Literacy Education for Thai Minority Community

Like DEPDC's Half Day School (HDS), our CLC also ended its term on 10^th of October. That does not mean that there will be no classes at all during the term break, but some courses might take a break for one or two weeks to give the teachers a chance to take a few days off themself.

During the last term there were not many changes to DEPDC's CLC program, only two additional English classes for beginners were added on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. That means that at the moment CLC offers 7 English classes for beginners, 3 intermediate English classes, and 2 Burmese classes every week.

Our English beginners classes have an average size of about 20 students and consist mainly of primary and lower secondary school students, while the intermediate English classes have an average of about 7 students. The Burmese courses during the weekend are very popular with the children from the village around DEPDC's Mae Sai Center, whom often have a migration background from Myanmar and consider Burmese a useful addition to their native language and Thai.

During this term the CLC also organized an English class for the 'Social Workers Training Program for an At-risk Group of Women and Children in The Shan State' that was organized in a cooperation of Alliance Anti-Trafic and DEPDC.

The teachers and students of the CLC would like to thank all former, present, and future donors for their support and generosity. Without people like you the work of the CLC and DEPDC in general would be impossible. Thank you!

Links:

• DEPDC's Homepage
• DEPDC's Facebook (English)
• DEPDC's Facebook (Thai)

The last three months were quite busy at DEPDC's Community Learning Center (CLC). The CLC organized a one month special English workshop focusing on 'English for Social Workers' for the participants of the "Social Workers Training Program for an At-risk Group of Women and Children in The Shan State” A new Burmese language course was set up the two English language courses ran as before, with a short break.

Between 15^th May and 13^th June 2015 DEPDC, in cooperation with Alliance Anti-Trafic, organized a one month social worker training program for people from The Shan State in Myanmar. The young people participating in the workshop came from many different walks of life, from farmers, to monks, to university students. One part of the program was an English language course focusing on English for Social Workers. This part of the program was organized by the CLC and taught by three teachers at the same time.

The big challenge in this course was the very different levels of English proficiency of the program participants, reaching from very basic English to an advanced intermediate level. The fact that we had three teachers to teach a group of 11 people made it possible to organize the classes in a way that everybody had a chance to learn, and to improve upon their skills at a pace which suited them and their own abilities, enabling the participants to make good progress during the one month course.

The second big news from DEPDC's CLC is that we managed to set up a new Burmese language course for pupils. The new course takes place every Saturday and Sunday at 3pm, and is taught by our Burmese teacher, Ms. Kwanmai Lasang, who also teaches beginner English CLC classes.

These classes give children from the villages around DEPDC a chance to learn Burmese, which is becoming increasingly important as the trade across the Thai-Myanmar border is increasing and is expected to boom after the introduction of the 'ASEAN Economic Community' in the near future. Mae Sai as one of the main border crossings between Thailand and Myanmar will be one of the major trade hubs and having the ability to speak and write Burmese might be an advantage in the labor market.

All of DEPDC's staff, volunteers, and students would like to thank our generous donors for their support. Without your support DEPDC's work in furthering the education of our students would be impossible. Thank you!

Links:

• DEPDC's Homepage
• DEPDC's Facebook (English)
• DEPDC's Facebook (Thai)