“She looks like punk rocker (heart)"

This one is about nák-rian thai (“Thai students”).

This month I’ve been reminded time and again of what I managed to forget from last semester about Thai students – most enjoyably that they’re funny as hell. A little deceptive at times, often obnoxiously loud, constantly fighting ajarn’s insistence that they listen while someone else is speaking… but students’ personalities shine through in every classroom and regularly make me smile. So, here are a few of my favorite little anecdotes and observations about my students (mostly Thai, some Chinese and Korean).

First, ABAC students are hard workers. Let me qualify this by saying that their hard work and busy schedules exemplify valuing quantity over quality. ABAC students take tons of classes, usually 7-8 hours a day, with no lunch break, for 5 or 6 days a week. I’d say that less than half of students go out on weekends because they’re occupied with classes or tutors. They’re busy little bees. But unfortunately they don’t always work very hard IN their classes, which is obviously and sadly why they withdraw and fail so often.

Also, these kids will crack you up. They love joking and games (though often they’re way too cool for school and take a long time to warm up to the silliness they enjoy so much). The maturity level of university students here is much different than in the States, so classes are geared differently to better keep the interest of the students.

I love their presentation habits. Students nearly always begin any presentation (even just a short 2 min dialogue) with “Good morning, my teacher and my friends. My name is [Kittinun] but you can call me [Air]. Now I will tell you about …” I used to try to mitigate their formality, but now I appreciate and enjoy it.

Some of the students like to flirt with teachers. I have one student, Bird, who gives me wonderful compliments every time I walk into the room. One time he nearly made me blush when he raised his hand (unheard of!) to say “Teacher… hair look like very sexy today. New style. Sexy style. I like it.” Sometimes that kind of thing really throws me off because I’m not sure how to respond, especially in front of a class of 30 people. So I just say thanks and move on without giving it too much attention. No need to play into that.

One day, we were brainstorming different ways of describing people. All 30 students were at the board writing things like “She has long, black hair;” “He’s a giant man;” “She has crazy eyes and ugly smile.” But my favorite description on the board was “She looks like punk rocker. ♥”

They wear Hello Kitty watches. Have Hello Kitty notebooks. Wear bright pink headbands adorned with big bows and Hello Kitty. You get it.

Once I had a class working in partners. One set had my best student with the widest vocabulary paired with a much lower-level student. We were doing a cool activity where students sit back-to-back and each student has a cartoon drawing that (s)he describes to the partner, who then must draw the picture. It works well for eliciting detailed physical descriptions. Anyway, I overheard the girl in this pair (Bo) asking the boy (Toad) how to say this thing, as she pointed to her breast. Toad responds “breast.” Then she tried to repeat it, but missed the “r” sound. Then

Toad: Breast.

Bo: Breast?

Toad: Breast.

Bo: Breast?

Toad: Breast.

Bo: Breast?

…on and on for about 3 minutes until she got the pronunciation correct. I hope you get the humor if you just try to imagine two 18 year old Thai students repeating “breast” over and over to each other for a few minutes.

They’re obsessed with the Korean pop song “Nobody but You” by the Wondergirls. (I’m obsessed with it to, if honesty counts here.) They refer to it as much as possible. Even better is that the song’s ridiculous choreography is also pretty popular, so nearly every time someone says the word “nobody,” several students break out into song & dance. I know the goofy clapping/pointing/head-turning routine too, so sometimes I briefly venture into the dance to get a laugh. Works every time.

Finally, here’s a list of popular and interesting nicknames: Bird, Ball, Firm, Jack, Harry, Air, Ice, Lock, Big, Fai, Benz, Ploy, Pop, Pup, Pap, Maximum, Smile, Sun, Ham, Bo, Toad, Note, Jub, Neung (means 1 in Thai), Song, Cheng, NungNing, Best, O, and Tu-Yen (means the Fridge). I even met a John Lennon the other day (one of Lauren’s students). Nicknames are a big deal here, and I like them.

tangent:

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