Travel to Teach: Thailand Volunteer Story

Waiting at the train station on the Kanchanaburi Trip

Annemarie Verloren van Themaat, 20, Holland

Same same, but different.

I'm a volunteer for Travel to Teach for two months. Now I'm facing my last week, and that's awful… I really wish I could stay longer!

During these two months I stayed at a dorm in the centre of Nongkhai, which I shared with other volunteers from all over the world. It's a lot of fun to live in a house with so many different kinds of people; you become close friends so quickly.

Nongkhai is a very nice small town, you get to know everything quickly and it soon feels like your home. Nongkhai isn't so touristy, so the prices are very low and the people are really enthusiastic when they see "Farangs" (westerners). They will greet you all the time; the best part is that you can go out for dinner every single night!! You can get a meal on the street for 20 Bath.

I teach at a nursery school called "Daystar". It's a really small school with only three classes. Every class has around eight to twelve students from the ages of four to seven. So the kids get a lot of personal attention and you get a really close bond with them. I teach every day from nine till two. I teach every class English for one hour. The teaching is very basic English, songs and games.

There are three teachers at my school, and two of them can speak quite good English. They are really friendly and they always want to take good care of me. Besides of that you can also have a lot of fun with them!!! So I guess I' m very lucky with my placement!!

Besides teaching at the nursery, I teach the monks one evening a week. The monks are great students; they are really motivated to learn English. The English you have to teach them is also very basic so don't be scared if you are (like me) not a native speaker, Your English skills will be fine.

I also took part of a teacher seminar, that's where I actually had the most fun with teaching. I was with three other volunteers and we filled in the program, we did role plays with them and that was so funny. The teachers there were lovely, we got a nice hotel and they took us out for dinner every night. I still have contact with a few.

Well besides teaching you have NONG KHAI'S NIGHTLIFE! Which is amazing, the Thai nightclubs are so much fun! It's really a good way to end your week, or to party during the week, it's actually fun every night! But be careful when you have to teach the next day, because the Thai/ Laos whiskey gives you a terrible hangover…

Well this was my volunteer story, I hope I gave you a bit an idea of how the program is, and I can truly suggest it to you.

Annemarie Verloren van Themaat

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