Teach me to speak English good

I've been in Thailand for almost 3 weeks! It feels like longer on account of time seeming to slow down here. This week, Ana and I started teaching at an English camp for kids (with an organization that's separate from Isara.) The schools are out on break, so some places hold these English camps that kids attend for extra learning while they're out of school. We're teaching this week, every day in the mornings from 9:30 - 12:00, and we stay a little bit later on Tuesday and Thursday since we don't have classes to teach at Isara on those days. The kids at the English camp are crazy and totally tire us out... Don't get me wrong-- these kids are energetic and intelligent. But they're just all over the place!

Teaching English is challenging on so many levels. First off, the kids here are so used to memorizing and repeating and spitting out what they're told, without having to really use their brains. We try to break those habits, but it's hard to do so when that's what they do at school, all day, every day. Second of all, learning a foreign language is a challenge for anyone. But I think it's especially difficult trying to learn English. What a confusing language we have! Things aren't spelled the way they sound, and there are so many exceptions to every grammatical rule. The way that English words are put together seems to be this cryptic formula that only makes sense if you grew up speaking, reading, writing, and studying English. But it's worth it to see students start to understand and improve, and to know that their learning can help them in the future.

Besides, these kids are too cute! I especially enjoy the Beginners class with all the little kids.

There's this little girl named Yok. She doesn't really study at Isara, but usually comes to play on the playground or on the computers. She also likes to play Connect 4! Someday, I'll get a picture of her and her other little friend, named Donut =)

I can see myself getting attached to these kids!

This weekend, Ming took us to the park. It was such a different park experience. They were selling these small, white ceramic figurines that you could buy and then paint. We had to partake in this fun activity! We painted until it started to get dark and realized we hadn't even walked around the park at all.

These were the finished products. Mine's the Little Mermaid, of course!

Other things I've been able to do when we're not teaching:
* Teach yoga classes! (Even though Ana is my only consistent student...) I love that I have a chance to practice and it makes me happy when she says she's sore the next day. Hee hee. Sorry Ana.
* Study Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, which I've wanted to go through again and get a better understanding of since we weren't required to read the entire book when we were doing our training.
* Make a tote bag for Ming. By hand. Fabric courtesy of the IndoChina market.

And this is a totally random picture of a very cute and fluffy puppy that we saw at the Fireball Festival.