Selasa, 28 November 2017

4th Week in Thailand (The Last but not Least)

It was my last week in Lampang, Thailand. There were many agendas for my last week.
It should be reflection week for us, but the teachers asked us to make some activities for their event named English Day.
After we prepared some activities for the English Day on Monday, we taught on a day for literally 6 hours. The activities were different for each level of the class. For example, we did an introduction for grade 1, we made paper flowers for grade 2, 3, and 4, bookmarks from paper for grade 5 and introducing ASEAN for grade 6. Even though it was so tiring, but I was so happy to teach them. I liked to teach young learners because they were so cute. They always wanted my attention and they hugged me after the lesson.
And then, on the next day, we also taught for another English class, but for grade 3. We only sang some songs together.
It was Wednesday and We went to Lampang Rajabhat University. We had some post-training there. We had to present our activities during those three weeks. The event was attended by the director of LPRU,

Rabu, 30 Agustus 2017

My 3rd Weekend (Relaxing after Teaching)

After having a very crowded week, the teachers of the school took us (I and my friends) to elephant school. It was Thai Elephant Conservation Center.

Gallery of My Teaching Week











3rd Week in Lampang. (My very hectic teaching week)

Last Monday, 21 August 2017, was my teaching week schedule in Banpongsanook School. I was so nervous to teach English for the students who speak a different language from me. I had 10 hours scheduled to teach last week. The first hour to teach should be on Tuesday, but my mentor asked me to try teaching first on Monday. Wow! It was amazing because they were like enjoy my class haha
I taught grade 6 in normal class or a regular class, which meant that they did not use to speak English. It was such a challenging teaching activity for me haha
Let me start from Tuesday (because on Monday I only explained the material, not giving them activity), I started to teach grade 6/1. The material was about Command. It was easy but difficult to make them understand. Oh! I forgot to tell that grade 6 had about 40 students in a class. You can imagine how I was in teaching for 40 students. Then, I gave them worksheet containing some exercise about jumbled words. I divided them into some groups so that it can easier to control them. After they finished doing the exercise, I asked them to write on the white board. I gave some gifts from Indonesia for the groups who can answer all the question correctly.
The next class was 6/5. I gave the same material and activity for them, the difference was that I taught for two hours or two periods in grade 6/5. In the one hour left, I gave them some games so that they did not feel bored to learn.
On the next day, Wednesday 23 August, I did a different activity for the next classes. Those were 6/5 and 6/1. I asked 6/5 to draw the situation and they gave it the command, they did it even though it was not done in a day haha. Oh! last Wednesday should be my evaluation day by my supervisor from LPRU, but he came to school after I finished my teaching class. I was so disappointed with it. It seemed like I was nothing because he just changed our appointment before. He said he would come at 1, and then at 1 pm he suddenly said he would come at 1.30 pm. OK then! 
Forget it, then let's move to the next day, Thursday and Friday.
On my last two days teaching, my mentor could not accompany me during my teaching activity because she had another event. Firstly I felt so worried because I thought that I would teach alone. However, teacher Nanny said to Teacher Pen (Assistant teacher of grade 6 MEP) to accompany me during her absence. Fyuh! On Thursday, I just continued my previous activity in 6/5, they submitted their work (picture). They had a very nice picture and then I gave them chocolate for the rewards. They felt so happy because of it, and of course, their happiness is also mine haha.
On Friday, teacher Pen could not accompany me in class 6/2. Oh my God! It was a very challenging moment to teach them. They were very noisy, even there were student teachers who helped me, they were still very noisy, it was the most difficult moment for me since I taught there. Firstly, the students do not understand my instruction, and also the student teachers, so it was very hard to communicate with them. Luckily, there was an MEP student who named Sandy, so I said to him to ask his friends for doing the task from teacher Nanny. Finally, my life has been safe!
That was the end of my teaching week during this third week in Lampang. So far, it was my excellent experience to teach EFL students in the real EFL country. I will never forget this experience till whenever it is!





Rabu, 23 Agustus 2017

2nd Week in Lampang, Thailand.

My second week in Lampang, Thailand. I moved to the dorm near my new school. It was on Friday, August 11, 2017. My host university picked me up from Ngao and went to Lampang city. I and my three friends moved to the 'yellow' house, and we had a new school which named Banpongsanook School.
On Saturday, Mrs. Autchariya, my coordinator from LPRU, took us to meet one of the teachers in the school, we met teacher Noi at her room. There were many students although it was Saturday because they would prepare for a show and they made a drama. It was so cute! The students played drama and they wore a mask.

Central Plaza with Tina, Nadine, Nuriy And Silmi
On the next day, It was Sunday and I went to one of the malls in Lampang. It was Central Plaza Lampang. I went there with my two Indonesian friends and two Philippine friends. We went there by Siilo. It was one of the transportations in Lampang. Actually, it was very difficult to reach a place in Lampang since it is difficult to find a public vehicle here. For reaching the siilo, we had to walk about one kilometer and waited for about five minutes. We finally found a Siilo, then we went to Central Plaza about 15 minutes. Lucky us, the driver was a moeslim! We asked his contact and then we always ordered him to take us anywhere. 

First ceremony with Banpongsanook School Students
On Tuesday, 15 Agustus 2017, I went to my new school, Banpongsanook School. It was the first time we arrived at our host school. We were introducing ourselves to all of the people in the school and at that time, I was assigned to teach grade 6 in normal classes. Oh! the school has a program named Mini English Programme like my previous school. However, I got a very kind mentor.She is Mrs. Nanny. She was a very busy teacher here, she was a head of MEP Class in this school. However, she always said that she would help me all the time whenever I need a help. When I knew I assigned in a normal class, I was shocked because I was very afraid if they did not understand my instruction or even they cannot speak English, but teacher Nanny says that I don't have to worry about this because she will help me to make them understand. 
And the day after, I started to observe her teaching, being her teaching assistant and learning to make a lesson plan. 
It was the end of the 2nd week, Mrs. Autchariya took us to the tourism objects in Lampang. There were Bon Chae Son National park and hot spring. Firstly, we went to the waterfall, we had to walk to reach the waterfall. It is beautiful but I'm not too amazed by it because in my country there is also the same kind of waterfall. haha
After visiting the waterfall, we went to the hot spring. It was rain but we were still going to the hot spring, we bought some eggs to be boiled in the hot pool. The temperature of the water was very hot so that it can make the eggs boiled. it was one thing which made me amazed at this place. In Indonesia, I never heard about the eggs boiled in the pool. :D
We also tried the spa at the hot spring, it was sooo hot! The price was affordable, it's only 50 baht, around 20,000 IDR.
After we were having fun in the hot spring, Mrs. Autchariya took us to her parents' house. Her parents sold many handmade souvenirs from Thai. They made it by their own selves. We also saw how to made the scarf from a traditional machine of Thai. It was similar to Indonesian traditional sewing machine. We bought many souvenirs there and we got some discounts there! Hahaha
After one day enjoying many activities, we went back to the town and having dinner together. Since they knew that we (me and my Indonesian friends) did not eat pork, Mrs. Autchariya took us in North Seafood Restaurant. It was a Chinese restaurant. The food was so yummy! We ordered many foods and we ate together. I was so happy to enjoy my weekend with my new family. Hehe






Minggu, 13 Agustus 2017

First Week in Thailand.

My first week in Thailand was so interesting. Many things happened in my first week. On Monday, 7 August 2017, We went the school which has 162 km far away from Lampang city. We went there with the vice president of the school and the English teacher from the school. After arrived at the school, we also went to our dorm which was located in the school. We cleaned the house and we went to school to see the teachers there. There were also some foreign teachers at that school; one from Philippine, one from Russia, and one from Ukraine. The school has two kinds of classes; MEP (Mini English Program) Class and Regular Class. I was supposed to teach MEP class grade 2 and my mentor should be Mrs. Yulia, the English teacher from Ukraine.

ASEAN Day in Anuban Ngao School.
On Tuesday, 8 August 2018, there was an ASEAN Day celebration there. All of the teachers and students were wearing a traditional costume from all the ASEAN countries. For me, this was my first time to see ASEAN Day celebration because, in my country, there is no celebration of ASEAN Day. That was so interesting to see the students who performed traditional arts and costume from the different country in one event. I and my three Indonesian friends were also wearing kebaya and traditional costume from Lampung.
Mrs. Yulia, English teacher from Ukraine.
On the next day, 9 August 2017, my schedule to teach was given to me by one of the teachers in Anuban Ngao. I scheduled to teach English for grade 2 in MEP Class with Mrs. Yulia as my mentor. I observed her teaching process on that day. Wow, it made me so interested in! I really like the way her teaching to young learners. I thought that she became the real role model of a teacher. At the end of the class, she always asked me about what should and should not exist in her class, like her appropriate behavior, the method of teaching, and so on. Overall, I really enjoyed to observe her.

Woody, MEP teacher from Phillippine. 
My activity on Thursday, 10 August 2017 was observation according to the schedule of my mentor. I had one class in grade two. For the second time, I observed Mrs. Yulia's class, I found some interesting things there. She knew about the characteristics of each student in grade two. Even though the students only 8 students, she knew exactly the characteristic of her students and knew how to treat them, because every student cannot be given the same treatment. Oh! There is something interesting in grade 2, it was a student who has a special needs because he is an autism child. However, Mrs. Yulia always gave the same treatment to him, I mean she gave him like a normal student in that class, and you know what? He was smart and he can follow the lesson every day! That was one of the things I admired from Mrs. Yulia. She was a smart and wise teacher, she knew her students and their needs. Even for each student did not give the same test in evaluation time. She made a different standard for every student because they had different competence. 

When I went back to the dorm, there was an information from the coordinator of LPRU. She said that we had to move from the dorm and the school because my coordinator and my friend's coordinator asked her to move us to the dorm and school closer to the city. Yeah, at that time my feeling was so complicated. I was happy because I would have a better place to live in but I was so sad to leave the school and the people there, especially Mrs. Yulia and other foreign teachers. However, I had to follow the rules. I had to move to the new dorm and school. At night, there was a foreign teacher from Phillippine visited me and my friends at the dorm, and we said that we would move. He was so sad to hear that news. He said there was no farewell just hellos.

Mother's Day Celebration in Annuban Ngao School.
It was Friday, 11 August 2017. The school was celebrating the Mother's Day. All mothers of the students come to school. Mother's Day here is celebrated together with Queen's birthday. The event consisted of some activities. At the beginning, it was opened by a ceremony and pray to respect the Queen. Then, some students performed some arts like singing and dancing. That was so cute! After the celebration, the students drew and wrote in a picture, and it gave to their mothers. That was so sad for seeing them hugged and kissed their Moms. The celebration took some hours from 8.30 AM until 11.30 AM. After the show ended, the students went home with their parents so there were no classes after the lunch break. I and my three friends were also taking some pictures with the teachers there because that was the last day for us in that school. It felt so difficult to leave all kind people there, I love them so much. They were very nice to us although they had difficulties to communicate with us using English. We left the school at about 3 PM with the coordinator of LPRU. We also said thanks for everyone there. My tear cannot stop falling when they said goodbye to us. 

Now, I realized that everybody comes to my life due to many reasons. They can be my 'savior' when I was in an unsafe situation. They can be the lesson why we had to be a good manner person wherever we are. 
And the last but not least, thank you for everyone in Ngao. The teachers, vice director, director, the shop owner around there, I will never forget you all, and if I had a chance to go back, maybe I would go back there for meeting you all.
Mrs. Chum Phu, one of the teachers in Annuban Ngao.
Max, the foreign teacher from Russia.




Lampang, 13 August 2017.
Fitri Achriyanti.



Selasa, 08 Agustus 2017

Sunday, August 6th 2017

My name is Fitri Achriyanti. I am an English Education student in Sebelas Maret University who join the SEA Teacher Programme by SEAMEO. I am assigned to Lampang Rajabhat University in Lampang, Thailand.
Last Sunday, I was leaving from Indonesia to Thailand with my three friends, Anita, Mega, and Egy. We were going together with the same plane to Bangkok, and I continued my flight to Chiang Mai International Airport by myself.
I went to Soekarno Hatta International Airport Jakarta from Adi Sumarmo Airport at 6 AM and arrived in Jakarta at 7.20 AM. Then, we took a connected flight to Don Mueang International Airport Bangkok by Thai Lion Plane. We arrived at Don Mueang International Airport around 2 pm and I continued my flight with the Thai Lion plane to Chiang Mai at about 15.30 pm, the arrival was at 5 PM.
I was picked up by Miss Joy and her friend from Lampang Rajabhat University and we were waiting for the other students who arrived in Chiang Mai on Monday. I had three friends from Indonesia, two if they are Annisa and Aulianury from UPI and the male one is Silmi from UNILA.  And the others are Tina and Nadine from SMU Philippine.
After we were picked up by Miss Joy, we were going to the LPRU hotel and stayed there for one night. But not for my two Philippine friends, they went to their dorm directly because their dorm was closed to the university.

4th Week in Thailand (The Last but not Least)

It was my last week in Lampang, Thailand. There were many agendas for my last week. It should be reflection week for us, but the teachers a...