This weekend wasn't dedicated to escaping to the islands, roaming around the mountains, or exploring the numerous wats (temples) around Suphanburi. It wasn't dedicated to trying new cuisines, meeting new friends, or being engulfed in the Thai culture. No, this weekend was dedicated to presentations... Yup. Presentations.
At the end of each semester there is a giant Presentation Competition in which the students create a large presentation and present on the "Big Stage." We help them with grammar, spelling, pronunciation, their Keynotes, iMovies and Pages documents. This semester, my 7th and 8th graders were the ones who were to perform. The 7th graders had to present their Asia Country Projects (I've now heard these presentations on repeat since the end of December...) while my 8th graders had to present "How to be a Good Citizen of Thailand." With this project, the students had to create a blog, Facebook page, Keynote, iMovie and poster. So much to look at and grade it was absolutely crazy! This week ended up being long and tedious, listening to all of the presentations on repeat, fixing the pronunciations of "kilOmeters" rather than "kiloMEters," and fixing all the grammar mistakes on the movies. All of us were kind of dreading this weekend, but I couldn't have asked for a better send off weekend with my students.
I was simply blown away by the talent of my students! The movies were creative and entertaining, the information was perfect, and the speeches were informative and engaging. I'm so proud of my students. One of the 8th grade groups of boys almost brought me to tears with their movie and their message of how littering truly affects our world. I was completely impressed by how hard our students worked to improve their presentations and bring their personality to these projects. They made us laugh, cry, and smile from ear to ear. Afterwards, they all asked us how we did and thanked us graciously for our help. Thai students are the most grateful (even if they can get absolutely out of control).
Even though I reflect back on my time here just about every day, I won't write my reflection now. I'm sitting in Katrina's room with everyone around me (Chelsea, Jared, Josie, Mike, Jade and Katrina), and we've done snail/salmon masks, watched silly videos, helped each other pack for our travels, and did yoga. It's been a wave of emotions throughout the day today. Today started on a huge high when my supervisor played jazz early in the morning, a low when I had to bid my students a final farewell, and now I'm hitting that medium point where I'm just completely satisfied.
All I can say for now is:
Thank you, Thailand.
One of the groups decided to focus on "Saving Thai Culture." I believed this was one of the most important topics. Thais absolutely love Western culture, and there's not much emphasis on their own culture anymore. In the video, Poo gives us a short performance of Thai dancing. | Presentation Week makes us all stir crazy, but the smile on their faces gets us through the week. |