The first big weekend

Nervous, nervous, very nervous. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll be fired by the end of the day. These are the thoughts that occupy my mind for at least half the journey to work, and it only takes me five minutes to get there. I’m shifting from OMG!!!!WTF??!?!!! to shrugging, ‘How hard can it be?’ within seconds.

And of course it’s fine. My first lesson is with a 12-year-old lad called Bas. He’s quiet and sits very still and is very polite. At first I wonder if this is going to be another Tong situation but Bas’s intelligence and excellent English soon show themselves. We chat a bit, and then we read a story about a girl who lived in the wild in France and was found and ‘tamed’ by some local prince. He reads it, I ask him if there’s any language he doesn’t understand, and then I ask him comprehension questions. It’s too easy for him; this becomes obvious quite quickly, but we finish it and at least I know to find something harder for next week.

Half an hour before the next one, a 28-year-old woman. So I do a bit of prep, but not much fretting. These ‘private’ lessons seem all right – it’s less pressure keeping one person occupied than I imagine it is a whole class. The 28-year-old is called Jenifer. She’s quite attractive, which I know will annoy James. He would have been teaching her if he’d not gone away. She has big Bambi eyes like Natalie Imbruglia and is really sweet and eager to learn. She’s a hairdresser, I discover, and wants to open her own hairdressers some day. We go through the exercise book Binnie has suggested, and it’s interesting trying to explain certain words in a way she’ll understand. I enjoy it.

An hour before the next one. An hour to fret. It’s my first class – 13 and 14 year olds. I run around the teacher’s room, trying to find books and ideas of what to do. Maew asks me if I’m nervous. “Is it that obvious?” I reply.

But it’s all right. They are, as you’d expect teenagers to be, sullen and bored-looking. There are three that seem to do all the answering, so I aim questions at those that aren’t talking. This works but only for that question. If I go back to talking to the whole class it’s the same three again. I feel a little self-conscious at first, stood up there in front of all these kids but it soon goes. Most of them aren’t looking at me; I have to make them do so half the time.

A brother and sister are next - 11 and nine years old respectively. He’s called Nail and is bored but answers all the questions. She’s called Nenny and pretends I’m not there half the time, shouts at her brother a lot and never answers any questions, even those directed at her. I don’t enjoy that one so much, but their disinterest only makes me more determined to engage their attention next week.

By this time I’m running with it. Although I’m winging it, basically preparing for each class in the minutes before it, I’m actually enjoying it. And for the last one, a private lesson with a 14 year old called Max, I look through loads of books and get a good few ideas for the lesson. But he doesn’t show. Typical. But no matter, it’s been a good day.

Feb 4
Despite an 8.30 start with a two and a half hour lesson with four girls (well, three – one doesn’t show) who are as sullen as teenagers can be (to be fair to them, I didn’t know teenagers existed at this time of the morning on a Sunday), I’m actually getting into this teaching lark now. Mengly comes in and sees me avidly scouring books for ideas and laughs at my conscientiousness. She says I’ll be sat around not arsed soon, like the rest of them. I expect she’s right; and even now, though I’m apparently giving the impression of enthusiasm, I am seriously winging it – doing as much as I can to get through the lessons rather than make them beneficial to the students.

That said, they do seem to learn stuff. Just when I think nothing’s going in and I’m being the worst English teacher in the history of terribly bad English teachers, a light bulb will appear above a student’s head and they’ll give me the answer I’m looking for. But really it becomes clearer and clearer that very few, if any, of the school age students want to be there, spending their weekend learning English. After a quick break during my epic two and a half hours with the teenage girls, I come back in to see some graffiti daubed on the board. Most of the board is taken up by the logo of some Korean boy band. Above that it says, ‘We just want to play game.’ So I finish off what we were doing and bow to public opinion, compromising a little by playing a game that uses the English they know.

The teenage girls are followed immediately by a class of eight and nine year olds. They are unruly and hyper and refuse to sit down for any longer than two minutes unless they are drawing, when you might get three minutes. They are also enormous fun and I love every second of being with them, whether I’m shouting at them, teaching them, playing with them or bribing them. This has been my favourite lesson so far.

After a break I have a private lesson with two teenage brothers, Pipe and Park. They are both very quiet and well-behaved and listen to me intently. But I’m not sure the sibling classes work. Pipe, the older one, does most of the answering out loud, and I see Park copying him when they’re doing writing exercises, which there’s little I can do about in the small rooms we use for private lessons. Even when I ask Park a question directly his brother eggs him on in Thai. It was similar with Nail and Nenny yesterday, when Nail was doing all the work. But anyway, they’re nice lads, just very quiet and I need to get them talking more.

Last one is another private lesson, this time with a ten year old girl called Bell. She’s lovely. She has an absolutely filthy laugh and will laugh at just about anything. Her English is good but I discover the book the previous teacher has been using with her is too hard. Try explaining the concept of breaking a record to a ten-year-old Thai girl. I manage to get her to understand ‘good, better, best’ and ‘high, higher, highest’, but moving on to ‘difficult, more difficult, most difficult’ I lose her completely. It’s frustrating cos it’s clear that given the right material we could have a lot of fun, but this book isn’t it.

I end the day with relief. Not cos I’ve not enjoyed it, but because it’s been intense – two full days of teaching with no experience whatsoever. But they say throwing you in at the deep end is usually the best way to learn something and I’ve definitely learnt a lot about teaching this weekend, as well as realizing I’ve got shitloads to learn as well. But I can’t say it went badly; I think I did all right.

Later in the evening I hook up with Mengly and Ting. For days we’ve been talking about going to see a Thai film called King Naresuan at the cinema, and tonight is finally the night. Ever since I arrived in Bangkok my senses have been assaulted by hype and promotion for King Naresuan. The first part of a trilogy telling the tale of the titular Thai king (a 14th century monarch well-known in this country for uniting Siam, as it was known then), it’s the most expensive Thai film ever made and has been hugely popular here. Which is understandable given the level of promotion it has received. You can’t escape it here - from the massive posters that adorn every space not taken up by other posters, to the merchandise on sale in every 7 Eleven you visit. It reminds me of how Star Wars Episode I was promoted when that came out.

I get to the cinema before Mengly and Ting and decide that McDonalds would be a really good idea. But not your everyday McDonalds meal. No, I want a Thai version please. I read somewhere that in every country you go to with a McDonalds the local restaurants will have a native version of their meals. Thailand is no different. They have a chicken burger and a beef burger that comes in a bun made of rice rather than bread. I’m ordering a chicken burger in rice bun meal when Ting and Mengly arrive. They order the same, although Ting orders some hamburgers as well in case Mengly can’t eat the rice bun. He’s quite sweet like that.

The rice bun? Weird. I’m not sure what to make of it for the first few bites. It’s not disgusting, certainly edible. It doesn’t not taste like rice in the way the McDonald’s bread bun doesn’t taste like bread. So it’s basically a chicken burger with some rice that just happens to have been shaped into a pattie. The thing that’s a bit incongruous is the salad and mayonnaise. It’s just not quite right with rice somehow. I eat it all, of course, and one of the hamburgers, which was going begging, then we head off to the cinema.

Ting does the honours and sorts us a screen where the film will be in Thai but with English subtitles. Or at least he thinks he does. We go in and the film has already started but Ting assures us it’s not been on long and we’ve not missed much. But there’s no subtitles. Ting gets up and disappears for AGES while Mengly and I watch the film. I have absolutely no idea what is going on apart from that some woman is sat talking to two men and she’s not very happy about something. The crying gives it away. But there’s a lot of talk. It’s definitely not a film you can watch without subtitles.

Ting comes back and motions for us to leave. Sounds like he’s been having words with the staff, and it’s not over yet. He has to do yet more talking to convince them not to make us pay a second time. These Thai people really do like taking your money off you. He manages and we head to a screen where one, the film’s not started yet, and two, it has subtitles. After some bizarre, nonsensical adverts we stand up for the national anthem, which I read recently isn’t actually the proper anthem but just some song that serenades the King. But anyway, it’s quite entertaining. But it’s the second time I’ve experienced and already I feel it’s a little sickly and over the top. Coming from a nation that is quicker to criticise the Royal family than they are to blink, it’s hard to get your head round the Thai people’s unconditional love of their King and his family.

The film itself is quite impressive. I mean, there are loads of weak points – some of the acting is atrocious, some of the directing is a little self-conscious, and there’s a bit in the middle where it drags – but otherwise it has a real epic feel to it and sets up the rest of the story in the next two films well. It reminds me, again, of Star Wars Episode I, as it’s basically lots of political maneuvering (hence the bits that drag and the lots of talking) and the characters you’re really interested in are just kids and not doing much yet. But it looks great, not least because the director Chatrichalerm Yukol spent time with Peter Jackson while he was filming Lord Of The Rings to get tips on special effects. So yeah, apart from a bit in the middle where I nearly fall asleep, it’s great. I can’t wait to see the next one, which hopefully won’t be atrocious like Star Wars Episode II.