English Class

On Friday our friend Noy asked us to help teach an English class. A group of Naresuan University students had a project to teach a class of 11 to 12 year-old children some basic English conversation. Two of the students picked us up at Noy's office and drove us to the school. There were about a dozen university students and about 25 children waiting for us. We were asked to fill one hour. Most of the university students had very limited English except for one girl who acted as our interpreter and did her job with great enthusiasm. The children were very shy and with the exception of one or two, were very reluctant to say any English words.

We ended up singing a lot of action songs with good vocabulary in them, like father finger, mother finger, and one little, two little, three little elephants. This broke the ice with the children and the university students really got into it also. We went back on Saturday morning for another hour and mostly reviewed and taught some sounds that are in English but not in the Thai language, the r sound and the th sound. I don't know how muchEnglish the children learned from it but they had fun and really participated in the activities. One of the girls from the university said, after our last class, I am so happy. When we asked her why, she said because the children and her classmates had fun learning.

We had a big surprise today, Sunday, when a bunch of the students and 10 of the children showed up at the church where we have been going. Just as we were leaving on Saturday Jo-Anne told them where we were going to church on Sunday and invited any of them to come. So a bunch of them showed up. We did an impromptu little conversation class with them for a half hour, then they joined the church service for about forty-five minutes. We hope it left a good witness with them, especially the university students. You never know what a day will bring.

Children and university students

Jo-Anne and Jim with Faa and An our two student drivers

I continue to be impressed with the congested traffic and drivers in Thailand. Although Phitsanulok is not as busy as Bangkok the downtown area has a lot of narrow streets and busy intersections with cars trucks, buses, and motorbikes all clamouring for space. There are some traffic lights but lots of them don't work. After watching An navigate through what to me looked like traffic gridlock I have come to the conclusion that Thai drivers use fuzzy logic in their driving, and they use it quite successfully. Fuzzy logic works on the assumption that there are definite rights and wrongs but within each right and wrong there is a range of probabilities. Fuzzy logic is used in computer control systems, if you don't understand it check it out in Wikipedia. There are traffic rules on Thai city streets but if you obey them righteously you may never make it across an intersection. This is where fuzzy logic enters in. If, at a congested intersection or round about you judiciously nudge your way in between vehicles on the probability that the next vehicle will let you in you will most likely get in. In fact if you sit and wait for your turn you will most likely frustrate all the other drivers. They are expecting you to push in. Yes, there are some fender-benders, but, so what, we have them in Canada too.