A young learner who is enrolled in an educational institution; a student.
There is so much to say about the two sections I teach English, Science, and Math to -- my P3/1s and my P3/2s.
First, I'll start by explaining how the sections are arranged.
One of the things that Lertlah does is rank the students academically. The highest functioning group becomes Section 1 (hence the "1" in P3/1), while the rest of the students get mixed up (i.e. ranking no longer matters) into the remaining sections. It used to be that all the sections were arranged academically -- Section 1 having the highest functioning students, and Section 4 having the lowest -- but policies changed just this year and no one really knows why.
So in my case, I teach the highest functioning section of all grade threes, Section 1, and one lower functioning section, Section 2.
I must say, it's like teaching two different grades.
My Section 1s, pictured above, have a stronger grasp of the English language, and work at a much faster pace in general. There aren't any special needs students, though there are a few who require a little more disciplining than the rest. Unfair as it may be, I find that I am less frustrated with them because I am able to communicate better and because they perform at a higher academic rate. Many of their test scores and assignment marks are high. Their Math skills are way above average for eight year olds (they are able to multiply and divide three digits numbers), and their English skills, though grammar is still an issue, is as if I were teaching an average Canadian grade three classroom. Science is all about understanding concepts, and so far they have been able to comprehend everything I have taught them.
Here are some of the students who definitely stand out more than the rest.
Lin is the most articulate and most outspoken of all my P3s. She is bright, works fast, and is the go-to person for any translating needs.
Nacha is playful and mysterious. She keeps to herself, and she often has that smile that is as if she's plotting something, but she really isn't. She is the Spelling Bee champ of this particular section, for successfully spelling "Tyrannosaurus Rex", and "Kanchanapisek" (the road the school is on).
Ice and Noon, along with Lin, are Chinese-Thai. I find this interesting, because while Canadians have always taken pride in hyphenated ethnicities (i.e. being Filipino-Canadian or Japanese-Canadian), here in Thailand, it isn't really emphasized much. It also sparks an interest in me to find out about the migration patterns of the country.
Ryu and Por, though a little on the talkative side, surprise me a lot with how knowledgeable they are. Whereas Por knows quite a bit of English, Ryu does not, leaving me to wonder how he is able to grasp the concepts I teach.
Pee is a great artist. His drawings are elaborate, detailed, and perspectively accurate. Any art activity I get from him certainly wows not just me, but my peers at the office.
What's with the names, you may ask?
Thais are generally brought up with a long Thai name and a shorter, simpler, often more westernized, nickname (Pee's name is Natchaphon, and Ryu's is Thanaphat, for example) These nicknames are cute, though there are some unfortunate ones that get lost in translation (Gun, Mai-Poo, and Porky, for example). I've got a few names in my P3/1 class that are definitely memorable:
Yim-Yim, Pan Pan, Ming-Ming, Jaja, and Juju. These five have names that are one syllable repeated twice.
Ploy, Ploy, and Ploy. I have three in my class, but, unlike the western practice of using the initial of the surname to differentiate, here they are numbered -- according to where they are on the attendance list. Hence they are One, Two, and Three (Ploy Neung, Ploy Song, and Ploy Sam).
The most westernized of all the nicknames are Cindy and Beckham. Can't get any more English than that, I think.
And these are my P3/2s.It's difficult to talk about my Section 2s without any comparison to the first section, which really is unfair to these students. They may not perform equally academically, but they make up for it with a lot of character, energy, and enthusiasm. That is also not to say that these kids are "dumber" -- in fact a few of them could easily outperform the P3/1s in many departments. Nevertheless, their knowledge, abilities, and comprehension are in a much wider range in the spectrum. Some can barely understand and communicate, while some speak English quite easily. As a teacher, I find that I am a lot more animated in this classroom -- I move around a lot more, I draw more, I gesture frequently, and I talk more slowly. It works, and for the most part I can successfully get my messages across.
As a side note, I have two students whom I suspect have a form of learning disability. I had asked about it once but wasn't given a clear answer, but I will keep trying. Because of the frequent disruptions I feel that a behaviour management plan for the both of them may need to be implemented.
Here are some of my Section 2 students:
Reel is quite the character. He's not disruptive; what makes him great is that he's very expressive. He speaks little English and often has trouble understanding, and so whenever he's trying to communicate he makes sound effects and gestures. He responds in Thai mostly, but when I get the class to recite or read off the textbooks he's one of the loudest. On the first day I taught him he rarely responded to his nickname, so I opted for calling him by his Thai name, Sasiwat, instead. This was met by laughter and frequent "ehh?" responses from him.
Khun and Ben, like Ryu, have difficulty with the language, but are somehow able to comprehend concepts easily. It does not prevent them from coming up to me and saying hello each time, though. Ben, especially, is the Spelling Bee champion in this class.
I have four students who are not fully Thai. Sonya's father is farang (Canadian, actually); Jaokha is half-Korean, Nina is half-Chinese, and Yuri is half-Japanese.
Win S. is the most articulate in Section 2. And very smart, too. He once explained how a hovercraft works and used words that were way more advanced than one would normally think for a Thai student. The problem, however, is that he has difficulty staying on task and often needs a lot of one-on-one time. It's a matter of him having the knowledge but experiencing difficulty relaying it in writing.
My P3/1s and P3/2s are the Thai children I know the most, because I see them almost everyday. With Lertlah being the prestigious private school it is, I know for sure that these students do not properly represent the full range of how Thai children live across the country.In time, however, I hope to explore more of Thailand, particularly in the less urban areas, especially in the villages.
"Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. "
- Albert Einstein
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