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Published: April 1st 2008
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I returned from Luang Prabang to Chiang Rai (north of Chiang Mai, and close to the Golden Triangle - Thai, Laos and Burma borders) for my second week of the summer schools. As it turns out, this was a whole lot more difficult than the first week, so I’m glad that at least I had that prior week’s teaching experience behind me.
We had a total of 24 children for this session (names being Oil, Tine, Pai, Joom, Net, Ying, Ton, Tom, Peem, Pop, Nok, Pet, Ten, Gig, Nuei, Beer, Pol, Wiw, Q, Golf, Dan, Jip, Pat & Nice), ranging in age from 7 through to 18, which made it very difficult to know at what level to pitch the lessons. Added to this was the fact that almost not a single one of the students could understand a word I said, their English skills being that elementary (or maybe my English is that bad!). Of the 24 students, only 4 were of secondary level, so I took the decision to ‘promote’ these 4 to being tutors for the younger children, and thus pitched the standard of the lessons at very much a ‘beginners’ stage.
With this structure to
assist, we were able to make some progress through the week, but frankly it was very difficult, and the time dragged by slowly, unlike during the previous week which was fun. On my final day, I gave the group a spelling test, a reading exercise, and a writing exercise. Some of the kids got zero for the spelling test (despite all the words having been drilled during the week), could not read even the simplest words, and thus could not even start a writing exercise. On the positive side however, a couple of the younger girls were very impressive and showed great promise. It is a sad state of affairs that, just as in Australia, the standard of output from the girls far exceeds that of the boys, whose concentration levels at times left a lot to be desired. However, as with the previous week, it was an invaluable experience to live and mix totally in a local Thai community for the week, my only contact with the outside world being rather scratchy reception to CNN and my phone calls home.
Concurrent with this English summer school, the Foundation held another summer school on “Life Values”, which ironically was
for secondary age kids (in my view, they got these age groups badly the wrong way round). When my family heard of this school, they suggested I sign up immediately! I attended for a couple of hours after one of my classes, to witness the kids undertaking such rivetting activities at passing what looked like a giant condom full of water back and forward till it burst (to great squeals of delight!), roping the kids together and asking them all to climb a hill, and then rehearsing a rendition of the ‘chicken dance’ (check out the exciting pics below). Can you imagine getting a bunch of 16-18 years olds in Oz to partake in such activities? Anyway, it was an interesting diversion into a different culture.
So that’s it for this round of blogs folks. Sorry it’s been so brief, but some of you are probably thankful for that. There is some chance that Joan and I might take off to Kenya and Tanzania in the next couple of months, but Joan’s still a bit nervous about the locals in the former country hacking each other with machetees. No sense of adventure, that girl! Otherwise, next trip on schedule
is to Russia and Eastern Europe in September. Don’t touch that dial!
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