Travel to Teach: Thailand Volunteer Story

Cecile, Holland

After my graduating University in Law I wanted to do something really different before starting a career as a lawyer. I decided to go teaching English in Nong Khai, Thailand, after hearing very enthusiastic stories from previous volunteers who had been there.

Although it was my first time out of Europe, I liked the project very much from the first minute. There was a nice introduction weekend, with a cooking class, cycle tour around the city, Thai culture and language lessons. The weekend was the perfect opportunity to get to know all the other volunteers really soon. I’ve been teaching in a secondary school, which seemed difficult in the beginning because I didn’t have any teaching experience before. But the teachers and children were very nice and helpful, so I felt at home at the school soon.

After the first days experience we learnt to be very creative and learn a lot of songs, games and English conversations to the students. Apart from the volunteering at school we had the opportunity to visit the monks every week in the monastry; for us a very special chance to get to know a lot about the “real Thai life”, and for them to improve their English speaking. We could also visit the very cute orphans each week to play with and caress them.

I lived with nine other girls in the Meechai dorm and that was really lovely; a lot of different nationalities and ages in one house! In the week we had a lot of fun in Nong Khai, having dinner together in different restaurants each evening, swimming, and going around in the city or chilling in the Meechai Dorm. During the weekends we went on different summer camps and trips to Laos and Chiang Mai. After 4 weeks I decided to shorten my travelling and stay 2 weeks longer in Nong Khai, so I also could teach in a primary school for two weeks. In this way I really could make everything out of my time with Travel to Teach, an experience I can recommend to everyone!

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