Thread: Teaching style... feeling a bit down...

Hi, I was wondering if I could get some sage advice from people who have been TEFL teachers for a lot longer than me.

I have been a teacher now for around 10 months in total. I was in Korea before working in a private academy for 4 months (before it went bust!), then I decided to give Thailand a chance. In Korea, the atmosphere was studious but we still had some fun. We used English textbooks, we taught in a classroom with desks and the kids were not allowed to speak their native language in the lesson. The job was also very creative. We had a lot of licence to use our own ideas in class, as long as the kids learned what they needed to and they could speak and write English better as a result. I like to think I made the presentations in class as fun as possible, and I would allow the kids to play games at the end of class if they had been good and studied well. This seemed to just 'work', and I was popular with the vast majority of the kids as a result. The kids also, on the whole, showed an improvement in their standard of English.

Nowadays though, in Thailand, I am finding teaching difficult. The company I work for here has a philosophy of making English fun, and as a result you are required to play a lot of games (K1 - P6) and sing a lot of songs with the younger kids (mainly Ks). There is not a lot of flexibilty in the job... there is a set of books with pre-planned lessons to use as guides, and you are expected to follow a certain framework when you are planning each lesson. Also, there are always two teachers in the classroom... the native speaking teacher, and a Thai teacher to translate instructions and share the disciplinary burden (which of course means that the students' native language is being spoken in class a lot).

I am writing this as I have just come back from school having received a savaging from my boss after being observed teaching a K3 lesson. I didn't sing enough songs, my teams were messed up for my games and my presentation of the language didn't go down well. Despite this, most of the students understood the language I taught them, and the majority could actually produce the language they had been taught before they left the classroom. The thing that agitates me about this company is that their framework and their philosophy seem to be more important than the kids actually learning what is being taught to them. I have also received good feedback in this job before, so it isn't that I can't do it. But I do feel right now as if my heart isn't in this style of teaching. I know this has been really long-winded, but what I'd like to ask is:

Is it normal to struggle with a certain method of teaching? is it just about finding the right style/ teaching environment for you?

Does it make me a bad teacher if I find it difficult to adapt like I have?

At the moment I feel like I'm basically just a monkey in the classroom, and I'm being told I'm not even good at being a monkey!

Any advice would be appreciated

Originally Posted by keegohng

I didn't sing enough songs, my teams were messed up for my games and my presentation of the language didn't go down well

Originally Posted by keegohng

Is it normal to struggle with a certain method of teaching? is it just about finding the right style/ teaching environment for you?

May not be worth a hell of a lot but I'll offer what I can.

Every teacher finds a style that they are comfortable with if they stay with it for awhile.

And it is about finding you're own comfortable style and environment.

Just off hand I would say your current job doesn't meet the environmental criteria.

Originally Posted by keegohng

I feel like I'm basically just a monkey in the classroom

welcome to teaching in thailand!

so, your observer had problems with your observed class? you need to sit down with them and find out how you can improve your performance. not enough for them to tell you that you're shit. they need to help you. that is their job.

i've never had a thai co-teacher, and i wouldn't do a job where i had to have one. think it sucks for just about every reason.

Teaching is 25% content and 75% theater.

I'm basically just a monkey in the classroom

basically true

I'm being told I'm not even good at being a monkey

well, they call tell you whatever they want, BUT u should know whether you're a good monkey or not

ps don't fight it , embrace it . you're in thailand now, not Korea

Originally Posted by keegohng

Any advice would be appreciated

It's been said already, but I'll say it again: Get Out Now! If you stay, you will continue to grow more cynical about teaching, and it could end up killing any passion you may have for the profession. I would be checking job listings every day and going to as many interviews as humanly possible If I were in your shoes. I've been in a similar situation myself; it's far more rewarding to have a job where you don't go home feeling frustrated every night.

i don't get a lot of your problems here guys...bit confused.

they want him to play games and sing songs. sounds fairly reasonable when working with really young kids, no?

he screwed up his observation which he admits. he needs to learn from that, no?


you'll find no greater advocate of the 'tefling in thailand is about being a dancing white monkey' than me but, apart from not helping this guy, doesn't necessarily seem the case in this instance...

What, Thailand.
Education in Thailand since I've been there has not been to teach these children. It's all about Entertaining them. In the end, you give them a "good" grade because no one ever fails in this great country of there's.

Originally Posted by keegohng

Any advice would be appreciated

Check out the Blogs section of ajarn.com, there's some very inspirational stuff in there.

I have been teaching in Thailand for more than a year, I teach conversation to Nursery - K3, and I heartily disagree with some of the posts. I would say 90% of my class is taught using songs, games and stories, and not only can K2 speak in full sentences, but everyone participates in one or the other activities.

An example last summer I taught the summer program for K3-G1 and they learned Go Fish. The cards had animals and numbers, by the 3rd game they were using proper sentence structure "Do you have 3 red birds? not "have birds red 3?", for me that is HUGE.....as I am Hispanic I also threw in Spanish, I would answer "Vaya pescar", by the end of the summer the kids could play the game in Thai, English and Spanish.

I consider myself a real teacher who accomplishes goals and adds value, I am not a teacher in a monkey suit and I do not think learning has to be boring. It allows me to be creative, to actually reach all of my students and feel good when I leave at the end of the day.