Teach English in Jinhe Zhen - Baoji Shi

I was in confusion upon choosing what title should I put to my final summative test. I came up with two options; The best thing I've learned from my TEFL/TESOL course and Personal teaching experience. As I was reflecting about the first topic, I realized the learning I gained is too broad. I cannot just pin point only one as the best thing I learned. Everything was essential. Thus, I decided to choose the second one. Let me share to you my personal teaching experience. Looking for teaching job in Thailand is not that easy in reality especially for a first timer and with one who has no teaching experience. I am not a professional teacher. I only have speaking engagement experiences because I am freelance resource speaker way back in the Philippines. That is why I have the confidence to face a crowd. Aside for having a bachelor’s degree, TOEIC, TEFL or TESOL certificates, one of the criteria most of the schools are looking is a teaching experience here in their country. Luckily, I was hired in a school located in a far-flung province. Approximately 7-8 hours away from Bangkok. I have been working here for more than a year now. I was assigned to teach English conversation to Kinder 1 and 2 and grade 1 students during the second term of school year 2017-2018. Now, I am assigned in teaching Grade 1 and 2 students. From the day I was hired, I was instructed to focus in teaching English conversation and just let the English Thai teachers do the teaching in reading and writing in English. To be honest, I felt and until now I still feel uncomfortable on that kind of set up because the students may know how to response to a question (in conversation) but they do not know how to put it into writings and vice versa with the lesson they've learned from their English Thai teachers. They may know how to read and write in English but they do not know how to put it into words or know the proper usage of the terms in conversation. The receptive and productive skills are not balance or should I say does not apply to the needs of being developed in parallel. Being a teacher in a non-English speaking country like Thailand is quite hard and challenging because on my personal experience students here are easy taught, but the problem is the information retained in their minds shortly. One lesson plan will take 3 weeks to 1 month for me to teach since we only meet twice a week. It takes that long because I don’t want to move to another lesson without learning anything from me. Another reason is the language barrier. Since it is difficult for them to speak and understand the language, I need to speak very slowly as possible I could and make my teaching pace slow as well. Everything really takes time just to make the students learn and understand the lesson. That is a big challenge for me, that is why I exert extra effort to design effective teaching instruction. Ideally, I am dedicated to my job and always aim for the improvement of my students, that is how we Filipinos are known here in Thailand. Another problem is their pronunciation, there are some letters in the English Alphabets which they could hardly pronounce properly like letter L, S and R. That is why I always start my class with a phonics drill. However, being a teacher here on the brighter side is quite fulfilling specially when students are able to learn the lessons I taught them in class and be able to apply it in basic communication specially in their homes. I feel happy hearing positive feedbacks from parents who are glad to hear their children speaking a foreign language such as English. It gives me a sense of purpose in life. I am very happy for what I have now as an ESL teacher. I am happy in my work and it is overwhelming that somehow in my life, I was able to impart my time and knowledge to foreign people in other countries.