Day 21 - 22 (Saturday, August 6 2016 & Sunday, August 7 2016)

It seems like I count the stones now. I saw my phone this morning and I was surprised that I have spent my days for 22 days in Ayutthaya. For these two days, I spent my time to refresh my mind from all my tasks with school and university. On Saturday, we went to Bangpa In Palace (Summer palace) and Floating market in Ayutthaya. We enjoyed the moment very much. You will see how nice the journey was from my pictures.

PS: I also added some pictures from the previous day when I was teaching at school ^^

Day 18 -20 (Wednesday, August 3 2016 – Friday, August 05, 2016)

These three days were so busy for me. These days I had spent with teaching. I started the class on Wednesday and finished on Friday. I taught M. 1 / 4. It was the first grade from Junior High School. I had discussed with Ms. Pimphaka (I usually called her Ajarn Pim) and the result was I taught three times and the main skills were speaking and vocabularies. She helped me in many ways and she also helped me to calm myself from my nervousness. In the first day, I had a little problem. It was the first time I entered the class and I could not handle the class because I was too excited so Ajarn Pim told me some advises so I could do well on the next days. For two days after that, everything seems good.

She also told me that I had a good idea and the creative one. I was thankful to have her as my classroom supervisor. 

Pictures: 

Day 14-17 (Friday, July 31, 2016 – Tuesday, August 02, 2016)

                Those days were so awesome but tiring. I went to many places and enjoyed the scenery. On Saturday, I went to Grand Palace with the students from VRU. I went from the dorm in the early of morning and went after the sun set. The scenery was beautiful anf I was so thankful to see there.

On Sunday, I went to the Wat Mongkol Market and Ayutthaya Floating Market. There were great, too.

On Monday, I discussed my lesson plan with Ajarn Pim, my advisor at school. She helped many things about the lesson plan.

Wednesday is my teaching practice. Pray for me ^^

Day 12 & 13 (Thu, 27 Juli 2016 & Fri, 28 Juli 2016)

Hello. I’ll back. These two days were very tired but awesome. I had many classes to be observed. Actually, I took a note what the teacher did in the class but I still got nervous to think about it. I also prepared my lesson plan to teach. Hopefully, I can go through this week and get ready for teaching. Please, pray for me. 

Day 11 (Rabu, 27 Juli 2016)

This day went on as usual as yesterday. I went to school and did the observation. I had three classes today. Two of them were Ajarn Elena’s classes. She was a native speaker and she cannot speak Thai. She taught Listening and Speaking class for class 1 (first grade in Junior High School). This day, I got the textbook and the syllabus so I started to arrange it. Hopefully, I could finish it in a few days. 

Pictures:

Day 10 (Selasa, 26 Juli 2016)

This day were so busy. We had to go to school on time and joined the ceremony. We also observed three class today with different grades and teachers. The first class we observed was Aj. Suwapak’s class. She taught class 3/1 (same as third grade of Junior High School). She taught the class for 50 minutes. There were 40 students and they learnt about Thanksgiving. They do the reading aloud and they answered the questions by writing it on the whiteboard. They used textbook from Oxford titled Got It level 3. She used English in daily conversation to explain the topic. I loved their scout uniform, so I asked them to take a photo with me.

The second class was grade 4/1 (same as first grade in Senior High School). It was taught by Aj. Pattaporn. She had 100 minutes and the students were 22 students in the class. She started the class with collecting the students’ assignment and she made a game in class. The game was about list of vocabularies and there was one student who will say yes or no based on the other students’ questions so they could answer it by collecting the hints. The last thing they did in their class was peer editing for their letter which was written by them and their friend would revised it.

The third class was the friendliest class. It was grade 1/1 (same as the first grade of Junior High School). It was taught by Aj. Pimpaka and it had 27 students there. The time allocation was 50 minutes. Their lesson was usually about reading and little bit of speaking (it is used to answer the questions from the text orally). In this class, the students were very cheerful and they were so attractive. The students were so happy when the teacher gave them candies.

Before I went home, Ajarn Sunee gave me the syllabus so I could make the lesson plan. Unfortunately, I had to meet Aj. Pimpaka so I could discuss the topic with her.

Wish me luck!

Pictures: 

Day 7-9 (Sabtu, 23 Juli 2016 - Senin, 25 Juli 2016)

On the seventh and eighth day, they were holiday. So, I just spend the weekend by visiting weekend market that took place in the university area. They sold many things there, such as food, clothes, shoes, fruits and so on. However, for this weekend I didn’t buy anything because I felt I can’t bargain and I still have many days in Ayutthaya.

On Monday, the ninth day, I started my observation schedule in the Lab School (Secondary School). This day I had two classes to be observed. Unfortunately, I only came to the first class because I had an online meeting with SEAMEO. The first class was taught by Ajarn Nan. I had met her before when she invited us to go around the mall in Ayutthaya. She was very nice and friendly. She started the class and told her students that they were going to do the review as the preparation for the mid-term and she asked her students came in front of the class to tell the abbreviation that they usually find. The students were coming in front of the class and told some familiar abbreviations, such as BF (boyfriend), GF (girlfriend) and so on. After the students told it, she asked other students to write down which words they did not know before.

For the review, she asked her students to work in groups, three big groups that consisted of 7 persons, and they made poster based on the topic: passive voice, past tenses and auxiliary verbs. They were given 1.5 hours to finish it. They had to summarize and made 5 questions as the exercise. After they finished it, there would be some representatives from the group who would present the topic. Next, Ajarn Nan would divide some balls randomly to others students to tell what they got after listening to their friends. After that the students who got the balls would stand up and told their opinion about the topic. Unfortunately I could not finish the class because I had to meet Ms. Cherry and Afifah to do the online meeting. We have done the only meeting until 12 o’clock and I had my lunch at university canteen.

Actually, I remembered the Thai students are very polite and nice. They also greet their teachers first. That’s what I have to do in my country: to be polite and nice.

Pictures:

Day 6 (Jumat, 22 Juli 2016)

I went to school in the morning by tuktuk. I went there with my friends, Dian and Jeffri. They came from UII and Syiah Kuala University. We arrived at the school early in the morning, so we could see what they were going to do. They had to have a students’ activity (it is almost the same with flag ceremony). However, flag ceremony is usually done only on Monday or Independence Day. In Thailand, they have the ceremony every morning from Monday to Friday. They also wear the uniform based on the class they take. So, when they wear white shirts with dark blue skirt, it means they learn like English, Math, and Science and so on. They spent their time around 30 minutes for the ceremony and they continued with the sharing time between teachers and students (such as counseling) for 10 until 15 minutes.  After the activities, we were going to see around the school. They have 6 grades there from seventh to twelve because they have Junior High School and Senior High School.

I started to see the 2/1 Class. It was time for sharing. Unfortunately, the students were not there because they still had activities outside. They had time to play basketball, football, playing music and so on. When they learnt English, they still use their native language. Maybe it is caused by the position of English in Thailand and Indonesia are same. They are foreign language.

Actually, students in Thailand are very polite. They usually greets their teacher by saying Sawaddi Ka every time they meet.

Day 5 (Kamis, 21 Juli 2016)

 On this day, we went to the university. We would like to register Wi-Fi for our needs in communication. We came there at 8.00 a.m. we met Zai there and some of her friends. They and Ms. Sion helped us to register our Wi-Fi code for ours. We need to fill a form which is submitted to the IT staffs in ARU. We have finished that businesses in a short time. After that, we had breakfast at the university canteen. It was 20 Bath only because I only took one kind of dish: sausage. 

After we finished our breakfast, we walked to the meeting room because we had schedule to meet the Dean of Faculty of Education Phranakhon Si Ayutthaya Rajabhat University, Dr. Amornrat Sananseang. She welcomed us very friendly. In the meeting, we also met our coordinators at school. I was placed at The Demonstration School of Phranakhon Sri Ayutthaya Rajabhat University- Secondary School. My university adviser is Mrs. Raksamon Yodming or Ajarn Mon.

After the meeting was finished, we were invited to have lunch together as a welcoming party at Pakwan Restaurant. We talked and one of the teacher asked where we came from. I answered that we did not come from the same cities in Indonesia and she nodded her head.

When we had finished with the lunch, we went back to the school and we greeted the teacher and the principal at our school. We introduced ourselves there. They accepted us nicely. For this time, we sat at the library and observed how the students’ activities at school. They were so polite. They always greeted their teachers politely. They also obeyed the regulation of the school. We saw the students were so active in every activities, like sports, dance and so on.

The school was finished at 4.30 p.m. and we went home to the dormitory by tuktuk. We also bought for our dinner. At night, we ate together at Jeff’s room, Syiah Kuala’s student. We talked about our day. 

Day 4 (Wed, 20 Juli 2016)

In this day, we went to Ayyuthaya City Park. It was a mall in Ayyuthaya. We had made an appointment with Ajarn Nan and Ajarn Mol. They came at 9.30 a.m. to our dormitory. After we met, we decided to go there by public van. In Ayyuthaya, there were public van which went around the city and it was only 10 Bath for every person (approximately 5.000 rupiahs). When we were in van, we could see the scenery of Ayyuthaya. It was full of the temples which are broken because of the time. I could see the people’s activities and the situation.

After we arrived at mall, we met Zai. She is one of Thai students. She helped us many things. We made an appointment with Ajarn Nan and Ajarn Mol to meet again at 1 p.m., so we had several hours to look around the mall. We looked many things there. Moreover, the unique thing here is they had a shop which is called as “20 shop”. 20 shop means everything in that shop is cost around 20 Bath. They sold household stuffs, such as plate, bowl, glass, etc. We looked around and met Ajarn Nan and Ajarn Mol. We also had brunch there. We chose McD here and it costs 84 Bath (approximately 42.000 rupiahs).

We went home to the dorm by van and we took a rest. We should prepare for tomorrow because we will go to university and starts our week to observe the school. Thanks for today, everyone! ^^

Day 3 (Selasa, 19 Juli '16)

On the second day, we planned about going around Ayyuthaya with one of the Thai student from ARU, Prom. He became our tour guide for the third day. He planned for us to visit the Museums here and the national park. We made an appointment here at 9.30 a.m. he came on time and he took a TukTuk for us so we can go to the Museum. The first museum is Ayyuthaya Historical Study Center. It was in front of ARU. We paid there 30 Bath to see how Ayyuthaya was in around 100 years ago. I think, it was nice. It had so many things that we could see and Prom explained more about the life style based on the history. Unfortunately, the Museum did not allow us to take any pictures there.

After from Ayyuthaya Historical Study Center, we walked around to visit another Museum, The Ayyuthaya National Museum Chao Sam Praya, which served about Buddhist and Thai’s Kingdom equipments. We paid 30 Bath to enter this museum. Once again, we could not take any pictures because it was not allowed. Then, Prom asked me whether we were hungry or not. Moreover, we were very hungry because we did not have breakfast. We went to a fast food seller who sells Halal and Non-Halal food. I am a Christian and I want to taste another type of food in Ayyuthaya, so I chose a noodle with pork. The taste is delicious. It contained carrot, sawi, noodles (like Kwetiaw but the size was bigger).

After we had our lunch, we walked around the National Park. We took many pictures there. From the National Park, we could see the Wat Nok (in Indonesia, we called it “Candi”). I took pictures there and we continued to walk. We saw many Wats there and we saw there were many tourists came there because it is still was a public holiday here. After going around and here, we decided to go home to the dorm. We went home by Tuktuk. However, we usually spent 5 Bath for Tuktuk, in this trip we spent 15 Bath for each person.

In this day, I was very thankful to Prom that was so patient to answer my questions about the culture and he was very responsible to take care us and gave us more information about how to find Halal food here. In a word, Thanks Prom! ^^

Pictures:

1. My brunch ^^

2. My selfie picture in Wat Nok

 3. Pictures in Wat Nok

Day 2 (Senin, 18 Juli '16

Sawaddi Ka! Today is the second day. Let’s start the story. Yesterday, MS. Ned and MS. Nui said that today we are going to go to buy the new net cards for my friends. There are several friends who don’t get the suitable card with their phone. We made the appointment to meet at 9.30 a.m.

We met them at 9.30 a.m. in front of the dormitory. However, we met the new person. We met Ms. Sion. She came with some of her students and friends. They were really nice. First, we went to Pakwan Restaurant to have breakfast. We go there by tuktuk. It was a traditional transportation and it looked like Bajaj and Bemo in Indonesia.

After that, we arrived there and saw all the menu. Moreover, we found that we could understand it because it used English, too. I chose a bowl of Noodles Soup Beef and a glass of Iced Tea. They looked so delicious.

The meal is so tasty. There are noodles (BIhun), Beef, Tofu, a half of boiled egg and the soup which seems like curry. I was so full and I loved it.

After we finished our brunch, we went to Amporn Department Store to buy the net cards. There were sellers of net cards but we still needed much time because the setting of our phone is different with the phone in Thai. After that, we went to the dormitory after we went to the mini market. I bought an umbrella here because the weather is hot and sometimes it can rain.

At night, we spent our time together to have dinner. We ate rice that we bought around dorm, abon that my friend brought and ikan teri. We spent more than an hour to share about our own hometown. It was a nice night to know each other more.