This is Dan, giving a description of why my M3/1 class is the best class in the school.
First, you may not know how the classes are set up. M3 is "Mattayom 3" which is the third year of their high school, equivalent to western 9th graders. The levels are further separated by ability, so the 3/1 class is supposed to be more intelligent than the 3/4 class. (In fact they are and the contrast is staggering)
In class, they are a dream. When I walk in the door, they all run to their seats, smiling and giggling before the leader calls out "Please stand up!" After which they all rise, give me a wai, and say "good morning teacher!" All classes are supposed to do this, but most do not. Many of my classes are not lecture-based. Since I teach reading and writing, I think it is important that they learn this skill through practice and self-reflection. After they have made their opinions, I open the floor to their responses to the given questions and draw attention to any idea which is unique or wrong. Both are important because this gives them the chance to review their own answer, decide which is better, and comment on why one answer is better than another. I frequently tell them that I would rather have a wrong answer with strong reasons than a correct answer with no thought process. The best part is that they truly take this to heart, and when I walk around to help the small groups analyzing a piece of writing, they rarely want my help because they want to do it themselves.
I recently accompanied the students on a day trip to a province called Chonburi. It was basically an excuse to get them out of school and do something fun, since nothing about the trip was educational. I was quite popular on this trip and I remember commenting to Erin that if I had charged 5 baht for every picture I took with students I would be a rich man. Students that usually don't say much opened up and were very willing to chat with me on this trip.
One groups of girls in the back are so advanced that after they finish whatever work I give them, they ask me questions about the spanish language. Most Thai people love European League soccer and so they like to know about the spanish speaking teams and players. It makes me laugh when they ask me about this because I can see the thought process working very quickly: 1) Think of the question in Thai
2) Translate the question into English
3) Hear a response Spanish and explanation in English
4) Translate from Spanish to English and then to Thai
5) React and respond in kind
Teaching Spanish in English to Thai people is just kind of funny to me.
They are also prone to drawing me pictures. We are reading "Black Beauty" this semester and to shorten the writing on the board I will often write "BB." However, when they see "BB" they think of a "BlackBerry" cell phone. Thus, I recently got a collection of cartoons showing me doing various things with a "BB" including "Ajan Daniel talking on BB" with a picture of me with a small horse up to my ear; "Ajan Daniel riding BB" with a picture of me sitting on a very large cellphone that looks like a magic carpet. They also listen to certain quotations of mine and draw me saying them. At least this shows that they listen to me!
Long story short, if I could spend all day in one class, it would be 3/1. We laugh and play guitar together, we teach each other English and Thai, and we joke about life in general. They are some fine individuals.
