Day One and Two Teaching

Day One Teaching 

My first day of teaching for the novice monks was simply meeting them and introducing myself.  They are at Tamerat School which has a mix of 'regular boys' and the novice monks. Generally their English level is very low and the materials are far above their level of comprehension.

Chedi at Wat Suan Dok

In the afternoon I was at Wat Suan Dok which houses the university monk school.  There is a tremendous difference. These young men are much more advanced in their English. Afternoon English class is two and a half hours long. The first day was a comparison of Thai and English monothong vowel sounds.  I helped with some of the pronunciation and had to restrain myself from pointing out errors the teacher had made in classifying words. Some of the 'errors' were really differences between American and British pronunciation. 









Day Two Teaching

Arrived early at Tamarat and watched as the monks lined up and sang the King's anthem before class. This is something they do at all regular schools. After they went to class I saw a group of the novices receiving a special lessons in front of the school. Later I found out how special they were - the school is having trouble with tardiness and these novices were receiving a lecture on being late. This is especially intreresting because punishment is not part of Buddhist culture.

School Realities International - Please Come to School

Details of the students listening to the teacher's explanation help us understand the depth of their understanding and commitment. Boys will be boys.

At the University for Monks

The lessons for the university monks focused on training them to be tour guides. They were very interested in the tourist aspects of Sun Valley and asked a lot of questions about the kinds of trees we have, tourist activities, the kinds of animals in the mountains and so forth. They then took turns role playing being tour guides for the class. Most of the students are from Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam and talked about places at home.

The next few days Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University will be preparing for Buddhist week so there won't be any classes for me. They invited me to come to one of the retreat centers where the dharma teachings will be in English for the international monks. I'm going to do that Monday and Tuesday.