☆Teaching English in Thailand ☆

　I had a great experience in this winter. I and my friends went to Thailand on January 3rd and spent 10 days there. In thailand, we had stayed at a teacher's house, who teach English at the Bangsai Witthaya Secondary school, and we had a opportunity to teach English in the school. Now, I am going to write about my experience in teaching English in Thailand.

We had 3 to 5 classes a day in the secondary school (Grades 7 - 12). We had prepared many lesson-plans before going to Thailand, and we chose one of them before each class. And we had to arrange the lesson plan according to the level of each class on the spot because there were wide range of level among the classes. It was difficult for us to judge their level on the spot.

The lesson plans we taught were following.
1. Japanese culture ( geography, foods, sports etc.)
2. Japanese toys (Kendama, Otedama, Koma etc.)
3. Japanese seasons (Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter)
4. Telephone conversation (business telephone)

And we also chose "key sentences" in each class.
We changed the key sentences according to the level of the class even when we used same lesson plan.
For example, when we taught about Japanese seasons, we chose the sentence "Do you like summer?" as a key sentence in the low- level classes (that had students who was not good at English). And in the high-level classes, we chose the sentence "Which season do you like?"as a key sentence. We tried to use the key sentences many many times in the classes, so we did lots of activities that included the key sentences. This method worked well, I think.

And I found some differences between the English classes in Japan and in Thailand.
When I taught in Thai, I was surprised many students could speak English with fluency. And I had a chance to watch the English class that Thai teacher taught, then I found the reasons.
In the school, the teacher had taught English as phrases, so students remembered the phrases. In the class, they spent most of time in practicing the phrases. But in Japan, it is said that to teach grammer is important. It is a big difference between Japan and Thailand, I think.

I could learn lots of things from this experience, I had a very very good time!!
I would like to say "thank you" for all teachers in Thailand and In Japan who helped me.
Thank you very much!!!