Wow well my 10 years youth justice work certainly stood me in good stead for this one!!!

When I arrived in koh tao, I set about finding the local school so that I could teach some English!

We found it on the map and I sped off on the back of sallys moped! When I arrived, I was greeted by 'Eve' who was absolutely lovely and spoke excellent english!!! She was very welcoming and said she had a class of 7 and 8 year olds who had an English lesson starting after lunch that I could teach!!! Again i was pleasantly surprised by the facilities and they even had a computer room!

That gave me an hour to produce a lesson plan and buy my necessary equipment so I headed off to buy a ball and sat down and planned my lesson!

When i arrived back at the school, a little boy showed me where my classroom was and I tried speaking to the teacher! She bearley spoke English and to my surprise 'left me on my own straight away with the kids running riot'!!! I asked if they had English books but that woman was off like a shot, leaving behind a ruler bound in gaffer tape on her desk ha ha

I told them my name and got them passing the ball to each other whilst telling me theirs! I then got them counting from 1 to 10 which most of them could do pretty well!

I then got them tellin me their age and things started to get a little hectic with half the class continuing to raz around performing mhai tai on each other, which wasn't a problem as splitting up fights comes as second nature and these kids were tiny!!!

I then drew pictures of animals on the board and did the noises the animals made before reading 'old macdonald' upon their request!!!

I was told it was one til two as they had assembly next however no one came to get us so I had to think on my feet and started playing games with the ball.

An hour and a half into the lesson some of my kids started getting their shoes on so i presumed it was assembly time!!! In assembly we sung songs and prayed! After the prayers, virtually half were told to do squats and run around the playground as they had been naughty throughout the day but they seemed to find this amusing and enjoyable!

I met another volunteer and asked if her classes were also slightly chaotic and she said they were as the thai teachers spmetimes smack the children when they are naughty!!! It was then I realised the rulers has multiple uses!

At home time, a lot of parents and siblings wait by the playground on their mopeds to pick up their kids and some even drive off on their own!!! There's also a tuck shop open and waiting!

It was a great little school with no more than 13 teachers and 200 kids! This gives you an idea of how small the island is as it's the only one!

I had an absolutely amazing time and gained some valuable experience! I told 'Eve' I would come back and see her next time I visit koh tao!

Alistra,
Ban koh tao school,
Moo 2,
Meahaad,
Koh tao,
Koh pangan,
Suratthanee,
84360.

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+668 695623