I'm a Teacher!

Well, I'm officially a teacher now and I'm exhausted!  We get to school at 7:45 everyday and stand outside for the flag ceremony, which lasts about 30 minutes.  Some mornings I have a class at 8:30 and some mornings I can relax a bit.  My homeroom is grade 5, so that's where my desk is (and where I'm currently writing this post from!).  Mondays and Tuesdays I only have 2 classes, but Wednesdays and Fridays I have 4!  Thursday I don't have any classes, except for a conversation class which I have everyday from 4:30-5:30.  Classes have been good and bad so far.  The older kids all have a relatively high level of English since they've been in this Mini-English Program for a few years.  In those classes I'm teaching things like the stages of human development, the digestive system, and the circulatory system!  (How was a 3 week TEFL course going to prepare me for this??)  The younger kids are harder; not only because they have a lower level of English, but also because they have so much energy and it's hard to get 35 eight year olds to pay attention!  Luckily we have workbooks that all the students were given and a general curriculum that the school wants us to follow, so at least I know what I'm expected to teach them.  The conversation class is a small group of seven and eight year olds that I meet with everyday.  So far, I've just been playing games with them because it has been a long day for both of us and they don't want to sit in one place any more than I want to lecture them.  There are classes when I feel like I'm shouting over everyone to just get them to sit down and classes where I actually have fun!  I know that it will only get easier with time as I settle into the routine.  Yesterday our director brought us to a bank and helped us all open up our own Thai bank accounts; hopefully getting paid on Tuesday will take away a little of the exhaustion!  Back to lesson planning...tomorrow I'm going to teach grade 3 to play dodgeball! :-)