Wat Kok Reing

Hello. My name is Chiharu Kimoto. I’m from Japan. I’ve just finished 3rd grade of university, and I take gap year for a year. I’ll stay in Thailand for 9 months and this is the first month for teaching.

Wat Kok Reing is a temple. It hold summer school during April 1st to 30th because formal school is in summer vacation. Over 200 students, 8 to 15 years old students learn there.

I taught primary P6/1, P6/2 and M1 students. One class consists of 10 to 25 students. I had 3 classes per day and 12 classes per week.

Teachers are monks and high school or college students. They work as a volunteer while their summer vacation. Their English is not good, but they are willing to communicate with me. They helped me a lot.

Students’ English level is low. Although they know many words, they don’t know how to speak English. Also, they are shy and afraid of foreigners, so I talked to them “Hello, how are you?” but they didn’t answered at first.

I tried to be smiling and friendly. Sometimes I said Thai words to remove their fear about foreigner. They are so interested in Japanese culture. After I show them Japanese pictures, they tried to speak to me.

Time table is blow. It is very flexible. So sometimes I didn’t have any classes whole day because there was something special. And I could finish the class in 20 or 30 minutes depending on the situation.