I've been illegally volunteering in Lamphun for the last 6 months. Just a session or 2 a week, outside school hours, but arranged by the school. I was approached, via mrs 9, by government employees and asked if I was interested. It's a local school in the same community I live and do business.
There is apparently a wealth of english teaching know how amongst the TD crew, and I'd be interested to hear how those that do this for a living approach it.
I wouldn't accept the job if I was not going to take it seriously. But I have no real qualifications. Whether or not that is important is up for debate, and can be debated elsewhere. What I'm interested in are the theories and concepts behind teaching English to young (4 - 8 year old) kids. I have a little experience and some thoughts of my own. Would like to hear yours.
Right now I have 3 principles:
1 - No bongs before class (teachers and students)
2 - English only, no Thai
3 - Keep it interesting
The (2) is hard to enforce.
All they want from me is to spend time playing around and speaking english with them. They were pretty adamant about it not being a teaching role. I'm technically just looking after a bunch of kids. But I would like it to be more than that, and starting to see some promising results. Well, was until I had to go away 7 weeks ago, but back into it next week.