Indonesian Night and English Camp

I started to adjust with the environment in Chiang Rai, Thailand on my second week. It is really cold every morning.It's around 13-16 degree Celsius. Fortunately, my dorm provides water heater, so it is not a problem when I want to take a shower in the morning. I always go to school with Arifah by foot. We walk for 5-10 minutes from our dorm to the school. My office is in the foreign teacher office. The foreign teachers are very warm. There are 13 foreign teacher in CRMS 6 : Teacher Bat from France; Teacher Chang, Teacher Marry, Teacher Amy, Teacher Michelle,Teacher Ryan, Teacher Karllen and Teacher Jay from Philippines; Teacher Herbert, Teacher Isa, Teacher Amy and Teacher Bigsby from U.S; Teacher Bat from France; and Teacher Nissy from Africa.

My Office

On my second week, I assisted my mentor, Teacher Herbert, in teaching. Teacher Herbert teach Mathayom 1 and Mathayom 3, but we only teach Mathayom 1 for this week because Mathayom 3 had to prepare for O-NET (final exam to enter High School). As always, we faced the same problem in English lesson. I helped teacher Herbert by approaching the students and then asked them whether they understood or not, especially when teacher Herbert asked them to open a certain page. They would not understand what they should do if teacher Herbert did not write the page on the whiteboard. I also helped him in operating the power point.

Teacher Herbert's Class

The exchange participants in Chiang Rai had a plan to welcome the last participant from Philippines who came late in Chiang Rai, Elishah. Twelve of us will slept over in Ghea & Widyas' dormitory on Friday and cooked Adobo (Philippines' cuisine) on Saturday. However Arifah and I cannot join because we invited by Teacher Ding to attend English Camp on Saturday in Mae Sai.  On Friday night we planned to go to Night Bazaar, but there was sudden invitation from Mae Fah Luang University to attend Indonesian Night. Indonesian Night was an event to introduce Indonesian culture to foreigner. There were Angklung performance (Indonesian traditional instrument) by Thai Students, Indonesia traditional dance and Indonesian cuisine like gado-gado and batagor. The representative from Indonesian Embassy in Thailand also attended the event.

 Angklung Performance by Thai Students

 With the Representative of Indonesian Embassy in Thailand

On Saturday, Arifah and I woke up early to go with students on School Trip in Mae Sai. Grade 9 of English Program had an English Camp event. It should be two nights but Arifah and I only join for one night. It was held in Poonyamantra Resort Mae Sai. The resort was really cool, the scenery was breathtaking. Mae sai is the northernmost of Thailand, the border line between Thailand and Myanmar.  

 

The resort

 

The scenery from the resort

Students were doing a lot of games in order to improve their English Skill. The English Camp were organized by Dragonfly event organizer. Started from games that improved vocabulary until improved speaking skill. They divided into some teams (based on color) and will get points every time they won the game. The English Camp was really fun, they asked to open a shop for playing a game. It was named Temple Festival. The shop that had the highest amount of money they will be the winner. The money was just a play money.

 

The Temple Festival

 

 One of the shop (Pardon my face)

My room in the resort was very satisfying. The bed, the bathroom, the food and the scenery was great.

My room in the resort

However, we should went back to Chiang Rai on Sunday Morning. Arifah and I spent our Sunday inside the dormitory because we should prepare to teach in the Monday. We should practice teaching in our third week based on the Sea-Teacher project schedule.