We are at Quality Schools International – Phuket (QSI). It is an international school where instruction of all content areas is in English. It is different from an ESL program – I am not here to teach “English.” There are about 140 students in the whole school (preschool through 12th grade), and about 30 teachers and staff. I have 7-15 students per class. I see three different groups of kids during the day for classes. Students call teachers by their first names, so I am called, “Miss Ashley.” All instruction in the content areas is in English, but all students have a Thai language and culture class everyday. As an interesting break from teaching science, I am teaching 8th, 9th, and 10th grade literature and writing.
Tré is in the 12-year-old class with 8 other boys – no girls in his class! Due to international influences, classes are referred to by age group rather than “grades” up to the 13-year-old group, then they are referred to as Secondary I (a.k.a. 9th grade) up to Secondary IV. Fortunately for both of our sanity, I do not have Tré for an actual class. However, I do have his class for “homeroom” which gives me a chance to get to know his classmates, check in with him each morning and afternoon, and keep an eye on how his homework is going.
Being a school on a small tropical island in Thailand, it has its quirks. Sometimes the school is not able to draw enough power from the local grid, so there are occasional outages. This means no air conditioning. No computers. No fans. No copy machines. No lights. My teaching strategies have been modified – not using an overhead projector, etc. I plan on mostly using the whiteboard – something I didn’t utilize that much in the US.
The students are an amazing mix of students from over 20 or 30 countries – Germany, England, Italy, Slovenia, Korea, China, Thailand, US, Holland, Sweden, Canada, etc.! I believe Tré is actually the only student fully from the US. The first few days, I was in a slight state of “disequilibrium.” Many students don’t sound like you’d expect them to – for example a girl that looks Thai, but sounds German. Many of our students have parents (and/or step-parents) from different countries. Kids look like they’re from one country and sound like they’re from another. It threw me off at first, but was a good reminder not to make assumptions. For the majority of the students, English is not their first language. Most of them have lived in other countries and have traveled quite a bit. There are some beautiful mixes – Thai and Italian, etc. Also, most of the students love football (a.k.a. soccer) – yeah!
Pictures: Tré's 12-year-old class, 13 y.o. class, Secondary II, Secondary I, 5 pics of school buildings (taken early in the morning before many students had arrived), my classroom (not too exciting yet)
Tré is in the 12-year-old class with 8 other boys – no girls in his class! Due to international influences, classes are referred to by age group rather than “grades” up to the 13-year-old group, then they are referred to as Secondary I (a.k.a. 9th grade) up to Secondary IV. Fortunately for both of our sanity, I do not have Tré for an actual class. However, I do have his class for “homeroom” which gives me a chance to get to know his classmates, check in with him each morning and afternoon, and keep an eye on how his homework is going.
Being a school on a small tropical island in Thailand, it has its quirks. Sometimes the school is not able to draw enough power from the local grid, so there are occasional outages. This means no air conditioning. No computers. No fans. No copy machines. No lights. My teaching strategies have been modified – not using an overhead projector, etc. I plan on mostly using the whiteboard – something I didn’t utilize that much in the US.
The students are an amazing mix of students from over 20 or 30 countries – Germany, England, Italy, Slovenia, Korea, China, Thailand, US, Holland, Sweden, Canada, etc.! I believe Tré is actually the only student fully from the US. The first few days, I was in a slight state of “disequilibrium.” Many students don’t sound like you’d expect them to – for example a girl that looks Thai, but sounds German. Many of our students have parents (and/or step-parents) from different countries. Kids look like they’re from one country and sound like they’re from another. It threw me off at first, but was a good reminder not to make assumptions. For the majority of the students, English is not their first language. Most of them have lived in other countries and have traveled quite a bit. There are some beautiful mixes – Thai and Italian, etc. Also, most of the students love football (a.k.a. soccer) – yeah!
Pictures: Tré's 12-year-old class, 13 y.o. class, Secondary II, Secondary I, 5 pics of school buildings (taken early in the morning before many students had arrived), my classroom (not too exciting yet)
