A Day in the Life of a Teaching Children/BTEC Volunteer in Thailand

It’s either the buzz of someone else’s alarm or the banging of pots and pans in the kitchen that signifies it’s time to get up in the morning. Communal living comes at a cost: it means waiting for a bathroom to be open while getting dressed in appropriate teaching clothes for the day. For girls, this means long skirts or pants and a collared shirt; for boys, smart casual pants and a collared shirt as well. After eating breakfast and gathering up the teaching materials for the day, teachers get in the school cars and head off to school.

Depending on the school, classes are either taught in one hour periods or multiple grades are grouped together for a few hours each morning and afternoon. We teach in groups of 2 or 3 depending on schedules and this helps with preparation and sharing teaching ideas and feedback. The grades 1-3 always work on basic English concepts, such as the alphabet, colors, and simple conversations. Older children can usually grasp more difficult topics such as prepositions and many new vocabulary words such as those about kitchen objects. Almost all of the schools have fans, not AC, so the conservative dress code becomes uncomfortable as the sun reaches its zenith! Children often come up to the teachers during breaks to ask for high fives, handshakes, and signatures. While it can be a struggle to maintain control of unruly children who don’t always understand words like “sit down” or “listen”, often teaching is rewarding through the children’s obvious delight in teaching games such as variations of “duck duck goose” with new vocab words. Come lunch time, teachers either eat authentic Thai lunches in the teachers’ lounge or are taken out for lunch by the director of the school. Classes usually begin around 9:30am and end around 3:30 pm, by which time everyone is exhausted.

Coming back to base, chores are done (cleaning outside, the lounge, bathrooms/trash, or dinner prepared/cleaned up) and some brief rest is taken. At 5pm every day, teaching children volunteers have a meeting to talk about their experience at their schools and often try to puzzle out interesting Thai customs they’ve been exposed to (when to take off your shoes when entering a room as a teacher, etc). This time the teaching children volunteers people interact with the TEFL volunteers who leave shortly after dinner to teach their own classes that day. Next, there is a bit of downtime to relax or explore Ao Luk. When the TEFL volunteers return from their evening classes, the whole group organises an evening activity (often a movie night, a quiz or a big group conversation outside in the bamboo huts) before bed.

A Day in the Life of a Teaching Children/BTEC Volunteer in Thailand