I don’t teach tomorrow, so don’t have to plan a lesson) I was still busy, because I had to observe a two hour lesson. The teacher was good, and was trying to teach his class “connected speech.” When Thais talk, they will carefully pronounce every word. It is understandable, but it doesn’t sound right, because when native speakers talk, the sounds of words change when used in sentences. For instance, “Did you go to the movies?” actually sounds like “Didja go ta the movies?” It was sort of funny watching a group of Thais being taught how to say “didja.” The teacher's ability and the students' enthusiasm were inspiring.

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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.

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I had my fifth teaching practice today. It was the presentation of future forms: will, going to, and present continuous. Yeah, you can use a present tense to talk about the future (Later we are playing tennis). Just another reason English is so difficult.

Presentation is the most technical part of the process, and is very structured. First you get the students to tell you the sentence (I did this by playing a tape, pausing it, and asking what the last sentence was). Then you say, and drill the students. Then you have to ask concept checking questions (Did they play tennis yesterday? Are they playing tennis tomorrow?). Then you get the students to tell you each sentence, write it on the board, and highlight the grammatical structure. Since it's so structured, doing this stuff is my strong point.

But giving clear directions continues to be my weak point. I got lots of blank stares, and my exercise didn't go so well. Despite this, I got another S+. I don't teach tomorrow, so I am free tonight. Only five more teaching sessions to go!

I can't believe how much some people are stressing. I get stressed out before a lesson, when I have to run around printing stuff out, making copies, cutting them, queing up tapes, etc. But overall it's not so bad. Maybe it's because I studied engineering. I don't think anything could be more stressful than that. And during the course of my education, I was always trying to get the hightest possible grade.

It is possible to pass the CELTA with an "A" or "B," but getting one of those won't help you. It may help you get your first job, but after that, only experience maters. Actually, all the grades mean is that you are more independent, and need less guidance. I wouldn't mind a bit of guidance at first.

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We had one-on-one tutorials with one of our instructors today. He said that I was "above standard," and that I might be able to get a good grade. Passing with an A or B would be nice, but, that doesn't really do anything for you, so I am going to try to not worry about it. I'll just keep on trying to do as well as I can.

We spent the rest of the morning working with our peers to plan the next two weeks of lessons. Now that I'm comfortable with our intermediate students, we will be switching to a new group of elementary students. I like the intermediates, because they understand a lot of what you say. I still have to be careful giving directions, though. I imagine it will be even more difficult getting directions across with elemetries.

I taught a 40 minute reading lesson that afternoon. Despite my positive assessment, it didn't go so well. One of my strengths is my detailed planning, but that actually got in the way, and I was more focused on following my directions that connecting with the students. One student was dominating, and I was not even aware of it. That's an easy trap to fall into. I was also trying to reduce redundant language, but overcompensated, and came across as too abrupt.

I was tired and frustrated, so treated myself to mediocre Western food at Steak Hunter, and ice cream at Baskin Robbins. This is only the second time I've been to a Baskin Robbins in Thailand, and did not realize that you are supposed to sit down, and let the waitress give you a menu, and not go up to the counter and tell them what you want. Then I went to bed early.

Some unrelated tidbits.

Crisis at Seven-11

I discovered a mysterious green beverage at Seven-11 I like. I put it in the Super Big Gulp cup a few times. The cashiers always seemed perturbed, and had to call for backup, who would decide it cost saam sip (30) baht. Then the cashier would look pissed off and ring me up. One time I got the medium size, and the exact same thing happened. In broken Thai, I tried to explain that large was 30 baht, and this was medium. So the back up guy took my medium cup away, and poured it into a special small cup. So remember, next time you are in Thailand, and want to drink mysterious green liquids at Seven-11, you have to use the special cup.

Thai waitresses are incompetent

I'm sorry, but too many incidents have occurred in the past 3 weeks for it to be chance. They keep bringing me other peoples' orders. This alone isn't a big deal, but it's always after I have my order, they will come by, try to ask me something in Thai, and then put a huge amount of food on my table. They seem to think there's nothing strange about a person coming in alone, and ordering food for three. The first time it happened I was confused, and took a bite of the extra soup. It was disgusting, so I left it alone. Eventually the waitress took it, and gave it directly to a Thai woman at the next table. So if you're in Thailand, and you're wondering why you order is taking so long, it's probably because it's making the rounds.

The spiciest thing I've ever eaten

I ate something even more painful than tom yum goong. Som tam, or papaya salad, is interesting, but I am still trying to decide if I like it or not. At my favorite Isaan restaurant, there were five varieties on the menu, so I asked the waitress if I could have pet nitnoi, or a little spicy. Daai, daai (can, can), she said, and recommended one. After a few bites, it became apparent that this would be a test of endurance. Halfway through, I bit into something that was too painful to bear. My mouth burned, my nose ran, and my eyes watered. I was defeated by the som tam. However, the minced catfish, even though it looked like cat food, was delicious.

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I redeemed myself today. I had to teach a 40 minute lesson, doing practice of the past simple, regular and irregular. I started out with “stand up if you ___ yesterday.” Everyone is sitting, except one person, who has to say the sentence, using their own verb. Then the people who stand up have to try to sit down in someone else’s chair. This exercise is guaranteed to work, and the students will have fun.

Next I had them do a picture story jigsaw, where they had to work with a partner to put pictures in order to tell a story, then write a story. It worked will, but I should have told them not to write, so they could get speaking practice. It turned out that they spent a lot of time writing, and when I had them read, the other groups didn’t pay attention. This was pretty much the only criticism my instructor had.

For the final exercise I had them all write something down that happened to them in the past. I wanted to have them freely discuss their sentences in groups then, but it took them a lot longer to come up with and write things than I expected. They are, after all, elementary level. So I only had about two minutes for speaking. I made sure everyone got a turn talking. I’m always worried about having extra time, but the opposite is always true. All three of us who went today were assessed as “Above Standard,” which was encouraging. I only have to teach two more times, but they will be 55 minute lessons.

Homework in the park

After my run in the park, a Thai student asked me if I could answer some questions for him for school. Students sometimes have surveys, so I thought I would give it a go. I looked at his paper, which was a ridiculous argument that Izod clothes, the expensive ones with the little alligators on them, promote the hunting of alligators. I asked him if he believed that, but he didn’t understand me. I looked at the questions, and quickly realized that the were the kind of questions we learn to write in the CELTA course to get students to skim a text. I told him I wasn’t going to do his homework for him, but he didn’t understand.

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One guy just doesn’t get it. If you just follow the procedures they are teaching us, you will pass the course. A lot of people on internet forums complain about this, and say the course is too rigid. Our instructor is actually giving people a lot of leeway to do what they want. But he does want to be sure we do a few key things. Today one guy just totally did his own thing. He was supposed to be doing a reading lesson. His reading was a horoscope, and the students spent about 2 minutes reading their own horoscopes. Obviously, not enough time was devoted to the focus of the lesson, and we all could tell.

During feedback, the instructors are really good at getting us to say what we did wrong, instead of jumping right into criticisms. But this guy just didn’t get what he did wrong, no matter how much prodding he got. He won’t accept feedback. My attitude is “I don’t know anything, and I want to know what I did wrong so I can fix it.” His attitude seems to be “I already know what I’m doing, so I’m not going to listen to anyone.” I guess all he wants is the certificate. I want to actually learn something. We all agreed his lesson was poor.

Since all this had to be explained in detail, the feedback session was long, and I had to go right to my observation at 6 pm. This time it was at ECC, the same place I’m studying. It was a competent lesson, but it wasn’t inspiring like the one at British Council. Ironically, while ECC is the best place in Thailand to study teaching, it is one of the worst places to teach, and hence, one of the worst places to study English. With the observation, it was another 12 hour day.

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I’m ready for this to be over. I’ve been in a really bad moon all week, and haven’t been getting on well with some of my peers. I had to teach an authentic text to the elementary students, and it was a fiasco. The text I picked ended up being way to hard for them. I kept changing my instructions to try to make it easier, but just confused them. I also confused myself. I learned that you should always have an answer key, no matter how easy the questions are. Thankfully, I was assessed as “to standard.” I only have to teach one more 55 minute lesson on Wednesday. Then I will be basically done.

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Finally, I’m essentially done with the CELTA! I had my last practice teaching session, and have turned in my last assignment, so all I have to do now is show up. I would have liked to have finished my last teaching with an “S+,” but I made two serious mistakes. It all come down to the obvious fact that elementary-level students don’t understand much of what you tell them. You have to demonstrate everything, because they can’t follow explanations or directions.

That fundamental problem manifested itself into two mistakes in my lesson plan. My execution was fine, but my plan was flawed. The grammar point was the present perfect used to talk about the past (“I’ve written a few letters), which is one of the most difficult things for non-native speakers to understand (to quote Nut from the intermediate class: “I don’t like perfect tenses.”). I wanted to teach from context, so I used a picture of fried grasshoppers and explained that I’ve never eaten fried grasshoppers. The problem was that I was explaining, so the students never really understood that I was talking about the past.

Then I had two controlled exercise that went really well. I laid out exactly what they had to say, so they all knew what to do. The problem was with the freer exercise, where they were supposed to practice the target language on their own. I wanted them to pretend they were gangs of criminals, and talk about what they have done (present perfect) to cause the police to want them. It was way too much for them, and I couldn’t even get across the fact that I wanted them to come up with a name for their gang. When they finally got talking, one group talked about what they planned to do (future), and the other talked about what they did (past simple), so they didn’t even use the target language. Interestingly, Kwan, the strongest student in the class, talked about how her gang wanted to kill George Bush.

I’m a little disappointed, because I feel as if I would have shown the tutor my plan yesterday, she would have pointed these problems out, and I could have fixed them. Oh well, I’m done.

The guy who just doesn’t get it is still clueless. His last two lessons were assessed as “N,” not to standard. So he is actually in serious jeopardy of not passing the course. We switched tutors, and this one is really strict. Our previous tutor gave people a lot of leeway to do their own things, as long as they kept to the spirit of the CELTA procedures. He even let this guy try to justify his strange lessons. But the new tutor just said to him “no, that’s wrong, you have to do it this way.” He finally accepted the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so the experienced teacher in our group has made it a group effort to help him out, basically by doing his lesson plan for him. Part, or perhaps all, of his problem is that his breath reeks of alcohol. I would think that since he shelled out so much money for this course, he could at least keep the drinking to the nighttime. But even that is too much for the CELTA. I would recommend only drinking on the weekends during the course. In fact, I ended up only drinking once (with the TESOL gang). Yes, it was a difficult sacrifice.

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