Literacy Education for Thai Minority Community

Background of Literacy Program:

The Community Learning Centre in Mae Sai, under direction of DEPDC/GMS, strives to provide human rights education and literacy training in Thai, Burmese, and English languages for undocumented migrants, refugees and other community members living along the Thai-Burmese border. The CLC officially opened its doors in February 2005 and has been operating ever since, alternating teachers between current DEPDC staff members, community tutors, and volunteers.

The center is open to young people who are at risk of being sold into the commercial sex industry as well as to their parents and other adult community members.Many of the current CLC students have an ethnic background belonging to the Shan or Akha minorities and many of them are originally from Myanmar. The remaining students come from local Thai government schools and are unable to afford tutors in the English or Burmese language, the CLC’s two primary classes at this time.

Kru Mai is the current CLC teacher. She speaks Thai, Burmese, and English. English Language Class is taught Monday through Thursday and Burmese Language Class is on Friday and Saturday due to limited human resources.

Typically, DEPDC/GMS has 2 to 3 volunteers who are able to assist teaching classes, especially for the more advanced English students. However, DEPDC/GMS currently only has one volunteer to meet the needs of the entire International Department and the Half Day School English Language Program. This shortage of volunteers requires all English language students of the CLC to study at one time, from beginning to advanced learners.

Kru Mai was recently provided with several workbooks belonging to DEPDC/GMS’s Half Day School (HDS) for the CLC students to use. Students at the HDS share the workbooks in groups of 3-4 at this time but the CLC center was also in desperate need of basic classroom books. This will hopefully increase Kru Mai’s management of the many different learning levels of students in her daily classes and improve the learning experience of CLC students. However, it does not allow students to study English outside of class as there are not enough books to go around to the current 17 students. Specifically, seven students have expressed their desire to study outside of class time. This would also allow Kru Mai to give them tests, quizzes, and homework to further advance their literacy skills and save money on printing and copying each day.

We are very interested in receiving donations for study materials during this time of need. If donors would prefer donating study books, we currently use the third edition of “Let’s Go” (Cross, Nakata, Frazier, and Hoskins). Let’s get started, level 1, 2, and 3 are used by the largest number of students with several using levels 4 and 5 as well.

Thank you for taking the time to read our update about the Community Learning Center. We appreciate your time and support beyond what words can express! I want to thank you on behalf of all our staff members, educators, community learners, and especially our children who benefit from the thoughtfulness of people like you.

Please, keep DEPDC/GMS in mind during #GivingTuesday. Your donations go further on November 28^th, 2017 thanks to the generosity of GlobalGiving.

Another three months have passed, and some important changes are coming up for our CLC’s advanced English classes in the near future. DEPDC’s long-term advanced English CLC teacher, Peter is going to leave DEPDC and a new teacher is going to take over Peter’s English classes.

 DEPDC’s Community Learning Center offers an inexpensive option for students to practice and improve their English skills and raise their grades. Private tutoring is quite expensive, and many families can’t afford to send their children there. One major group at DEPDC is students from local high schools around Mae Sai. Another is a group from a local guide.

 Most older students come to the CLC classes to improve their English conversation skills. They often work in fields that require them to occasionally communicate with foreigners in English, so increasing their English skills often raises their employability and improves their businesses.

 The diverse backgrounds of the students makes the classes interesting but also makes them challenging. While the high school students are required to learn a lot of grammar to pass their exams at school, the older students normally need to improve their direct communication skills. For them, learning correct grammar is of little importance compared to simply being able to do business with foreigners in English.

 Basic English classes for children are taught every week, Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. The classes have about 20 students who attend. Most students are teenagers, so they can’t just sit and listen for more than a few minutes at a time. They need to do a lot of dancing, games and singing in the classroom. I think that the class is going well and the kids are enjoying the lessons.

 We wish for all of our students to have fun and success in their English classes. DEPDC's staff, volunteers, and especially our students at CLC would like to thank all our past, current, and future donors. Without your support we would not be able to operate the Community Learning Center. Thank You!!