Football Madness...

Currently Bangkok is holding some of the football matches for the AFC Asian Cup. Somehow somebody managed to convince me that it was a good idea to go watch the Thailand V Australia game. The idea seemed a good one at first; give Nick a chance to watch footie and go support the locals and all that, also any sporting event involving Aussies is usually a laugh. However, when it came to the day of the event and we were trying to work out how to get to this new international stadium, we found that there was no way of getting clear directions of how to get there, no website (including the organizers of the competition) had a map for directions. The only things we did quickly learn was that there was no form of public transport to anywhere in the region of the ground, and that every person you ask or site you search gives you different instructions on how to get there.

After deciding on a route and packing our rain macs we set off under an ominously darkening sky. After a bit of grumbling we managed to convince the first taxi driver that came along that the journey wouldn’t take too long and he should take us all the way. As the sky got darker and the traffic slowed, our driver began to mutter the word ‘traffic’ under his breathe with increasing frequency and started subtly pointing out the benefits and convenience of all the motorbike taxis going past us. It didn't take us long to realize that we’d chosen one of the most congested and roundabout ways we could have gone.

We arrived at the ground nearly two hours later and having paid nearly double the asking amount to the taxi driver for his reasonably quiet grumblings, the skies had well and truly opened and the rain looked set in to stay. It seems that the Thai approach to organization and safety at sporting events is predictably bad. The first gate into the stadium grounds that we walked past was closed and had men, women (many in high heels) and children climbing about 8 feet to get over. There were no officials around and we thought for one moment that perhaps this was the done things and that the gates had been closed early. After wandering around the ground we found the correct way in and then joined a queue to get into the stadium itself. I use the word 'queue' in the loosest sense of the term as it seems that in Asia that queue means that 30% of people stand in what could be called a line and happily ignore the other 70% who stroll straight up to form a widening mass at the front. Now being British and from a nation of expert queuers, I find this highly irritating, more for the fact that no-one else sees fit to stop others from doing this. Following that old 'if you can't beat them join them' rule, we abandoned the queue and walked to the front. We got there just at the point everybody else decided to do the same, the result being that around 200 people were all trying to cram through a gap about half a metre wide. Thanks to Nick we got through just at the point it looked like it was turning into a crush.

Once inside the stadium things were a little better. We quickly realized why our seats were so much cheaper than some of our friends, we had no roof and the rain was still falling. We were sat in the Aussie section but it seemed that there was little segregation between the Thai and Aussie areas, in fact they were pretty much mixed. The Aussie supporters were wearing yellow to match their team, but as it was Monday the Thais were all also wearing yellow even though their team colours are red (more about the yellow obsession some other time). It was hard to tell the supporters apart.

The match was better than we expected and the Thais actually played some pretty good football. It got really exciting in the second half and even though the Aussies were one up it looked like the Thais were going to score. Anyway, after 75 mins we decided to make an early exit to avoid a 2-3 hour journey home. In the last 15 minutes after we left Australia scored 3 more times. Shame we missed the goals, but glad we missed the noisy and rather obnoxious Aussie supporters next to us bragging. Missing the goals was worth it anyway when the journey that took us 2 hours on the way there took us 20 minutes on the way back.

A day in the life of an ESL teacher...

We’ve now been teaching for over 2 months and are settling into our daily routine as teachers in Bangkok, and it seems like a good time to let you know exactly what it is we do out here.

There is a whole range of teachers working in Bangkok in a vast variety of positions. It is possible to earn enough money to survive here just by working odd days teaching at language institutes. Here a teacher will teach a handful of different small classes but will only see each set of students once a week for a few hours. This option is great for those who aren’t in need of a large amount of money and the security of work permit. It means there is more freedom to do as you choose and there’s less time required on lesson planning. While these classes can be fun as they are mainly conversation based, you don’t really get to know you’re students that well.
There are also quite a lot of people who do only corporate work. They go from place to place offering seminars to different companies. I have had next to no experience of this type of teaching so don’t really know the details. From talking to friends though, I’ve learnt that it generally involves a great deal of planning and travelling around, and you can often end up just being a foreign face there more for show because the government requires it, than actually expected to teach people.
The large majority of teachers in the city are based within schools. Again, the variety of the work available is great. When I started teaching in 2001, I was based in an all girls’ government school. I had 27 classes a week with up to sixty students per class. Often there were not enough desks in the classroom, the girls knew very little English, and I was faced with stony expressions and very little desire to learn. On top of the 27 hours of teaching I had to mark (and usually complete) the worksheets each girl was expected to do in every class. That’s roughly 1600 worksheets. Basically this adds up to very long hours, very poor pay, absolutely no job satisfaction and just generally a horrific experience. I lasted a sum total of 3 weeks and 2 days in this position...just long enough to get my wages and run.

These days life is a little bit easier. We begin our day at 6.30 am, with a reasonably relaxed breakfast and shower (well relaxed by my usual 10 minute bed to door dash standards), before taking an 8 minute stroll to work. We get to work at about 7.20 and have to be ready to stand outside the classroom with the students for morning assembly, this includes singing the national anthem and the school song, mercifully teachers are not expected to join in. Classes then start at 8.00, break at 9.00-9.15, lunch at 11.05-12.00, break at 13.50-14.00, with regular classes then finishing at 3.00. Two days a week teachers also teach the extra ‘homework’ classes for those students paying for them. School then closes at 16.00.
As a grade one ‘homeroom’ teacher, I am expected to teach English, Science, Maths, Phonics and Conversation to 6-7 year olds. I teach my own class for sixteen 55 minute periods a week and am sometimes required to teach small conversation groups from other classes (though this has yet to happen this year). For an example of the standard of grade one at Bangkok Christian College; we are currently covering animals in Science and the students are now expected not only to be able to name animals, they must also talk about where they live, what they eat and classify them as mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians or birds and talk about their life-cycles, all in a foriegn language. This is very different from anything I was learning as a six year old!!
If you’re lucky, you can be approached to teach privately after school. This is a pretty good money earner and means you can make nearly half your salary again for just an extra hours work a day. I teach for between one and two extra hours a day, which makes for a pretty long day but is worth it, especially as it’s really rewarding working one on one with students who are having difficulties.

Teaching is just about the only job that I can see myself doing long term. As long as it is interspersed with regular diving breaks that is!! You get great job satisfaction, constant variety, long paid hols, decent pay for living in a tropical place (if you’re lucky). I’m not going to mention all the lesson planning, marking, poster and worksheet making!!

The pictures are of my students pretending to be good and actually do some work.

Kanchanaburi

So...there’s one really bad thing I forgot about teaching, the fact that you’re sick more often than not. When you put 33 bodies into one small space, have them go outside, get hot and sweaty or wet from the rain before coming in to a nicely chilled air-conditioned classroom, there’s bound to be a lot of sickness, and we always one kid off at a time with something or other. The week before last I had a bad time in my class and seemed to do nothing but shout, by the end of the week I was off with a migraine. I felt like death and the headaches took about 3 days to go. Having recovered from this we decided that the following weekend we needed to take a break from the city and head out to the mountains of Kanchanaburi for some R ‘n’ R. We figured it would be a good idea to get some fresh air and chill out.

We have found an amazing place in Kanchanaburi; it is a small guesthouse on the banks of the River Kwai. We stay in a raft-house right on the river. About a kilometre up river is the bridge over the river Kwai. This is the famous bridge that was built during the Second World War when the Japanese wanted to link Thailand and Burma. It is estimated that 16,000 POWs and 100,000 Asian labourers died whilst working on the bridge, railway and the famous ‘Hellfire Pass’. I have been up to Kanchanaburi at least 15 times and most of those times have included a trip up to the bridge; when you can get a moment free of tourists (and there are many happy snapping visitors at all hours) you get to feel a little of the history of the place. Most of the time however, there are too many tourists having their pics taken so you just have to join in and look gormless with your camera. As you can see from the pictures though, the bridge has been left with a reasonably bare structure. Much to the entertainment of the local long-tail boat drivers, those with slightly less co-ordination and concentration have been known to step right through the gaps and drop 30 feet into the brown river below (not mentioning any names but for once it wasn’t me....).

This most recent trip to Kanchanaburi we decided we wanted to explore the hills a bit more. We hired a moped, stocked up on chicken fried rice and took off in the vague direction of the hills. When you leave the rather large and touristy town of Kanchanaburi behind, you soon get out into really scenic areas with people drying grasses in the road and farmers driving cattle and goats along the verges. The houses get fewer and further between and more and more rustic. It wasn’t until after an hour of riding in the baking sun that we realised we’d forgotten any form of drink and the chance of a shop was quite remote. After rehydrating at a random ‘Pepsi’ stop we then ate lunch under a tarpaulin while sheltering from the rain – very glam. On the way back to town we got caught again and ended up pulling up under a bus shelter as the rain hammered down. We started a trend and were soon joined by 4 others.

Anyway, after our rather wet and chilly drive back we have both spent over a week recovering. We both still have hacking coughs and sore throats, and due to the fact that I have to make myself heard amongst a class full of over-excited 6 year olds, I have been giving Marge Simpson a run for her money all week. So much for a healthy break from the city