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Volunteers
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In addition to improving the
children’s English speaking skills, we want volunteers to promote
creativity and imagination. Most of the Thai curriculum is very
strict and does not encourage individual thought.
We would like to give the children an opportunity to learn in a more
fun, relaxed and interactive environment. We want the children to
reach for every possibility, and understand how many options they
have.
The key is to make learning English a more enjoyable experience so
that the children want to learn, not because they are required to,
but because they really want to.
Volunteers will also be helping the children overcome their fears of
interacting with foreigners, just by being around them. The Thai
children are ordinarily very shy, and it takes time for them to feel
comfortable trying to speak with foreigners. Similarly, when
volunteers live in the community, acting respectful of the Thai
people and their way of life, volunteers are helping to break down
some of the stereotypes that Thai people have of foreigners. Your
good example will become a model of how other foreigners are viewed,
therefore bridging gaps between perceptions and differences. |
Who Volunteers?
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A typical volunteer is someone
who loves children and wants to teach a skill the children will
need in the future, English. They are ready to help, eager to
learn and always ready for new challenges. An open mind and
patience are essential to having a satisfying and memorable
volunteer experience. Volunteers are a special breed, they have an
ease with smiles and a positive outlook on life.
Volunteers put as much effort into their volunteer experience, as
they hope to get out of it.
- Volunteers are often people who
are in-between schools and need a breather or want new
challenges before they start on a longer education in their home
country.
- Volunteers are retirees with
life experience.
- Volunteers are people who want
to learn about Thailand and its culture by living and working in
the country.
- Volunteers are couples.
- Volunteers are singles.
- Volunteers speak the English
language.
- Volunteers are men and women of
all ages.
- Volunteers spread happiness.
- Volunteers receive a lot of
gratification.
- Volunteers just want to help.
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Our Volunteers and their Experiences
Every volunteer experience is unique and each person has their own
views of Thailand, Thai Mueang, and of course teaching at a Thai
school. Volunteers are always asked to contribute to these pages and
most volunteers do,
they are told to write whatever they want, positive or negative
nothing is altered. Click on the 'Read More' links below to go to 'Our
Volunteers' page.
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Volunteer Teachers in 2009:
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Volunteer: Laney Parker
Nationality: British
Volunteered at: Thai Mueang Vocational CollegeI am 43
hours away from leaving Thailand and as Anders has
asked me to write about my time here, I felt like
writing about it now.
I arrived on 5th November, 2009 and am leaving on
30th January, 2010 – just within my 90 day volunteer
visa allowance.
During this time I have been the only volunteer here
and to be honest if there had been another person,
my experiences could well have been different.
Having said that I’m not sure if the experiences
would have been better or worse so we’ll stick to
different, scratch that, we’ll stick to “I was here
on my own”!
Continue
reading about Laney's experience here. |
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Volunteer: Laura Cutting
Nationality: British
Volunteered at: Thai Mueang Kindergarten & Pre-School +
Ban Kownoi Primary
I have been here for three weeks now and I feel that I have
finally acclimatized. During my time I have been to the
beautiful beach which is deserted everyday, taken a trip to the
turtle sanctuary, ventured to Phuket with Anders and Net where I
ended up playing connect 4 with a lady of the night (I lost and
had to buy her a drink that was 4 times more than the normal
price, it was worth it as I got a great photo), drank my own
body weight in water everyday then sweated it out again 10
seconds later, eaten loads of chili (they have it with
everything), accepted lifts in to town from strangers, eaten
loads of really tasty exotic fruit (teachers keep giving me
carrier bags full of long gon, mangosteen and rambutans),
watched some really good films on Net’s laptop, been
to a Dutch ex-monk’s birthday party and a Thai funeral. Brilliant...
Read
More about Laura's volunteer experience by clicking
here. |
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Volunteer: Gina Fischer
Nationality: American
Volunteered at: Wat Muang Pracharam
My favorite memory… Hmm. There are so many. I would have
to say that my favorite memory was when I was leading
head-shoulders-knees-and-toes with the first graders and I
looked up and a little boy wasn’t wearing any pants. He just
kind of ignored it and continued to sing and dance. I tried to
compose myself but I ended up crying because I was laughing so
hard. Another favorite memory was when we were teaching a little
girl to say the letter “L” but every time she tried to say it,
she just ended up saying “eaahrsh”. I was surprised that… even after three weeks the children
continued to scream our names and run to us each time they saw
us. I was also surprised that the students had paragraphs and
paragraphs of English, but no idea what any of it meant. The most difficult experience was… when a teacher asked
us to teach for an extra hour, we were exhausted so we decided
to have the kids compete in a game. It ended with 6 of the 24
kids crying.... Read
More about Gina here. |
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Volunteer: YOSHI
Nationality: USA
Volunteered at: Ban Kownoi Primary School
Chronological order of a story is overrated, so I’ll write in
the order of things that I found the most passionate. The top of
that list is the kids. I taught at Ban Kow Noi, where there are
no more than 15 kids in a class (and sometimes combine grades
for English lessons). Every grade is completely different, and
each student has a very unique personality, so to say that they
all love to learn, they all make tons of trouble or they all
love to dance is not true. One kindergartener loved to shake
hands (actually all kids love to shake hands and bump fists),
and would come up many times a day to say good morning or good
afternoon, sometimes pulling other kids in his class over
unwillingly to shake hands with me. There was one first grader
who loved to draw elephants, and when we learned the vowels and
drew pictures of animals starting with each vowel he went giddy
having a chance to draw more elephants...
Read More about Yoshi |
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Volunteer: Denali Chiyo Gillaspie
Nationality: USA
Volunteered at: Wat Muang Pracharam
My favourite memory: Other than the joy of sitting in a
different seat each night for dinner at Anders’ and swapping
stories about our day, and other than the first time I
successfully shook down a coconut and cut it open on my own, my
favourite memory might be a day when Gina and I had an hour
break between classes, and there were 6th graders who were with
us sitting on benches for an hour, taking pictures with our
cameras and playing English games. It wasn’t in a formal
classroom setting, so we were all relaxed and laughing as much
as we were speaking. Every day is different, and each day, they
learn more and more, so it’s exciting for us to watch their
progress, and exciting for them to grow in their English
speaking abilities.
I was surprised that... I was able to teach...
Read More about Denali |
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Volunteer: Maude Barrow
Nationality: British
Volunteered at: Ban Huaisai Primary School
My favourite memory: There’s tons! One of them would have
to be when the boys shouted ‘eeeeeeeeeeugh’ every time the girls
cuddled me, but then as soon as the girls left the classroom
they quickly asked for hugs too! So cute!
Another would be when instead of using the phrase ‘very good’
when one kid showed me his work, I said ‘excellent’ and since he
was so used to me saying ‘very good’ he thought excellent must
mean something bad, and looked very upset, so I spent the rest
of the class frantically trying to explain that the word
‘excellent’ also meant good.
Also, once when playing a game one of the boys blabbered away in
Thai to me, and one of the girls turned around and said very
angrily, but in perfect English to the boy ‘speak English to the
teacher’- I was pretty proud...
Read More about Maude |
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Volunteer Teachers in 2008:
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Volunteer:
Dave McFall
Nationality: South African / British
Volunteered at: Wat Muang Pracharam Primary School
My favorite memory: There are so many to choose from, but as
I have to choose one. I would have to say the students at Wat Mueang
Pracharam. Every student at the school is so eager to learn. They
greet you with open arms and the biggest smiles you have ever seen.
Just walking through the corridors between classes took me about 5
min as they kept coming over wanting to speak what little English
they know. High 5’s, shaking hands, making fun faces to each other
and comparing tans got me through many hot and tiring days...
Read More about Dave |
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Volunteer:
Zachary App
Nationality: American
Volunteered at: Thai Muang Vocational College
My favorite memory: There are several, it's hard to say,
but I think some of my favorite memories were the ones outside the
classroom - having lunch at Ms Sunisa's house eating home cooked Thai
food, hanging out in Khao Lak with some of my students at the weekend,
taking part in a Chinese/Thai ceremony one night with my students, going
out to lunch on the beach with Ms Sunisa and the accounting class, and
planting trees in Khok Kloi with Ms Fon and all the students in the
pouring rain. Whether I was shopping at the Tuesday market or riding on
my motorbike into a random village in the area I would somehow always
run into some of my students and stop to talk to them. I'm going to miss
that especially. I was surprised that… some of the students didn't know how
to say "my name is..." or "I'm 17 years old." There were several
occasions I had to help them spell Thailand. I was also taken back by
the level of respect people have for each other, both at the school and
in the town itself. Sadly to say; this is something I don't see back
home. Read More about Zach. |
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Volunteer:
Turner Wright
Nationality: American
Volunteered at: Wat Patchatikaram Primary School
My favorite memory: Walking back from the Buddhist temple
with my 5th grade class, casually speaking English and Thai along
the way and developing a rapport I had not yet seen in the
classroom. Who was the teacher, and who the student? It was
impossible to tell, and that alone was comforting.
I was surprised that… many teachers do not have hands-on
lesson or too much interaction with their students at all. My
classes were by far the loudest and most energetic (yes, sometimes
due to me losing control of the students), and others involved the
kids just reading, taking notes, or copying what the teacher said
directly. My best received lesson: Outside the classroom, just
playing volleyball with Phratoms 5 and 6, tossing English and Thai
words back and forth for the various objects and actions (“catch”,
“hit”, “I got it!”, “serve”, etc)...
Read More about
Turner |
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Volunteer:
Paul Watson
Nationality: Canadian
Volunteered at: Thai Mueang Vocational College
My favorite memory: All of my students. Every one of them
were good students, had a good attitude trying their best and
always willing to learn. This in spite of the fact that I was
teaching them during their holidays. Remember how you felt about
summer school? I wish all of them a bright future.
I was surprised that... the level of understanding and
speaking English was rather low. The students have a good textbook
understanding of English, i.e. they can recognize and read English
words. However, they need a lot of help speaking English and
pronunciation needs work. That is where the volunteer can help.
My best received lesson: were ones that didn’t come out of
a text book. I would have the students create something – like a
map of town, or the layout of a hotel resort (for the hospitality
and tourism students) – and then they would practice giving
directions. It was more relevant to them if they were working with
something that they created...
Read More about what
Paul had to say about volunteering in Thai Mueang, click here. |
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Volunteer:
Karen McColl
Nationality: Canadian
Volunteered at: Ban Thateang Primary School
My favorite memory: Trying to spread myself out and give the
desired attention to all twenty students who were constantly waving
their paper at me and shouting 'My teacher' or 'Miss Karen', wanting
me to give them a smiley face or my signature on their paper as my
seal of approval.
I was surprised that... No matter how much I feigned anger or
raised my already hoarse voice (out of real frustration) or slapped
the bamboo stick on the desk (which I just did because the students
loved it) they were still just as excited to see me arrive at the
beginning of each school day as they had been on day one, and just
as sad to leave at the end of every day...
Read More about our first
volunteer Karen here |
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Our Volunteers Photos
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