Caroline's Blog: If you're foreign, you're in the photo..

Caroline is a Teacher with The Burma Education Partnership in Mae Sot, on the Thailand/Burma border.

After two weeks of lighter duties around town, it was back to the camp yesterday. I had been determined not to let the fitness slide over this period so had engaged in some major Mae Sot cycle touring. It certainly seemed to have paid off as the dreaded Tuesday climb to Primary 5 was no problem. The physical exertion was fine; however my failing memory coupled with a complete change of the landscape due to lack of rain and an absence of the muddy stream meant that I took a small wrong turn and had to pause to find my way on more than one occasion.

I could have argued about where is the sustainability in me teaching a class as I’m here to build the teachers’ skills, but that would have been very petty and served no purpose whatsoever. After showing a few flashcards to the students to find a rough idea where they were, I managed to educate/entertain the gathered mass of grade 1 students for 45 minutes with ‘middle vowels’ and CVC words. My associated miming of ‘cat’, ‘bat’ and ‘rat’ added an air of sophistication to the learning process I never quite found in secondary maths teaching.

Fortunately, before I had finished the lesson the head teacher had managed to find another replacement teacher, from somewhere, who came to the lesson to assist and also got a brief introduction to grade 1 English lessons. So it was now time to wait for my escort to the next school. There was no sign of my teacher/guide so I would have to go alone, except I had not paid attention the previous time owing to the heavy rain and my eyes being focused firmly on the ground underfoot. Not wanting to have a teacher lost and wandering aimlessly around camp, a couple of guides were found from grade 5. I paid more attention this time.

I needn’t have worried that two weeks out of camp had meant that I’d been forgotten about at Primary 4 as I was welcomed with open arms and after being fed was whisked off to meet the grade 1 teacher’s family. Here I was fed again and good use was made of my camera because the mother wanted various photos of me with family members. I’m not sure if this was prompted by the height differential between us, my comic red face and sweaty body, or just the novelty of having a foreigner in the house. Probably a combination of all three.

Back to school and a great lesson owing to the fact this teacher is confident, receptive and we seem to have developed a good sense of who should do what when in the class. The best part was the fact that I managed to convince the 16 year old teacher, who shares the class, to take a small part of the lesson. She did a good job presenting ‘ten’, ‘pen’ and ‘hen’.

Today was the second day and another hill successfully climbed to reach High 2. As soon as I arrived I thought there was something different at the school. Initially I thought I had just arrived earlier than usual and was able to catch the assembly so I headed towards the school hall. I was surprised to hear English being spoken fluently and as I peeped over the breeze blocks into the hall I saw a whole row of ‘foreigners’ on stage. It turned out that this was a group of eleven students and two teachers from an international school in Switzerland that funds High 2 (also known as the Missionary School). The group had come to the end of a four day visit and speeches were been given by both parties. The assembly finished and I saw one of the grade 1 teachers so I thought we would go to class. Of course there could be no gathering without a photo opportunity and it seems that regardless of whether you have anything to do with said gathering, if you are foreign, then you’re in the photo!

The afternoon held no major surprises, just a tinge of disappointment because the teacher at Middle 7 told me he was teaching ‘initial vowel sounds’ from unit 2, when we had already moved onto the ‘middle vowels’ of unit 3!! I managed to convince him that we should press ahead, but I have a strong suspicion that another couple of unit 2 lessons may well be squeezed in this week when I’m not there.

So two days back and very little typical so far. Let’s see what the rest of the week brings.

The Burma Education Partnership,  (BEP) is a UK-based voluntary organisation which provides professional educational support for schools in communities on the Thai/Burma border displaced by war, oppression and economic hardship. BEP is involved in both materials development and teacher training. It also operates a Mobile Teacher Unit working in partnership with Burmese teachers in the classroom offering  training, planning sessions and English language upgrading leading to formal accreditation.

With the financial and professional support of TEFL.com we are working to raise the profile of the Burma Education Partnership and in so doing helping some of the most disadvantaged and insecure communities in South East Asia.