Two in Thailand

After raising three children and watching them graduate from college, Bob and Carol decided to leave the educational field and pursue a dream that had been put on hold for 35 years (since graduationg from the University of Northern Iowa). "Two in Thailand" is the journal dedicated to that dream - to serve in the Peace Corps. This is a personal blog. The opinions expressed within do not necessarily represent the views of the Peace Corps or the United States Government.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Village English Lessons


About 2 months ago, the village leader approached us with a request to conduct English lessons at the meeting hall (a covered cement slab with a raised stage area). We told him that we would be happy to teach a 1-2 hour session each Sunday afternoon. We were both excited to finally resume teaching adults after initiating a similar program one year ago in a neighboring village. We carefully crafted a lesson geared to adults that wanted to learn English. When we arrived for our first lesson, we knew something was wrong when 5 youngsters on bicycles quickly reversed direction and headed to the meeting hall. We turned into the dirt driveway and much to our surprise we saw 60 children (some of them barely out of diapers) running around. We did see a few adults, but they had simply brought their children to attend the Thai version of "Romper Room". We looked at each other and said, "We need a plan!" After a few minutes, we split the group into 2 groups. Anyone with a pacifier or diaper rash went with Carol. The others went with Bob. Actually the group has been a lot of fun especially after it pared down to 20 regulars who come every Sunday. The picture above shows a portion of these regulars who are very anxious to learn English.

3 Comments:

At 1:31 PM, Blogger kristin elizabeth said...

How cool is that!! It's great to see that they want to learn enough to come on a Sunday....congrats!

 
At 6:24 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

MJ says: And how could anyone resist those smiles?

 
At 3:27 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

You guys are doing such a good job. I am sure it is a very big deal for these kids to have access to free english lessons!

 

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