My primary need was for teaching the children at the God's Kids children's home, and since there was no prior standard technique in practice during my first visit in October 2005, I decided to experiment with English Language Flash Cards.
Prior to my June 2006 visit, I purchased some various sets of flash cards at a local teacher's supply store. There were two different types of flash cards.
The first type showed an object on one side, and the word for that object on the other side. The second type showed similar word groups. (day, play, stay, way ,tray, etc.) There are also flash cards for phonetics, Math, colors, and many more subjects.
While I only visited briefly in Huaymalai on that trip, there were English speaking long term visitors there at the time who were able to immediately use the sets with good results.
When I returned for a two month stay in October 2006, I used the cards with the children daily, and also added various greetings, body parts, clothing, and objects in the room. (chair, wall, window, floor, etc.) It was humorous that on my second two month stay in March 2007, a sewing machine that had been in the corner was no longer there, but if I pointed to that corner, they would all holler "Sewing machine".
The first type of card was easier for the children to work with, because they could see from the picture of the object what it was, whereas the second type was good for drills to repeatedly pronounce words with similar sounds, even though it became more likely there would be less comprehension of what each word meant.
The technique I used with the children was to hold up the card showing the object, and turn it around to show the word. Then I pronounced the word, and indicated for everyone to say it. Then, I would point to each child and have them pronounce the word. And finally, I would stop as needed to fine tune a particular child's pronunciation.
It was interesting to find that the children of each ethnic group had the same problems to make certain sounds that do not exist in their language.
It was also good to work different concepts into the above techniques, such as boys only repeat after me, or girls only, and to interrupt for a series of "eyes, ears, nose, knees, etc.
Also during that stay, I took over an English class from a Dutch medical student who had been using an English workbook to teach the adult staff members at the Safe House. I attended her last class, as she was leading them through a lesson about Todd and Mary visiting the market to buy wine and cheese. The lesson was built around all of the difficult concepts like verbs and nouns and adjectives and other concepts I hadn't thought about since elementary school. I could see the confusion in the eyes of the students, and they may have seen the same look in my eyes.
I remember actually praying that night for the Holy Spirit to give me some ideas, because I could not have used the workbook method, and I did not see it as useful for their world anyways. When I came to the class the next day, I held up the workbook, shook my head in the international body language for "No", and placed the book in a bookshelf.
Since most of the adults had a basic knowledge of English, I tried to make them understand that they can use a little English, together with sign language, and gestures to communicate quite well.
As an example, if a visitor has their hand against their cheek and is wincing, they probably have a toothache. Stooped over with a hand at the lower back is likely a backache, Etc. The idea was to give them confidence to use the words they know. The word "eat" accompanied by a spoon to mouth motion, or a wave towards the dining table works well, and even better if they add the word "come".
Where I really made use of the "word group" flash cards was to have the adults bring their dictionaries with them. First I would point to a word, and have each of them pronounce it the way they thought it should be, usually someone would say it right. Then, I would ask if they knew what it was, maybe one-third of the time someone would know what it was. Then I would have them look the word up in their Karen, Burmese, and Thai dictionaries. Since most of them speak all of those languages to some extent, they could then discuss the definitions amonst themselves, and we made some very good progress for not only pronouncing words, but understanding their definitions, and in some cases, multiple definitions.
To help with those moments where someone would be embarassed about mispronouncing a word, I had several Karen and Burmese words spelled phonetically on the white-board, which I would then attempt to pronounce for the class, usually defusing the situation quickly, along with pointing out that all of them spoke at least three languages fluently, and enough English to communicate along with gestures, while I only spoke English and a bit of Spanish, and could not communicate in Karen, Burmese, Thai, or Mon at all. Their response was "Teach us Spanish Too!"
Not only did these flash cards work successfully, but they led to many other discoveries of ways to improve not only the educations of the needy people being visited, but also ways to better educate those missionary and humanitarian workers who come to Thailand so that they can be more effective during their stays.
While it would of course be better to have an organized English classroom environment, I am not aware of one for Karen/Burmese speakers, and an organized class would really need a translator to be effective. However, anyone with the time, the heart, and the flash cards with the pictures on them, can be immediately effective with both children and adults who speak no English at all, and even more so if there is a translator available to help describe how to make certain sounds which do not exist in their native languange.
And best of all, it is a lot of fun!
God Bless You. PS: Most teacher's/School supply stores have seasonal sales with much reduced pricing up to 50% off. Gman
