The Reading Class

A Visit to our Wat Chang Lam Luk Ka School

Ms. A came by at around 0830 to pick us up. We had prepared the computer table to take to the school. I had found an old SCSI CD-ROM (from a 6100) and gotten it ready to go. I also found an old 8X Philips CD-ROM to also take to the school. When we arrived Mr. G was already there. He had been having severe back problems so he did not make the ride with Ms. A to pick us up. I hope he gets better as he must get on a plane and return to Oklahoma for the reunion. That is a long time to be on an airplane with a bad back.

My wife immediately went to her 4th grade room to teach them English. She had been preparing all week long. We had copied around 40 sheets of simple English for her to use. She was excited about teaching the kids English.


She wanted to get the kids to start speaking and not be so shy. The kids were very happy to see her.

Mr. G and I putzed around with the computers trying to get them to work correctly. We had very little luck. The 9500 with the G3 in it did not want to talk to the monitor. It appeared that the monitor was shot. Then we worked with the Mac IIci and had problems. Nothing seemed to work. The adapter for the monitors which I had taken today was probably bad. This was really frustrating. Finally, I decided to not worry so much about the little Mac IIs and bring my almost cherry 6400 over and my son's 7100 for the school to use. These are prime machines and should make a good core. The two Mac IIci's and the 9500 will be for the kids just to type on and get comfortable with computers. I will regroup and return next week with the two computers (if my son can get the 7100 over here).

The Blog Arrives to EN3231

After the last presentation for the interviews, we discussed the upcoming movie scripting, shooting, preps, etc. I thought it might be a good idea if the scripters had blogs to exchange information. Ms. A, the director, thought all students should have blogs so I went through the process of creating blogs. Everyone jumped at the chance and now we have at least 30 new bloggers and maybe more.

I had some of the members of the class give me their blog names so I could put them here on this blog. I only got eight verified blogs. I think maybe the others forgot to push the publish button or somethng. I will finish the list next time.

On Thursday we will do our preliminary shooting for our movie. Ms. A seems to have everything under control. We shall see.

My World Civ classes went ok. Lectured on Romanticism and provided a bunch of paintings and some music. Thursday will be the American Revolution.

Ajarn JD came up with a great idea on the Advanced Readings class. Maybe we should have the students build case studies from the BusinessWeek magazine. Will explore this idea some more this week. The BusinessWeek lady will be here on Thursday as well.

Football season starts on Saturday at 1100 a.m. US time or 1100 p.m. our time. I can hardly wait for the Oklahoma Sooners to kick some helmets again this year.

Lecture on Western Imperialism in Asia

Part of our duties as instructors at ABAC is to attend special lectures for our particular field or course of study. Today we had a lecturer from the MA in Tourism (actually he is the DEAN). He covered one of the chapters in our text about Western imperialism and Asia. His major concentration was Western imperialism in China and Southeast Asia.
I must admit that this special lecture was much better than the one before the midterm. That one was about Buddhism and was very confusing. It went into a depth of detail which was over my head. Now, I wonder just how far it was over the heads of my students?
I had lunch with the lecturer, Dr. J, and we found that we had many things in common. He has travelled extensively in China and elsewhere. He also has his own travel agency.

I asked him during lunch where he had been that was the most exotic. He immediately named three places with the last two being Shangra-La and Lijiang. We then discussed Lijiang and the Jade Snow Mountain and he concluded that Lijiang was the most exotic place. I agreed with him and related the story of how I had to go to the toilet but feared the dreaded Chinese squat ones. I usually head back to the hotel to do my thing but this time it was an emergency. Finally, I paid my money and went in for the "ordeal." To my surprise, the toilets were grade AAA western, modern and super clean. Wait, I thought, this is crazy. Then I realized that Lijiang and been rebuilt from the ground up in 1995 or so. It had suffered a huge earthquake in 1994. With help from the Beijing gov, the Naxi (local none Chinese majority) had rebuilt the entire city on ancient Lijiang plans using the original material. Lijiang is actually a "Disneyland" with the whole thing built for tourists. Forgot it even though I had read it. Yep, Lijiang is the most exotic place I had been until we arrived in Kashgar. In Lijiang the Naxi are a matrilinear society so the women are the bosses and the men follow them. It is truly a wonderful, exciting place.

The Dean (our lecturer) gave me a copy of his small book Tales from the Mountains. It is a book about nice stories from the mountains of Burma, Thailand and China. The story about China occurs in Lijiang. These are inspriational stories that deal with people overcoming difficulty. Nicely done. He also handed out his books as a reward for those who could answer his questions at the end.

The lecture covered mostly the Western conflict with China in the 19th Century. Dr. J pretty much followed the text with the Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Moslem Rebellions and then the Boxer Rebellian. He also touched on what happened with Mao. I did ask him about the book (Mao) I was reading and he had not read it yet.

I picked up the attendance cards from my students and noticed that many of them had not shown up. We will have the same lecture next Saturday as well, so I will have to insure my students know this.

During the second lecture (same as the first) I took a break and walked around the area of the conference center and took some pictures. One has to see Assumption University to appreciate the beauty of it. A lot of money and a lot of design work went in to create this campus and it is definitely not Thai. Kind of a cross between Stanford, Georgetown, Notre Dame and the Vatican with heavy emphasis on the Vatican. An amazing piece of work.

The CL building or Center of Learning Tower can be seen for miles around. It has around 25 or 26 stories and the view from its top is magnificant.

In back of the CL building is a stylish Thai style buidling overlooking a serene and beautifully landscaped pond. The rocks and island in the middle make it seem as though one is far away in a make believe location. The swans also add to that feeling.






The pond next to the conference center has a bunch of horses running across the top of it. When the fountains are turned on, the effect is surprising and pleasant. I have heard that the former President who designed the campus and basically brought it to life had a great admiration for horses. Not too long ago we even had an aquestrian event with jumping horses and such. A bit out of place in Thailand as the heat and humidity would be extremely hard on the horses.

Overall, the special lecture was enjoyable. The lecturer was pleasant and the students seemed to be fairly well behaved. Ajarn B says we may not have too many more of these as they are expensive and not sure if the students get much out of them. I volunteered to give a lecture on the Silk Road but not sure if he took it seriously.

Reading in Business English Let Loose in the Computer Lab

I took all my Reading in Business English classes to the computer lab in the new IT building. The plan was to show them how quickly they can gather background information on any topic. Ajarn JD was going to meet me with his two classes at 1030 and then at 1400.

The first class did not work. We started to go to the IT Buidling but the electricity went out. We went back to our old room and I got the AV people to hook us up to the internet. We putzed around on the internet during the period and I had the students work on their preseantation assignments.

The rest of the classes went without a hitch. I sat down with several students and showed them how to make PDFs for info they then can email to themselves. The three classes were quite good and Ajarn JD was with us until after 1400. It looks as if my students are all ready for their presentations next week.

Ajarn JD talked about the possibility of developing an advanced reading course. We will have to sit down and get our thoughts on this possibility. It sounded good.

On Thursday, Dr. P the dean of the faculty gave me three DVDs of the show 24. It was terrific and hard not to watch. I watched everyone of the episodes unti lI ran out of DVDs. Will have to try to get the whole set.

The Industrial Revolution and other Problems

Today we did the Industrial Revolution in my World Civilization class. I was able to finish the chapter and hopefully got some points across. Both my 1230 class and my 1400 class were very attentive and I tried to ask enough questions to keep people involved. This was not the real story for today's blog.

That night I received an email from one of my Chinese students, Ms. X. She was not able to drop by on Thursday for our practice session. She usually comes to my office twice a week to practice her English and to ask questions about World Civ. She did not make it so she wrote me an email explaining why.

Dear ajarn,

i am sorry about today that i did't go to ur office. today i had diarrhea and a stomach ache.
these days , i am having bad luck . my wallet was stolen by some body in class. 5555~~~GONE - my money ,ID card , and so many things .
i think i only can get a 5 on ielts . i got lost in the listening and the readings were about science and technology. so hard. the writing question was not difficult but i wrote it as if i was writing for an english 1 class . :(
i was so stupid during the speaking test . i don't know what i was talking about . I had no logic and no grammar. i was so nervous .5555~~~~~~ i will go to hell.

by the way , do u need something from china , please tell me , ok . it's my pleasure

yours respectfully

My immediate response was for her to please not go to hell as I have heard it is a very bad place. I also encouraged her by telling her that the bad luck is always followed by the good luck.

She is a very good student, second year, and has not developed any confidence in herself. She will be more than ok in a few more months. One cannot help but like and respect these "mainland" Chinese students.

Testing the Teachers

I was notified on Thursday that I would be involved with several other teachers to go to Pratum Thani and test some of the local English teachers. Dr. P had set it up and asked for me and Ajarn N. We had worked with her before with the 13 Brothers Fiasco. The two day event would begin on Tuesday and last two days.


I arrived to the Huamark campus early (I hate traffic jams) at around 0615. Bought a newspaper and read a bit. I also took a couple of pictures of how it looked this early on campus.

Our van came by to pick us up at around 0800. There were seven of us with another meeting us at the school. The trip took about 40 minutes as we were going against the traffic.

The school was a middle school and was considered one of the top in the district. Gathered together were around 40 or so English teachers from around the district. Basically each school in the area sent one teacher to represent the school. The goal was to define the criteria of being an English teacher as it related to what the Thai government had laid out. English and English teaching has been a hot topic for the last month, since the Thai students had tested out at the bottom of Southeast Asia. Well, actually next to the bottom as they had out performed Cambodian students but just barely.

The English teachers I talked with and tested and interviewed were enthusiastic and motivated. Their English however was preintermediate. I did give them credit for not being shy in using their English. These are very dedicated teachers and this impressed me greatly.

During the two days, we got to know the teachers fairly well, gave them several different tests and then evaluated their performance.

Thailand has a huge problem with English teaching - basically no serious English teaching is happening. The English teachers simply do not have the skills to meet the demand. The whole ed system in Thailand, in fact, is a disaster. It should be scrapped and build from the bottom up. Traditional methods of teaching English just will not get the job done in today's world.

The two days were interesting but hardly worth the effort as Dr. P felt that we accomplished very little as the system will not change.

Dr. P gave me three DVDs to check out. She had been talking about them for some time and I was anxious to see them. These were of a series from the US called 24. I spent the next three days watching them. Big problem as now I must wait to see the whole set and it is killing me as the series was fantastic!

Well, anyway we finished the testing and the meeting and the evaluation. We met some pretty neat teachers and the surrounding area was good for a change. The school itself was well endowed and it seemed to be doing its job. Ajarn JD took over my classes while I was gone so I would not have to make them up later. My students are just preparing to give their presentations, so this was not an inconvenience for me. What the heck, the Chair Person, Dr. C and the Dean, Dr. P were both involved and I would do anything for these wonderful people!

English for Tourism

Last week Ajarn A asked me to sponsor his English for Tourism trip to a couple of sites in Bangkok. My wife and I went along to help Ajarn A out and, of course, take some pictures.

We left the house around 6:30 and arrived to ABAC at a few minutes before 7 AM. We were supposed to leave at 7:30 Thai Time. Of course, this meant more like 8 AM.

We met Ajarn A and Dr. H on the campus. They had been invited as guests. We visited with them until Ajarn A showed up. After a few minutes of confusion, we got on Bus * and waited for the last students to get onboard.

Our first destination was the Hindu temple on Siloam Road. We had not been there in over 20 years and we had heard that it had expanded. The trip took around 40 minutes. Two of the buses went to the Suan Pakkad Palace while our bus and bus number 9 started at the temple.

My movie camera seemed to be messing up. Believe it has dirty heads. Oh, well, I have to do the best I can with it.

We were at the Hindu temple about 30 minutes. As the other two buses arrived, we left for the Suan Pakkad Palace. I had never heard of it. It used to be a cabbage farm so the Thais call it Suan Pakkad or Cabbage Patch. It is a very lovely setting with Thai style houses located around a pond with beautiful landscaping.

Of particular interest was the house inside another house. The small inner house was an ancient prayer house where monks would sit to meditate and study. This small one room building was placed inside an ancient prayer hall. These are the last remaining examples of this type of buildings in Thailand. Beautiful wood with lacquered black and gold painting.

I was also interested in the small museum about Ban Chiang. Ban Chiang is a neolithic village being escavated in Udon Thani province not far from Udon Thani town. A very old village that may force the historians and archaeologist to rewrite Asian history.

We had lunch at the Taro Taro restaurant which was very pleasant. A buffet was served but us teachers were given a special room and our food was served. Pretty good combination of typical Thai dishes.



The final stop was at the Vimemek Teak Palace. It is the largest teak wood building in the world. It was build by Rama V (Chulalongkorn) and he actually lived it in for 5 years. The antiques and other memoralia were fascinating and unique. We also watched a traditional Thai dancing with fabulous Thai style houses in the background. Too commercial for my taste, I saw where they would be very interesting to tourist who had never experienced Thai dancing.



The day was hot and I was happy to see the day come to an end. The bus took us all back to Assumption University in Bangkapi. From there we got a taxi back to our house.It is tough being an instructor at ABAC. (YEH RIGHT). This trip was fun and the students were great. What more can I say!

The teak house was as nice as I had heard and the Cabbage Patch Palace was worth the trip. They fed us good and I took some interesting pictures, eventhough my video camera seems to be messing up. We will have to put it in for repairs pronto.

And so ends another day as an ABAC instructor.

Back to School (Our Wat School)

Today my friend G came by with a pickup and we hauled three of my computers to the wat school. He got lost trying to find our house and assured him that there are at least 100,000 people lost in Bangkok at any given moment.

We took two Mac II ci's and my Mac 9500 with a G3 300mhz processor. The two little Macs can be used for the little kids to pound around on and learn about computers. Next week we will deliver one more computer (my Performa 6400) and a couple of monitors. I left the 40 or so CDs with G for next time.

While G and I were setting up the computers my wife went to the 4th grade room as before and taught the kids to speak a little English and to count to ten in both English and Chinese. Their regular teacher had to go to a teachers' seminar today. Sunee had a lot of fun.

We return next Tuesday and I will take some pictures of the Macs and the students.

Presentations and the Reformation

Today my Conversation and Discussion Class gave presentations on the interview they did before the midterm. Great presentation. This class is really special with some great students. They were to interview both students and teachers about ABAC: the good, the bad and the ugly. We had three presentations and all were really top notch. The last presentation finished with a really nifty VCD film they had put together. Mr. J did a marvelous job on the film clip.

I had decided that this class would do a movie for their major project and I had already given the task of coming up with a script to one of the best students in the class, Ms. A. She had worked on the script and so we decided to have the class divide up and help her finish the script on Thursday. Mr. J will obviously be heavily involved with the technical aspects of the movie. We do not have much time so we have to "rock and roll" to get it done.

I passed out the results of the midterm. No big surprises as everyone did really good. This is an exceptional class, with most of the students very good at English and creative thinking. The upcoming work on the movie should be interesting for me and challenging for the class.

And now for World Civilization. Reformation was the topic. Where does one start? I had only one Christian in both classes. This meant that I had to cover some basic Christian theology before the students are ready for Reformation history. This seemed to work pretty good. I went around and got some of the students involved in my explanations and, at least, I had a good time.

We made it through the entire Reformation chapter without a hitch. I checked and rechecked to see if the students were following my lecture. Luther and Calvin. Luther and Calvin. Luther and Calvin. I also did the Henry VIII, this is better than any Thai soap opera, story. Overall, I would say that both classes seemed to follow the Reformation as best as can be expected. I used a lot of energy in "preaching the Luther style" and demonstrating how Henry VIII took good care of his wives. I was exhausted by the end of the second class.

On Thursday we do the Enlightenment which will take just as much energy to keep it interesting.

Mothers Day Party

Friday was Mother's Day (Queen's Birthday) so we took my mother-in-law to the Landmark Hotel and had an eight or so course Chinese meal. It was very expensive but, what the heck, my mother-in-law is 96!



This is the group that attended the party.



At around eight in the evening the hotel had a drawing for some prizes. Our two tables won two of the prizes. No big deal. One was some beauty stuff and the other was for a perm or something at their local beauty shop.



We left the hotel around nine. On the way out we stopped to visit with the lovely lady playing the harp. She is from Shanghai and was surprised that my wife and I could speak Chinese. Of course, I told her that this whole family was Chinese with my mother-in-law coming from China when she was around twelve or so. Another pleasant evening out in Bangkok.

A Local Wat School

We went to a local wat school today with an old high school classmate who has retired about fifteen minutes from where we live. Wat schools are public schools for the super poor. They are run by the local Buddhist wats and usually take in students from families who cannot send their kids to a regular public school.

We had a great time teaching them a little English and just visiting and joking with the kids. About half the school went on a field trip, so we only saw the 4th grade. My friend teaches as a volunteer at the school once a week.

We plan to take them about five Mac computers to use next week. We will set the computers up and provide hundreds of appropriate software for the kids to use. I have been collecting software since 1985, so this is what I was collecting it for. We are looking forward to visiting the school again.




The kids put on a Thai Classical musical show for us just before we left. It was superb!

A Graduation Party

Our niece will be graduating from Thammasart University this month so we went to a big graduation party with the family. The party was at a big Japanese buffet restaurant at the Emerald Hotel. We had been there before.

All one can eat of Japanese, Chinese and other food. Lots of seafood and the like. I, unfortunately, was hit with back spasms from sitting in the Japanese-style seats. Could not get up or get down. I was also unable to take advantage of the food which was a good thing.



The evening was very pleasant and I took several pictures of members of my Thai family.













Our niece is thinking about going to the United States to start a Masters degree. I think she wants to be a writer but I am not sure. Her English is excellent so she will not have any trouble overseas.