How to use Most, Mostly and Almost

Many of my students find using most, mostly and almost quite difficult so I decided to make this using Word. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to transfer from Word to this blog. So, I had to change it to two pictures and it hasn't transferred perfectly. But I still think it can be read.

Phrasal Verbs for Health

Sunsets and squirrels on Jomtien Beach

This is before the latest Covid 19 outbreak. The beaches are currently closed. The squirrels are probably getting very hungry.

This is a link to my page on cafetalk https://cafetalk.com/i/9T307768ad67f073984508bef12b92be1aed6aef/en

My most recent project at my house in Jomtien, Pattaya.

I think our wall is cracking because we removed the 6inch concrete base to make a small garden. I hope putting in the long bolts will give it extra strength.

If the bolts don't work then I will dig under the wall and put in some concrete with rebar footings or pillars. Do you like to Do It Yourself? (DIY). Recently I have been replacing all the wall lights, electric sockets and switches for a friend in Bangkok.

This is a link to my page on cafetalk https://cafetalk.com/i/9T307768ad67f073984508bef12b92be1aed6aef/en

My Expat Life in Jomtien, Pattaya

My Expat Life in Jomtien, Pattaya Well... It has been 9 years since my last post! When I last blogged I was leading the single life and living in Brighton in the UK doing my Masters in English Language Teaching (ELT) https://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/masters/courses/english-language-teaching-ma After that I moved to Thailand and worked for Silpakorn University for a couple of years. I was able to travel to Koh Lanta, Krabi and Koh Tao. Now I am married and living in Jomtien in Thailand and pre-lockdown used to travel to Bangkok every weekend and teach for a language school in Asok. Now, I am teaching mostly online, but I mostly teach Japanese businesspeople and because of Covid many are still in Japan or not taking lessons. So, recently I’ve been teaching English on Cafetalk, https://bit.ly/3v6prTC a Japanese website. I also have a private Japanese student who I met in Bangkok but is now back in Tokyo.

After getting a language school job I settled into my Thai life and forgot all about this blog and lost access to it, but recently managed to get back in. So that’s enough of the excuses. I hope to start updating it again on a regular basis. So what's been happening in my life as an expat recently? Thailand has recently been suffering from a third wave of Covid 19. We are in Chonburi area which is a Red Zone under government regulations. This means that all restaurants are closed except for takeaways or delivery with no eat in at all. Even the beaches are closed, so we have had to find other things to do. Shopping centres are open, but who wants to go there when the Kent variant of Covid is raging through the population? (The variant is known by several names. Outside the UK it is usually referred to as the UK variant, British variant or English variant. Within the UK, it is generally referred to as the Kent variant after the county of Kent, where the variant was found).

On Jomtien beach before the latest lockdown Until recently We were at home all the time but my wife has just started helping a lady who has had a stroke. She cooks for her, exercises her, washes her, 6 mornings a week. I drive her to work. But I am at home a lot sitting online waiting for someone to choose one of my lessons. Sometimes, I try to do DIY like fixing cracks in our wall, gardening, and looking after our 5 dogs or feeding the chickens. I am also able to watch UK TV on demand. We live in a 3-bedroom detached house with a swimming pool, but we emptied the pool to replace the tile grout and never filled it back up. Once Covid has gone I will refill it. A couple of years ago my wife and I replaced 80 metres of black floor tiles with 60cm x 60cm white tiles. Many of the tiles in the 4 bathrooms are black so I would like to change them all to white or grey. One day…

Once a week we go shopping. We go to the local market and Makro (like a cash and carry) The market has good value (maybe organic) fruit and vegetables and Makro has good meat, bread and dogfood. We always wear one or two masks and try to avoid being breathed on or breathing on others. In Thailand if you are caught without a mask you can be fined 20,000 Baht/£450/$640 so everyone wears them. I am 60 now and get hay fever. I have never had good lungs. I had asthma as a child and still get it a little bit. So, I really don’t want Covid!

The vaccine programme in Thailand is due to start in Thailand in June. The government has said that it will include foreigners but there is now an app to register which is only in Thai and only accepts 13-digit Thai ID card numbers, which foreigners cannot get. It doesn’t accept passport or driving licence numbers. Also, I am registered as living at my room in Bangkok for work permit purposes, but am actually living in our house in Pattaya, and we are forbidden to travel to other provinces. Therefore, getting the vaccine is going to be very difficult for me. Will have to wait and see. Have you had your vaccine yet? This is a link to my page on cafetalk https://cafetalk.com/i/9T307768ad67f073984508bef12b92be1aed6aef/en

A month in Koh Lanta, Krabi and Koh Tao

Just back to Nakhon Pathom after a month in the islands of Thailand. I had a couple of weeks in Koh Lanta, my first time on this lovely island, which was very quiet, with very few tourists but had charms all of its own, such as monkeys on the beach and the slow pace of life, etc. Then I went to Krabi, which I had not been to for about 20 years, but it hadn't changed at all. I stayed in some bungalows a little outside of Aonang Bay which came with a free motorbike. It had a swimming pool and lovely gardens. It was called Baan Suan, which means garden home, and was a great place to stay. Krabi seems to have been taken over by Scandinavians and every accent you hear seems to be from that part of the world. I then moved to Koh Tao to finish my holiday, thinking I might just stay two days, but it was really hard to leave.

I first stayed in a room above a travel agents in Sairee Beach, the liveliest area, opposite a 7 11, but it was far too noisy. It had the best TV I have had in Thailand, but who wants to watch TV when you are in paradise? There was a bar downstairs too which played music til 2am and building work going on opposite, which started at 8.30am, so I moved further back in the resort. AJP guesthouse was 350 baht a night and very easygoing. This room was above a plumber's merchants, but very quiet as they all went home around 6pm. There was no sink in the bathroom, which was a bit odd, but liveable with. The TV was mainly Thai, but the bed was comfortable and the balcony was good (although no chair). It was a good base for renting a motorbike and seeing the island.

I first rented a bike for 250 baht for a couple of days. It was a lovely, brand new bike, automatic, but with lots of power. But they carefully check every mark on bikes there, with big prices for any damage, so it made me nervous knowing I could have a big bill. The first unmade road I got to I stubbed my toe on a rock and had several near misses trying to navigate the atrocious 'roads'! It was fun but a less expensive bike would be better, so I rented a different one for 150 baht a day. It was a heap of shit and felt like the bearings had gone on the steering, but it was useable..

So every day I went to a different beach with my snorkel (also a piece of shit). Both the mask and snorkel filled with water in seconds, but it meant I had to learn to use them and blow the water out, but did mean I had to take care as I'm not a great swimmer. Hin Wong Bay, Tanote Bay and Aow Leuk Bay all had great snorkeling, with some fantastic fish right from the beach and some reasonable colours of the coral. The coral was not as good as out on some islands I have visited, but was pretty impressive for close to land. The seafood on the island was wonderful and not expensive and big Chang beers could be bought for less than 100 baht in all restaurants, so not an expensive island to spend a week. All this made it very difficult to leave Koh Tao but leave I had to.

Now back in Nakhon Pathom and hope to meet up with my policeman friend and his two wives, then maybe move out of my apartment into a house, as a bit fed up with their choice of Internet and TV. I also hope to play some sport with my new friend Thanya and am looking forward to meeting her British boyfriend who comes over to live in NP after quitting his job, in a few days time. She has recently completed a PHd in the UK and seems to be finding it difficult to get back into Thai life.

If anyone is reading this do leave a comment. Been a long while since I blogged as hardly anyone seemed to be reading it, that and was too busy, either with studies or work.

Dissertation on Differentiation in ELT

As the dissertation is almost finished I thought I had better refresh the blog.

I actually ended up doing a study of just one lesson at my university as the language school teacher didn't have the time to do it.

The group were given a questionnaire asking about learning styles and 7 self-reported skill levels, such as fluency, grammar, reading etc, then filmed and recorded the lesson, transcribed 2 1/2 hours (which was a hell of a task!) analysed number of student utterances and teacher questions and st answers. I also looked at grouping in the lesson.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theories was used with the self-reported questions in differentiating, Bloom's taxonomies in question level and Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development to consider grouping.

My conclusion is going to be that the teacher did a fairly good job of differentiating without knowing anything about differentiation!

Dissertation

I was talking to Martin Sketchley (@ELTExperiences on Twitter)(my fellow teacher on the MA in ELT course) and he said 'I looked at your blog and think you should write more about the course'. So time to take him up on his idea. (I am @Hibbitweet on Twitter)

This blog is called Life in Hanoi and Saigon and now I live in Brighton, on the south coast of England so I really should change the name. Name now changed :-)

I finished the portfolio for the diploma part of the course a few weeks ago and handed in the Easter essay which was on how to teach a reading lesson and seemed to go quite well. You never know though so I am looking forward to the marks for both.

So having put those two to bed we have all now started to think about dissertations. We have until September to do some research and write 15,000 words. I have chosen differentiated teaching as my topic. I chose the topic because on the diploma course we had some very able and confident students and quite a few able but more quiet students. This made me wonder whether all the students were getting equal shares in the teacher's time and energies and whether there was anything I could have done to improve everyone's learning experience by teaching in a more differentiated way. The following is where I am so far on my dissertation journey. It is not far I know but it is a start and I'm sure I will update it as I travel along the path.


Where I am on my dissertation path
Dissertation Topic: differentiated teaching

How to Research type books:

Wallace, M.J. (1998) Action research for language teachers. Cambridge CUP.
Wajnryb, R. (1992) Classroom observation tasks. Cambridge CUP.

A couple of quotes from #ELTchat Summary 23/02/2011
The consensus seemed to be that ‘all classes’ are mixed ability in some ways. Wilden S. (2011)
Teaching mixed ability in the first sense is just teaching, none of us are the same

Differentiation in the ESL class RREALS 2007
Source: Montérégie—Research and Development Project
Workshop leaders: Gwenn Gauthier and Rachel Lalonde


How I might go about it:
Observations

Observe classes looking for quiet/loud high/low level sts and see how the T copes with this.

Interviews

Conduct interviews with Ts asking questions about how they deal with high/low level sts in the same class.

Conduct interviews with sts asking for opinions on the way best and worst teachers deal with it.

Questionnaires

Questionnaires asking a wide range of Ts for opinions on how they cope with high/low level sts in the same class.
Questionnaires asking a wide range of sts for opinions on how Ts cope with high/low level sts in the same class.

Do please comment

Did I do the right thing returning to UK?

It has been a long time since I blogged so thought I would put some feelings down to try and get some ideas out into the blogosphere.

Up to a few days ago that would have been an easy question. I have been hard at work studying for the MA and doing the Advanced Teaching Practice, which took all my energy, teaching skills and time and was something I was really enjoying. When you have your head down, working hard and then get a break, your body says look he's not working I can be ill now. Sometimes you forget to consider how you feel and when you get a break suddenly realise that something is not right.

So I have a bit of a dip.

I have suddenly realised I have few friends, no girlfriend, no one who cares whether I feel up or down, all I have is studying, studying and more studying. I know it is only one year and will be finished in September, and I have done the hardest part, but I have also done the best part. I love teaching and the group we taught were a very friendly and interesting group, so I didn't mind all the preparation.

I am not looking forward to the dissertation - it is 15,000 words and the last one I did for my degree was very nearly a disaster and I ended up with only a C grade. So that makes me worry about this one. I hope I get better guidance than last time.

Today a language school rang and asked me to work for them, but they wanted 5 mornings a week and I had to say I couldn't. Uni work is going to take up most of my energy for a few months yet. They said they might have some part-time work and would email me with the details, but nothing yet.

On a high note a squash club has offered me a very good student rate and I am definitely going to start playing again. Something which should get those endorphins moving and cheer me up a bit...

All the World's a stage William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

My favourite Shakespeare sonnet

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.

Things I’ll miss in Saigon: All the friendly people I’ve met. My motorbike and the freedom it gives. The hot weather and never having to wear a jumper or coat. Freezing cold Saigon Red beer. Banh Mi Thit -- French bread with a mixture of paté, cold meats, salad, chilli, soy sauce, etc all freshly made while you wait. Also near the Asian High School there are some ladies who sell Banh Mi Trung va Thit - French bread with 2 fried eggs, barbequed, spicy red meat, salad and chilli with sauces, that are absolutely delicious too. I often buy one of those before work then go and sit in a coffee shop and eat it with café da or a very strong shot of coffee over ice. My students at UVT, who are lovely and always willing to learn, and some of the children at Asian High School. Having a cleaner so no housework, living in rented accommodation so all the little jobs around the house are someone else’s responsibility and being able to eat out every night even though you don’t work many hours. The prices of food and beer. Being close to the rest of Asia so being able to visit neighbouring countries easily and cheaply. The bottom spray in the toilet. Toilet roll just isn’t clean enough on its own. What I look forward to about living in England: Sunday dinners! Roast chicken or lamb or pork (with crackling), mashed potatoes and roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, sprouts and cauliflower, onion sauce and lashings of gravy. Poundland and Primark plus Lidl, and those other cheap German supermarkets. Fast Internet, and once I get somewhere to live, a decent, fast computer. Being closer to my family. Summer barbecues. British pubs, luke-warm, brown beer and beer festivals. British culture, including theatre, especially Shakespeare, newspapers and magazines and British TV instead of all the American crap we get here. Being able to speak to anyone and everyone and be understood and being able to have a laugh and a joke instead of being restricted to just a few words and phrases due to my poor language skills. What I don’t look forward to about living in England: Speed cameras. Never-ending winters. High taxes. Expensive food and beer. Any other ideas are welcome. I am sure there are lots of other things to add.

Pics of the Local Park at Lunar New Year

Pics of Trip to Phu Quoc