William & Mary Freeman Intern Fellow Morgan Peden's First Week at Mae La Noi Daroonsik
Global Playground is excited to welcome Morgan Peden as one of two Freeman Intern Fellows from the College of William & Mary who will be working with us this summer! Morgan will be teaching English at Mae La Noi Daroonsik Secondary School, one of our partner schools in Northern Thailand. Read on below to learn about Morgan’s experience during the first week of her internship.
Hello! My name is Morgan Peden. I am a rising sophomore studying Economics in the Joint Degree Programme between William & Mary and St. Andrews, and I am excited to be a Freeman Fellow Intern with Global Playground. With Global Playground, I will be helping to teach English to the students at Mae La Noi Daroonsik School in Mae La Noi, Thailand this summer.
Mae La Noi is in rural northern Thailand, about two hours from the border to Burma and five hours from Chiang Mai. Daroonsik School is a secondary school, with some students boarding and some students commuting. There are about 900 students, and many of them are members of the surrounding hill tribes such as the Karen and Lawa. The school has students in the age range of 12-18, which has definitely been interesting for me since as a 19 year old, I am only one year older than some of the students I have been teaching.
My first day was spent shadowing some of the teachers in the English Department. In most of the classes I was in, the teachers had me go around and introduce myself to the students and then ask them some questions. In some of the classes I shadowed on the first day, the teacher would have me say a phrase or word and then have the students repeat it. It seems like the opportunity for students to be able to hear a native speaker and get speaking practice is very valued here.
After the first day, my fellow intern, Layne and I were given schedules of classes to teach, with each of us getting nine classes a week. However, despite only being scheduled to teach nine classes a week, last week I was in class for almost triple that. I enjoy teaching and the students and teachers are incredibly kind, and there really is not much to do in Mae La Noi, so I have been trying to fill my free time with working more and spending more time with the students and teachers. In classes, I usually follow along with the teachers’ lesson plans, helping the students pronounce words and giving them exposure to hearing English with an American accent. Sometimes, the entire class period is filled with speaking practice for the students, where I go around from student to student so they can practice talking with me. This experience has really made me much more sympathetic for and respectful of my old Spanish teachers, and I often find myself thinking back to the strategies they used to get my classes engaged and comfortable speaking. I will occasionally just sit in on classes to observe how the other teachers will teach their students, which I have been able to learn a surprising amount from, even though the classes are mostly in Thai. I have a lot to learn about teaching English, and I look forward to learning and improving over the course of my time here.
Something that has surprised me over the last week has been how incredibly friendly and kind everyone in Mae La Noi is. As an American with no experience living abroad, especially in Thailand, there have been several points when I felt a little lost. When I first walked into a 7-Eleven in Thailand, I was surrounded by snacks I didn’t recognize with their names written in a language I didn’t know. When Layne and I arrived at our house, we didn’t know where to buy anything we needed. On our first day, we were supposed to go to the office in the morning, and we couldn’t find it. Then, on a day we later learned was National Anti-Drug Day for Thailand, I arrived at morning announcements without a yellow shirt, since I had no idea that I was supposed to wear one. Yet, in every single one of these cases and more, someone has generously offered their help and knowledge and company. After telling a student that I didn’t know what snacks were good, she and her friends brought me and Layne to 7-Eleven and pointed out and explained their favorite things. Our third housemate, Jiaxi, who is also a teacher at the school, brought us to the home goods store that is at the back of a local restaurant and helped us find good mosquito nets. When we got lost at the start of day one, one of the teachers came to find and help us and explain what was going on. Even when both Layne and I were missing yellow shirts on National Anti-Drug Day, this incredibly kind teacher told us to wait and went back to her house to find us yellow shirts that we could wear. Everyone is so kind and always willing to help.
Many of the things that I anticipated issues adapting to, such as the bugs and spicy food, have been pretty much as I expected. I am increasing my spice tolerance at a faster rate than I ever have before, and I’m starting to learn to live with the inescapable presence of the bugs surrounding me. I no longer find it strange to fall asleep in a mosquito net while covered in bug spray. I did expect to need a learning curve to live in this environment that is so different from the cityscape I’m used to, but I have been blown away by the community here and how kind and welcoming they are. Since I’ve arrived here, I have not eaten a single meal alone. Whatever worries I could have had about isolation here were completely unfounded, the community in Mae La Noi is both close-knit and incredibly welcoming.
I have learned a lot while living here and I have had so many new experiences despite it just having been about a week since I arrived. Life here is so different from what I am used to, from the food to the geckos on the walls to how I spend my days, and I feel like I am getting the experience of a lifetime here, and I can’t wait to learn more.
