Back to School.

The new Intensive English Program has begun at our school. I am teaching math and physics...my specialties! It has actually been a lot of fun creating lesson plans and being outside of my academic comfort zone. The students have quite a diverse level of English comprehension ranging from fairly strong to almost none. I think the most challenging part is designing activities/games/assignments that will engage and challenge the students. I think my drawing ability has gotten significantly better since I have got here as I use pictures to describe everything! This week we learned the parts of a science lab report and we going to make one of my favorite dishes: tea leaf salad. Hopefully this will demonstrate how to write a method, list of materials and make conclusions...and, more importantly, I really like eating tea leaf salad.

It is starting to heat up over here with daily temps around 33-35 degrees. I play soccer most days with my students and I don't quite understand why the students don't seem to sweat anywhere near as much as their Canadian teacher. I mean, I can wring out my shorts after we play. Yesterday after playing the first game I had a shower with my clothes on and then continued to play. hot.

For the past month I have been playing soccer Friday nights at the Mae Sot turf field, which is a dream. The ground is level and I don't have to worry about blowing out my ankles in massive potholes.

Next Saturday I have signed up for the Mae Sot half Marathon. I figure I play soccer almost everyday so I should be in shape to giver'. If you don't hear from me for a while, just assume that I have passed out from heat exhaustion...Mom, I'll drink lots of water.

This week I volunteered to help out at an English camp for Thai children, so each morning I went to a Thai elementary school and lead games for 100+ kids. It was a great experience because the camp partnered with migrant schools to help teach English. Rarely is there ever a bond between the migrant schools and the Thai schools, so it was great to be a part of the relationship building process. We basically showed up and the director came over to us and said,

"Welcome, thank you for coming! Now, can you lead the children English games for 2 hours?"

We had no idea that was coming.... so played huckle buckle, beaver Sam, atoms, sang some songs: right up my alley. It brought back a lot of great SFS memories and I have never been so thankful my mom is a kindergarten teacher.

Lastly, we have started up a review class for the graduated students who want to prepare for their next level of education (which is pre-university). It has been great to see the students again and know how they are doing. A lot of them are doing their best to study but the reality is that there are not a lot of options for them. Everyone here will continue to do our best to stay in contact with the students and help them in any way we can.