We Finished the First Week!!

Well, it has been an amazing week!  Our students continue to be faithful to attend class and stay focused for the full two hours- Praise God!  

Our time together with the students begins with sentences.  Every day they come prepared with 10 sentences from a list of words that are commonly used in the english language.  They take turns reading their sentences aloud and we encourage and correct by listening very intently and reading over their shoulder.  Their sentences really give us a sense of who they are and can be quite entertaining :)  This is supposed to take about an hour but we have found it takes 30 minutes or so even with the varying class sizes.  

Next we move on to sounds.  Every day we begin with a quiz for the sound of the previous day.  This is difficult for them.  The sounds are ones we use but are not found in the thai language and the introduced english sounds can be very similar to theirs, tricky!  After the quiz we introduce the new sound.  For example, the thai language does not have a V sound, they would use W.  We are teaching them to over pronounce until they understand and can hear the difference on their own.  Again, very tricky.  We get up close and personal with every student during this time listening and watching to make sure they are pronouncing the word correctly.  A funny day was when we introduced the Th sound.  To get them to actually say THE, you have to instruct them to put their tongue out under their teeth.  They thought this was very funny!  Thai people don't show their tongues at all.  We had to assure them that once you get used to saying the TH sound no one will see your tongue :)

Then, we move on to the workbook which is written by the staff here at the school.  Wonderful tool that helps the student with pronunciation of vowels, consonants, intonations, comprehension, vocabulary, crosswords and essays.  We brought home the first essays and they are going to be very interesting to correct and read because the students really personalized these.  

At the end of class we find ourselves with lots of extra time every day.  So, we use the time to post questions to find out more about our students.  For example; 

What do you do in your free time?

Have you travelled to other countries?

What do you want to achieve in life?

What animal best describes you?

Tell me about your family?

Where do you work or go to school?

Describe a time when you were surprised?  ( I found out one of my students won the thai lottery with this questions)

What will you do this weekend?

They love answering these questions.  It gives them a chance to share and also get to know one another.  We love getting to know them better this way :)

After class many times they stay around to talk or ask more questions.  This week we were able to have breakfast after our 7 am class twice with a group of 20 something women who really wanted to practice their english skills with us. Another day we went on an outing and enjoyed having lots of time to talk.  

We have noticed that there is a wide range of english understanding within each class.  Everyone has basic english 101 in school.  They learn the alphabet and how to read and write it.  When they come to the school they have those skills and that varies some as well.  Our classes have some students who can really understand most everything we are saying to them and then we have other students who struggle.  They tend to look to the one who can speak english and understand it to help them.  They are willing to help each other which is nice to see.  I loved the first day with my afternoon class.  There were a few students there early and one of them asked me if I spoke thai.  I said no and he looked horrified but he has really come along. 

We are really enjoying our time with the students, it is exciting to see them improve.  Time flies when we are together, their excitement is contagious and energizing.  When the class is over, it hits us and we head home for refreshment and a rest. 

Please continue to pray for us and for our students.  We have definitely felt your prayers and know that God is at work in the school.