The 20th of May marked our one month anniversary teaching in Chiang Mai. We will be uploading regular blogs giving you an insight into our time teaching in Thailand.
Choosing to teach abroad can seem daunting. If this is something you are considering we hope to make things easier for you by sharing our experience along with tips and advice on teaching Thailand.
As we mentioned in our previous blogs our our first month teaching abroad has not been a typical one. Due to the coronavirus we have been spending the last month working from our apartment via Zoom.
We are employed by the same international school. I (Lynne) am working in the elementary school teaching Math, English and Science to grade 2 students. While Brian is in the Secondary school teaching ESL (English as a second language) to grade 7, 8, and 10 students.
During our first week teaching we had mixed feeling. Firstly, teaching large classes online is not easy for anyone, but when you have no teaching experience it makes things slightly more difficult. Trying to get to know the students while figuring out the best ways to communicate with children online was defiantly a challenge.
During the first week we both felt little out of our dept, which I think is normal for anyone starting a new job. The challenge of teaching online without the support of being in that school community environment made it difficult.
Now we are in our 5th week teaching and it has defiantly gotten a lot easier. We have figured out the systems that work for our classes and we are now in a good routine.
The work load is not too demanding. Each week we have to create lesson plans for the following weeks classes. On top of than that we have to do typical teacher duties such as, grade homework, complete attendance reports, and attend weekly school meetings via Zoom. Working from home gives us lots of uninterrupted time to get our work complete.
As content as we are right now working away in our apartment we are looking forward to getting into the classroom and teaching our students face to face.
We realise how lucky we were to get jobs in the middle of a global pandemic and to be working during this time.
If rumours are correct, we should be in the classroom by the new academic year in August. We are looking forward to the year ahead and getting that true teaching abroad experience.
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Interesting.
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I can’t imagine my first teaching experience being online! Well done for getting through the first month though; hopefully you’ll find it gets easier from here
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Thank you 😊
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what a crazy way to start off your teaching career! must have been difficult i can only imagine
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