A Little Story About Life In Thailand

"Sawadee Krab..." 

That’s how Thai students greet each other. Unlike in Indonesia, if we meet other people, we will say “Good morning / afternoon / evening / night” depending on the time. Meanwhile, in Thailand, people often say the Sawadee Krab (for boys) / Ka (for girls) to say good morning, afternoon or night. So, every time I meet my students, no matter if it’s morning or evening they will say to the Sawadee Krab / Ka. By the way, on this good occasion, I would like to tell you about my experience during teaching practice in Thailand. Yes, I teach counseling subjects as a discipline for students. This counseling if in Thailand the name of the lesson is guidance activity where the counseling teacher provides an activity that can develop the talents of the student. every week the guidance / counseling teacher has a teaching time of 5 hours a week as I did in my teaching practice at a Thai school called Pong at the Songkla Wittayanusorn Surathani School in Surat Thani province. Now, before I share my experience during teaching practice there, it would be better if you know a little about the location of the school itself. PSU. Wittayanusorn Suratthani School is located in Makham Tia sub-district, Mueang district, Surat Thani province in Thailand, for more information about the school you can read it here. This link provides a lot of information about the school

http://psuwit.surat.psu.ac.th/history.html.

PSU Activities. Wittayanusorn Suratthani School

                                 Daily Flag Ceremony Activities

Kegiatan belajar mengajar di kelas

Kegiatan tahunan pelatihan soft skills

Well, during my teaching practice at PSU. WITTAYANUSORN SURATTHANI SCHOOL I have to teach 5 classes namely Matayom 4-1 Until Matayom 4-5. For your information, they use the terms Matayom 1, 2, and 3 to say junior, second, and third middle school students, and Matayom 4, 5, and 6 for high school students at school. So, I have to teach 5 times a week! yes, it was a busy day for me, but as time went by I enjoyed my teaching practice there. I also found some problems during my teaching practice. First, it was difficult to teach them at the beginning of my teaching practice, because they were allowed to bring their cellphones in the classroom, so when I taught them, some of them were busy with their cellphones. Secondly,  it is sometimes difficult to deliver material when there are some students who do not know some vocabulary because they learn English as a foreign language student, and the worst is I cannot speak Thai to explain the material to them, hahaha …… ! But, the problem does not mean that I cannot teach them well, there are several strategies that I got from my University as a solution that I have done for that problem. For the first problem, I applied what I got in the learning strategy, which is using motivasion learning! as a medium for teaching students. in motivation learning students use Power Point media where active students in learning explain the material. after students presentations the teacher gives questions to students and at the end of the lesson the teacher gives conclusions to students. Sometimes in the process of learning and teaching I have difficulty in speaking where students are accustomed to speaking Thai, sometimes students want to ask questions or talk always using google translate, but not all students who don’t all speak English there are only a few English speaking students in each class. practice in Thailand precisely at the PSU WITTAYANUSORN SURATTHANI SCHOOL the teacher teacher was very kind and friendly, I was placed in the teacher’s room near the U-Building where the teacher’s room was close to Matayom 4 I happened to teach at Matayom 4 so it wasn’t too far to go class when I have time to teach. not to forget also in the guidance activiy subject that it has an annual and weekly routine agenda, such as the soft skills training agenda scheduled every year in the seminar room near the U-Building, then for the weekly agenda of scouts.
Yes, it’s about teaching practice, there are also several activities that are different from Indonesian activities at school. First is the flag ceremony, the flag ceremony in Indonesia is held every Monday or once a week in the morning, while the flag ceremony in Thailand is held every morning from Monday to Friday, how good nationalism! Second is the break time for lunch, there are no classes starting at 11am until 12am. They still have their own time off, but every 11am to 12am there are no teaching and learning activities in schools, all students and students. school staff will go to U-Building. The U-Building is a big canteen for all, so students and teachers gather there for lunch, I still remember that the U-Building is the biggest canteen I have ever seen with lots of chairs and tables. Third, outside the office where the teacher prepares everything before teaching, there is a café only for teachers (including Undiksha students) to rest after teaching. There we can make coffee, tea, or cereal provided whenever we want, hahaha.
Anyway, facilities at PSU. The Suratthani Wittayanusorn School is truly amazing! classrooms have complete facilities that support the teaching and learning process, there is AC, wifi, blackboard, LCD projector, computer, speaker, microphone, and I don’t know what the mall’s name is with a camera that will display whatever I write there to LCD projector, so I don’t need to write anything directly on the board hahaha. It is a good technology to support teaching and learning activities in the classroom. So, that’s my teaching experience in Thailand that I will never get in Indonesia. Don’t forget to leave comments or questions if you want more information about teaching in Thailand, Thank you for reading this!