The travel tales of a lost PR girl: Food Glorious Food, Week Two Teaching and Crashing a Wedding Reception

So back to the reason why I'm here. It's week two of teaching and after a slow and stumbling start last week I decided to be a little more creative and tactile about what to teach.

Teaching:
I started my first class on a Monday with a ladder game. The students took their time getting into it but by the seventh step on the ladder, all the students were actually hunting for words to complete it.

The ladder game (I think) is a great way to get them thinking about English language, even if they are reading books to find the words. I also played it again, later in the week, with the m3 class and got words like Google and iPhone (how original!). The thing with the m3 class, they're all at that teenage rebellion stage and whilst some just want to sit back and sleep (I put up with it once but not happening again on my watch) I found some actually want to learn, which motivates me to continue with the lesson... Well it's not like I can crawl into a little ball and cower in the corner. I won't let them break me so easily.

I've learnt playing a variety of games really helps keep the class engaged. This week I played hangman, fill in the gaps, the ladder game and the alphabet game. The alphabet game literally killed 45 minutes in two of my lessons! It took 45 minutes to think of general words in the alphabet... Oh my god, they were the hardest lessons of the week! I know calling the activities 'games' is a little controversial in the teaching English abroad world but its a great word to get the kids excited about the English language.

Topics I taught this week included countries, (in my m2 class- take note these students are aged between 13 to 14- had no clue how to spell any country name or recognise any on a map... Geography is clearly not a popular subject here) colours, (I created a word search and a favourite colour handout) cuisines, (a really good lesson with some of my m3 class, who were interested in learning about what food to order in a restaurant) and doing words (looking, writing, etc. for which I printed pictures to demonstrate the action and the word to show how it's spelt. Then tenses; past, present and future actions).

A lot of these topics I will revisit and revise over the next four weeks.

Food, parties and a dinner invitation:
The food this week was absolutely delicious I should just start from the beginning...

Monday:
Nothing special but it gets better!

Tuesday:
PacSai treated myself and Roseanne to dinner at a local diner which was literally across the road from the school (who knew?) We were invited to take a seat inside (without wifi) while she told the cook what to make us. We had a delicious, peppery chicken which was chopped up with plain sticky rice and a fresh cucumber, mango and papaya peel salad. As we tucked into this a dish of pork mince with herbs was placed on the table- equally tasty as the chicken.

We also ate a sweetcorn, kidney bean and carrot salad which was dressed with fish sauce, sugar and lemon juice. The freshness and combinations of the salads were incredible and we were already arranging a day when we would be free to go back.

Wednesday:
We were invited to eat at a teachers house in the evening. Her name (I may have spelt this incorrectly but its pronounced) PaTung. The previous day, she made the most delicious chicken coconut curry with lemon grass (absolutely to die for)!

We were joined by PacSai and another teacher (again this may be incorrect but it's pronounced) PaSungSi. We were shown around her home and garden and then spoilt for choice with the food she had for us: a pork and potato curry, fried fish, a fish curry and oven cooked pork with a helping of brown rice.

It was the most delicious food we'd eaten in ages. Genuine home cooked food. PaTung's brother had kindly made all the food for us to eat (he used to be a chef who cooked in multiple restaurants around the world- and it definitely showed). The flavour and aroma was so mmm...

Before we got to her house, PacSai took us to the market to buy some fruit to take to PaTung's (I think its kind of a gift thing, like we'd take a bottle of wine or chocolates). We brought chickoo and satsumas... Also brought a sweet mango and sticky rice with coconut syrup dessert to share... And oh my god... The best thing ever!

It was a lovely evening, sitting on her patio and eating till the sun went down... As a juicy bonus we were invited again to eat before we finished teaching!

Thursday:
So much food... We were taken to Tha Muag to eat at the lovely flood stall which sold noodles and pork cooked three ways with PacSai. Again, she didn't let us pay and then she also took us around the market to see the different types of food and fruit available in Thailand. She also brought us an amazing dessert consisting of sticky rice balls, sweet corn and coconut milk. The whole sweet corn thing in a dessert... Pure genius!

That night, PacSai and a few of the other teachers had been invited to a wedding reception at the school. As PacSai dropped us to the hut she told us she would like to show us how they do things here, so we went only thinking we'd be there for 20 minutes max.

Three hours later, a picture moment with the bride and groom, a few wedding songs, speeches and seven courses of food later we made it home. Oh yeah, you read it correctly... Seven courses. Obviously having already eaten I wasn't hungry but nicely nibbled on a little bit of each dish. There was: sushi, green chilli marinated fish, a Thai soup, deep fried fish covered in a red onion and cucumber salad, slow cooked curried pork, seafood hot pot, fried rice and a jello dessert with yellow sweet lentils.

Not forgetting lunch:
So as well as amazing dinner in the evening, the lunch provided by the school this week was also delicious. It varied throughout the week and included: beansprout and tofu, fried chicken, chicken coconut curry, thin pink noodles, chicken and vegetable curry, a lychee fruit (pink spike shell thing), sugarpalm cake in bamboo leaf, chicken pieces in a spicy marinade, papaya and soya in a green soup, accompanied everyday with rice.

Best food week ever. Thank you Thailand!