Today was the first day of school at NUOL.

Monks on the Bus

Today I took the bus to school. It took around 40 minutes and was a very smooth ride. Many monks attend NUOL and study at the Faculty of Letters. Monks are not allowed to drive cars, so many of them take the bus. I have also seen monks riding bicycles and motorbikes. One monk on the bus told me that technically they are not supposed to drive motorbikes either.

The monks are not allowed to touch women at all, so they have to sit next to other men or other monks on the bus. There is one seat on the right of the driver in each small bus that the money collector sits in. If a monk boards the bus, the money collector sits in the front row and the monk gets the seat to the right of the driver.

Courtesy of International Traveller

The monks all carry satchels with the Buddhist wheel on the front. Notice the bags that the monks carry in this picture.

Courtesy of Guerra, C. (2023)

Look at how full the bus was on the way to school! (The monks sat in the row behind me on the bus.)

My Classes

My first and only class today was from 3:00-4:30. I taught General English 1F. I had them make name plaques, and we played some games. The real learning will begin later this week. For now, I’m having all my students do the same introductory classes reviewing nouns, verbs, and adjectives. We’ll review possessive pronouns, plurals, definite and indefinite articles, and the present tense next week before we get to our individual lessons.

Check out the National University of Laos’s Wikipedia page

I will teach 2 classes, General English 1F and Grammar 1G. General English has 3 sessions a week, and Grammar has 2 sessions a week. Each session lasts for 1 hour and 40 minutes each. I use Headways Fourth Edition for my General English class. We are supposed to get through 6 units by December. For Grammar, we use a textbook created by NUOL professors. We are supposed to get through 5 units by December. 1F and 1G are both year 1 English classes. My students are the lowest level of English language learners in the first year, so I have been speaking a lot of Lao in class. My Lao is not fabulous by any means, but I can conjugate verbs, use possessive adjectives, count, and give commands, so that’s something. I am trying to get a Lao lesson with Candlelight next week. Hopefully it is a great lesson, and I can schedule weekly or biweekly Lao lessons. I really need Lao to be able to communicate with my students since they are lower level learners!

Courtesy of the National University of Laos

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I might have to teach General English 1G if NUOL gets 20 or more students that enroll. For now, NUOL is uncertain if there will be a General English 1G class since they currently do not have enough students. I will find out next week if this course will exist. If it does, then I will teach 3 more sessions a week. If General English does not exist, I will help with year 2 Oral Communication. (I’m not sure what letter level they are at currently.)

All my classes have no air conditioning, but they have fans. It is very hot (“hon-lai”) in class with the heat and humidity, so it’s important that I bring 2 bottles of water minimum to school each day.

I’m excited to teach my students English and to learn more Lao in the meantime!