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.