On the Fly

“Adaptability,” “flexibility,” “creativity”: how many times have I heard those words during training (along with a slew of others, e.g. “patience,” “perseverance,” empathy,” etc.)?  The answer is, of course, a lot, and one of the first big concrete tests of whether I could put them into practice came last Friday when I went to my practicum school to observe the Thai teacher with whom I (and one of my fellow trainees) would working for the next two weeks.  We arrived at the school to discover that our teacher was not there that day.  So, my friend and I decided to dive right in and teach.  We combined our classes, and with the help of my host father (who you might or might recall is a retired teacher, and who could not be dissuaded from following me to school that day), we taught a lesson on basic greetings and emotion words.  Imagine if you will two Americans facing a class of around 50-some Thai 7^th-9^th graders, who immediately got to their feet and said in chorus: “Hello, Teacher!”  My partner’s immediate response was to ask how to tell them not to do that.  (They also ended the class by getting to their feet and saying, “Thank you, Teacher.”)

In any event, it went pretty well, though it’s hard to say how it would have gone without anyone there to explain a few things in Thai.  We probably could have pulled it off with our baby Thai and lots of smiling and gesturing, but it was nice to have a native speaker there that first time.

Today (Friday, February 1), we had a planning session for this week, and fortunately our co-teacher did come to that, so we were able to make a lesson plan for tomorrow.  And I’m almost 67% certain that we are both on the same page (but I prepared materials just in case she didn’t actually understand what materials she is supposed to prepare).  She speaks a little English, but not so much that I have complete confidence that we do in fact have the same idea about what we are going to be doing, and who is going to do what.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this kind of situation will arise with relatively high frequency, so I’ve determined that I need to develop a store of go-to activities that I can adapt on the fly, so if any of you out there have any suggestions please send them my way.