Teaching on Koh Lanta
From the 21st to the 25th of May, four volunteers and two staff from the teaching placement in Krabi stayed on Koh Lanta to run an English course for staff at Rawi Rawin resort and spa. This was the second time, Krabi Skills Development Centre asked Projects Abroad to organise a course for hotel staff and we were eager to help them out, excited to be spending a week on an island as well as getting the chance to teach grown-ups.
Our preparation started three days before, with us four volunteers, Astrid, Fiona, Natalie, and Jakob, preparing the lesson plans, curriculum, and all the materials we would need—many flashcards and worksheets for the students. Final preparation consisted of spending our entire Friday from 9am until 6pm in the office working intensively. There was, however, a short break for cake.
Sunday afternoon, we headed to Koh Lanta by minibus, taking two ferries on the way. We had a brief peek at the Rawi Warin conference room, taking us through the reception and along a balcony overlooking the rest of this incredible five star resort and spa.
Rawi Warin boasts the first ocean pool in Asia, as well as holding an infinity pool, private pools for many of the villas, several restaurants and bars, a small cinema, and a superior music listening room. Unfortunately, we did not stay at their resort, but had to make do with IlMare Resort down the road. There, however, we had sea-view bungalows and a pool to ourselves. Perhaps not the extravagance of Rawi Warin, but more than good enough for us.
Each day, we were picked up by a Rawi Warin driver and taken one minute down the road. We arrived in time to start each day at 9am, though with the students often running on Thai Time, this frequently became 9.15 or 9.30. We then taught through to lunch at around 12 o’clock, continuing afterwards until 4pm, when we would retreat to our resort and relax by the pool after the exhausting day’s teaching.
We covered relevant topics for hotel staff, including greetings, personnel, facilities, guests’ needs, transportation, directions, numbers & time, safety, and finally tourist attractions. At the beginning of the week, some of the students were very shy, but they were soon literally tumbling over each other during our more active games.
The first day started with a name and action memory game, going around the circle and each person adding their own name and personal action to the end of the growing list. By the end, with each student saying all thirty odd names before them and acting out every gesture, it became very confusing and brought on plenty of laughs. We also used Charades and Pictionary many times throughout the course for lots of the topics. One particularly popular game consisted of a mixture of Charades and Chinese Whispers, which brought on some very inventive actions for forms of transport.
At the beginning of the course, we brought in a competitive edge to the learning, which brought out the child in everyone, making them all keen to join in with the games and songs, much to our surprise. We split them into four groups, each creating their own team names: The Lions, Grandmum, The Stars, and the Winners.
Many of our games had the students running to touch or grab the correct flashcard after we called them out. This became a serious health risk to us all as they charged for the board and scrambled on the floor. It wasn’t until the next day, though, that we began teaching about safety.
To teach directions, we had one person from a team blindfolded in front of our whiteboard, with another team member directing them using phrases such as ‘go straight ahead’, ‘turn left’, ‘turn right’. They were carefully guided around the room to find the ‘treasure’ of some coloured balls. Later we brought out a ‘real’ treasure: biscuits for their afternoon break.
Thursday’s topics were Safety and Evacuation. We had great fun pretending to be petrified guests in a pretend fire or tsunami, running in all directions and grabbing all the belongings we could get our hands on. The students then had to try and control us, as we flailed and panicked, using the phrases we taught: Please walk slowly; Please stay together; Please leave your belongings. We then gave the students the chance to act terrified too, much to the amusement of the other three teams and us.
We also taught them about health issues and illnesses, using the great song, Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes, to learn about different aches and pains. With each ‘hurting’ body part, we would leave that word out of the song, replacing it with an exclamation of pain: ouch!
On Friday we brought the course to a close with a summary of all the topics and a few of the students’ favourite games. By now, they were all taking part and we could tell that many had gained confidence and English knowledge. Even during the breaks, several groups stayed behind in the conference room, talking and practicing what they had learnt. Towards the end of the day, we tallied the scores and announced the winning team, awarding its members with Projects Abroad t-shirts and cookies.
In the closing ceremony, Ruang, our project coordinator, brought up some of the students to comment on the course. They were all grateful for our effort and knew the English we had taught them would be useful in their job. They especially enjoyed all our games and activities and loved the songs we made them sing. Some even said that aside from learning valuable English phrases, they also had the chance to make new friends among their colleagues.
A spokesperson from the Krabi Skills Development Centre said a few words as well, mentioning how lucky the students were to have this opportunity. We felt honoured to be of such help to them and said our own words of thanks; for their positive approach, concentration whilst learning, and enthusiasm for all the games we made them play, no matter how silly they were.
Although the week was tough and come Friday we were exhausted, looking back we realised how much fun we also had. During the week, all their personalities shone through and at the end we felt like we knew them all as friends as well as students.
