Today is the second day. I begin to observe the class until the fifth day. I woke up early in the morning because I had to get ready by 6.30. My school is about 15 kilometers away from the university dormitory where I am living. It takes around 30 – 50 minutes to get there. I have to walk on foot from my room to the university gate about 1 kilometer. Then, I take the bus to Bang Pa-In City and take motorcycle to the school. I went there with my roommate who is also assigned in the same school as me.
As I arrived at the school, I met with my coordinating teacher. He is Mr. Stephan who comes from South Africa (Ghana). We talked a lot of things before the classes start. Since I am a curious person, I ask many things to him especially his teaching experience in Thailand. He told me that he did enjoy his work here. He is keen to experience new things particularly in teaching because he wants to become a professional teacher despite of the fact that he often faces various problems especially with regard to language barrier. I also question him about his country and some other things.
At 8.20 am, the bell rings which means that the first class is starting. We walk through the hallway and to the class. As we are entering the class, the students are standing while putting their hands on their chests (like praying) and saying “good morning teacher Stif and good morning teacher […….] (because they haven’t known my name). The teacher then said “good morning, how are you today?” “I’m fine, thank you and you?” responded the students. “I am great” said the teacher. This is the way how the class starts.
The students were curiously staring at me while I was standing in front of the class. I felt kind of excited because I could see from their eyes that the students felt happy and excited too because of my presence. Then, I introduced myself happily by using Thai. I had learned some Thai expressions before especially for self-introduction because I believe that they will be more interested in me if I can speak their language, just like Indonesian students. And that’s true. They seemed to be interested in and amazed at me.
Below is the amateur video of me when I was introducing myself.
After this, Mr. Stephan started to teach the students. The lesson was about ancient buildings. He teaches grade 4, 5 and 6. Today is the grade 5/2. I then went to the back of the class to observe how the class was going. Some students were still curious of me and asked me questions like “how old are you teacher?”, “is this your first time to Thailand?” and so on. I am so happy. They are so expressive, inquisitive and brave.
His planning for teaching
Mr. Stephan plans his teaching in advance. He’d already prepared all the materials and worksheets before he entered classes particularly in English for communication subject. However, in general English subject, he does not plan anything because he just needs to follow the material book and explains it to the students. After teaching, he goes back to his room and directly checks the students’ assignments and marks them.
His preparing lessons and materials
His lessons are quite good. They are easy to be understood by the students because they are simple and include pictures. This can be perceived from the worksheet that the students do. Most of students achieve 50%-100% correct answers. This means that they already understand the lessons delivered by the teacher. However, in terms of materials, the teacher only use simple ones like flashcards, whiteboard and marker even if the advanced media are readily available in every class.
His teaching in class?
I like his teaching so much. He teaches the students very energetically. During the learning process, he even never sits on the seat and always walks around in the class to make sure students pay attention to him. He speaks clearly and loudly and gives a big smile to the students. He never gets mad at the students even if sometimes they make noise. He always rewards the students who can answer the questions by asking the other students to clap their hands and by saying ‘very good’.
Their measurement and evaluation
He measures the students’ performance by looking at the students’ understanding toward the lessons that he teaches. It can be perceived through the assignment or worksheet that he hands out to the students. Meanwhile, the evaluation relies on the scores of the written examinations, assignments and worksheets.
Your overall impression to the teacher performances
Overall, there are there major impressions of me for him. The first one is his discipline. He always comes to every class on time and checks the students’ worksheet right after he finishes teaching. The second one is his spirit. He is so spiritful that he even does not need to sit while he is teaching. The third one is his teaching style. He can make the students actively involved in the learing process.
Unique things (other)
During this observation, I found out a few unique things. The first one is the students’ willingness to learn. They are eager to study. They carefully listen to the teacher and keep quite in the class. I really like this kind of situation. The second one is the students’ bravery. Most of the students are so brave. This can be perceived from their participation in the class. They will be scrambling forward when the teacher asks to them questions and write the answers in the whiteboard. The third one is the teacher’s teaching style. He just speaks English in the class because he cannot speak Thai. On the other hand, most of the students can still hardly understand full English interaction. However, he can succeed to make their students understand the lessons because he actively involves the students to participate in the learning process and repeats the lesson some times until they understand. His success can be seen from the students’ accomplishment toward the lesson. Many of them achieve good and excellent grades. The last one is the school learning system. Every subject only lasts for one hour. I think this is good because the students do not get bored. In addition, this also makes the teacher has to maximize the short time as effective as possible to achieve the best outcomes.
