Tuesday 29 May 2007

Monday 28th May

We were up bright and early for the start of the working week. We were at the Vocational School for the Disabled at 7.45, and most of the students and staff were already lining up for Assembly to begin. We were asked to line up with the staff, and then the raising of the flag ceremony took place. There were some speeches, which of course we did not understand at all, and then we all went to the front and I explained when we were going to be working with them, and there was great applause for the pupils.

The first groups of pupils, with Mrs Amphlett and Mr James went into one of the classes to teach English. To begin with the students were quite reluctant to speak, but after one-to-one tuition, some roll play situations and a great deal of encouragement, all the students gave a short speech in English with beautiful clear accents. Our pupils were very thrilled at what had been achieved.
The other half of the pupils with Miss Walsh and myself, went to the Orphanage to teaching English and computers. We split into two groups, the girls with Miss Walsh teaching English to 5/6 year olds, and then going into the toddler room for the rest of the morning. The boys started with the youngest children from the kindergarten, some of whom were only just 3 years old. It was really hard to get them to sit still let alone work on the computers! After about 40 minutes they watched a video of themselves that had been to music, and they all joined in the singing. We then had the older group who had previously been with the girls, and had great fun helping them with an alphabet game which was all in Thai!

In the afternoon all the pupils were in the baby and toddler room. This is a real favourite and I think the kids will feel really deprived when they have a day without going into the baby room. The toddlers are getting to know everyone, and look for their favourites every time. They love having the boys to play with them, some of them need a bit of "rough and tumble". One of the boys could not walk down to the Orphanage because he had a bad blister on his heel, so I managed to borrow a wheelchair for him and wheel him down for the end of the afternoon.

After work we walked down to Luk Dod which is a craft warehouse. We can get items at a discount price, so everyone had a great time buying gifts for everyone at home. We walked back to the Center fully laden and managed to shower before a late supper. After supper we had a huge electric storm which left the lobby flooded. Luckily we had planned an evening in so we did not get caught up in the storm.

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