Finally Finals

It’s down to the final week.  Yesterday (Tuesday) was my last day actually having to teach anything in class, if you can call what I did all semester teaching, and today I start with finals.  Technically, I started with oral exams with my M.3’s on Monday, but still have to give them the listening portion.  My M.4’s are doing debates.  It’s been a struggle, to say the least, to get them to prepare over the past week.  They know it’s almost the end of the semester, I know it’s almost the end and it has been ridiculously humid which makes me not want to be at school even more.  I have no idea what to expect out of these debates, especially since one group chose to debate over which is more important: A pretty face or a rockin’ body.  Should be riveting.  Haha  Don’t get me wrong though, there is one, maybe two groups out of the eight that actually seem prepared and eager to present.  Well, maybe not eager, but they do want a good grade so they’ve put a bit more effort in.  Not surprisingly, they’re also the kids with the highest grades at the moment and really don’t have much to worry about.

The main thing getting me through this week, though, is the fact that I leave Saturday morning for a few days back in Phuket.  I can’t imagine anything better than going down to a tropical island and spending my days lying out and reading or exploring the nearby beaches and mountains by moto.  We were originally supposed to have next week Monday and Tuesday off for study days and with Wednesday being a religious holiday, classes were canceled as well.  Key words being were.

When we started the semester, we were told that finals would be the last week of February 27 through March 2.  Then they got pushed up a week so they ended on this past Monday.  Next, they were pushed back to March 8-15 with the week before being a reading week with Mon-Wed off.  It’s been temporarily moved back and forth from all these dates, but in a meeting in January, it was confirmed that they would be that second week of March…until two days ago.

Now, at this point, Lizzy and I had already booked a flight to Phuket over those three days of vacation we were supposed to have and don’t have the desire to cancel, nor can we justify not using these tickets we paid close to $100 for.  It’s not that big of a deal for us, as we had planned on finishing up with finals this week anyway and just getting a sub to have an end of the semester party with our classes on Monday and Tuesday.  However, it kept getting better!

While giving our final review in our last class with any of the M.3’s last week we found out that they have standardized exams scheduled for the Tuesday and Wednesday we planned to give half of their finals.  We freaked out for a bit, but decided just to give up our lunch periods the remaining 3 days and having them come to us.  Great, right?  Not so great when we walked into one of the four classes on Monday to give the oral portion and they told us that class was canceled for a tutor session for the next day’s exams.  We then went back down to our office and someone came to tell us that the tutor session was pushed back an hour and we still had class.  We trudged back up the steps only to see two more teachers clearing out the classroom again and marching the students upstairs.  Back in our office they told us that, yes, they did have tutor, and didn’t see how it was a problem that they took this period even though this is the only time we can give them their finals.  Thankfully, it was the only class we see twice this week so we could afford not having class, but it still makes things a bit more stressful since we now have half the time to go through just as many students.

On top of all of that, we were told that we only needed a speaking portion for the finals where we would create situations based on the workbook and have one-on-one conversations with each student to test their skills.  Friday, 7^th period we were told that we also needed a listening portion.  That left us with one class period for each class to give a listening exam and test each of their speaking abilities.  At forty students a class, this would take two full classes anyway, especially since they want each student to be tested for at least 3 minutes apiece.  I freaked out a bit, but now I’m too the point where I’m just happy to fit all the kids in and grade them based on how they did in what little time we have.  Less work for me, more fair to them since our original schedule we told them about changed so much and they’re all going to pass anyway since that’s how they do it in Thailand.

In other news, I come home in 32 days!!  I’m hoping that March flies by since I have a few trips planned before I hop on that plane back home.  First there is next week’s trip to Phuket, a week of sitting around doing nothing at work, a weekend English camp with GIE, a few more days of nothingness at work, 4 days in Chiang mai and one last week of sitting around getting paid to do nothing before I pack up all my stuff and say goodbye to Bangkok! 

Yes, I'm still alive

I’ve been severely lacking on posts for over two months now, but here is an update on teaching. Midterms have come and gone, I’m still waiting on my username so I can submit grades electronically and half of my students have now started on their final projects. There are just over three weeks left of teaching followed by a week off and then finals week, the second week of March.

The first half of the semester went relatively well. My M.3’s did hours of mindless bookwork and listening activities just to prove to their parents that the money spent on workbooks is put to good use. Instead, we all suffer from listening activity after listening activity on topics that don’t really interest 13 year olds: leaving phone messages (that’s what texts are for these days, right?) and how to go about conducting a business meeting. On top of that, we have assigned a Current Events report that turned into us sitting through many lunch periods listening to our students read back to us, word for word, the news we read online and in the paper each day. They also did a News Report segment, of which some were actually enjoyable, others painful to sit through, if we could hear them over the chatter of their classmates that is. We are just finishing a product invention/commercial presentation and Lizzy and I have no idea what to do with them after since there is so little time and they are getting rowdier by the day.

With my M.4’s we’ve done a few major presentations this semester and not a whole lot more. First, there was an oral history/interview project. In the end, I realized I was way too lenient with the grades I gave, since most of my students just stood up front and read me what they learned in their interviews and failing to use proper introductions and conclusions. I had a couple that were really good and funny, including one kid who approached me three weeks after it was due and gave the best presentation of all four classes even though he hasn’t come to class since week two or three of the semester. He was also the only one to give the entire thing without any notes. Next, we were supposed to cover interviews again, not really sure why, but Diane and I went with Celebrity Interviews. Once again, I had a few pairs in each of my classes who went all out, as I had asked, and came in with props and costumes and actually acted like the celebrity they chose to be. The best was probably a Lady Gaga interview by some of my students in M.4/1. She got up there with high heels, a leather jacket, crazy glasses and hair, sparkly shirt and had watched several interviews with the actual Lady Gaga to get her personality down. She even dropped the F-bomb. It was great to see that even though some were pretty lame, the information they had researched was spot on since it was a topic they all enjoyed. Several groups brought in guitars and performed and another boy showed up in a leopard print mini-dress, painted nails and heavy eyeliner on just one eye and did a choreographed dance to a Lady Gaga song. We just finished watched Slumdog Millionaire, which is leading into a discussion on social issues to set them up for their final project, a debate. Not sure how it will go, but after starting the lesson with one class I’m feeling a bit more optimistic.  I also went on a day trip with M.4 to the nearby province of Ratchaburi.  We went to a floating market, a sheep farm and Candle world or something like that where we made our own small candles on a stick and looked at wax sculptures.

I also just got back from my final visa run! My last trip to Laos (which I failed to ever post about) was back in November and was for a double-entry visa. This time, I cashed in on that second entry by spending 5 hours traveling to the Cambodian border just to wait in two separate lines for just about half an hour, getting all the necessary stamps and having a huge nasty bug crawl over my foot, before getting back on a bus headed back to BKK. Overall, it was nearly a 12-hour day just for one stamp…thankfully nothing more since I don’t have room in my passport for any more visas!

My weekends in January were pretty booked. The first weekend (New Years), I was in Koh Samui with Lizzy and our friends Andy, Liz and Joeri. We got back on a Wednesday and Lizzy left already that Friday to go to Chiang mai. Oddly enough, she went with our M.3’s for an English Camp with the same company that we used to work with, AYC. The camp director pretended to not remember her at first and the rest of our ex-coworkers gave her the cold shoulder. We like to think it’s because we actually went out and were able to get real teaching jobs since most of them lack a college degree…others didn’t even finish high school. I went out with Liz, Joeri and Andy that weekend and drank way too much Sangsom, a cheap local whiskey. That following week one of our friends from TESOL training, Gordan, was back in town for a few days before catching his flight back to the states. It was great to catch up with him and have him meet all our Bangkok friends. He also joined Lizzy and I at our work holiday party that Friday night. We decided to leave school a bit early to meet up with Gordo and grab some (okay, four) margaritas before heading all the way back across town on motos and were almost late for the start of the party. Although we weren’t the last to arrive, I had forgotten to wrap my gift and ended up finding a piece of newspaper outside and a worker who had some tape…oops. After a mediocre dinner and two hours of drawn out name calling for the gift exchange (with several karaoke intermissions) I was called to give out my gift (a planner and two very nice pens) and receive one from the next person. I got my gift and we took off before we fell asleep. Once we got to the parking lot, I opened my present only to see that I had been given 100% Essence of Chicken. According to Liz, it works wonder for a hangover, but I didn’t even get the best brand. Not sure if I’m going to try it, though, since I can’t imagine being able to stomach chicken essence after consuming a few too many drinks any given Saturday.