It's too bad that you can't spell things phonetically. Like "rik rold'.

I'm sympathetic to your closing your eyes to listen close beside them. Closing your eyes actually does help you hear better. It lessens the amount of sensory input to concentrate with your ears. It's a wonder anyone ever recalls any conversation held during dinner when people are eating, touching, seeing and trying to listen!

It sounds like a new round of classes just started because you mention perhaps some people dropping the class like a New Years resolution. Is this the first week of new students or have the classes been persistently this large for a few weeks?

Yeah, that one we really can't change it. Some people just have learn that we have free ILC here but we got some group of students that always be here. I agree with you about the lesson. It's difficult to teach a new and old students together.
Now, I make the lesson not connecting just different lesson every time. when new student come will study about that together with the old students.
A little hard one is the kis. They're all over you and not stop asking but after we telling them everyday for a while they're getting better. Need lot of patient to teach the kids but it's fun! (sometime lol)

Now THAT is cool.  Maybe you can have Gina teaching in there, like Max Headroom.

 

I watched about 30 minutes of it this morning, and if it was just Max Headroom teaching, he'd need some bots in there to help quieten the masses. There was  a lot of chatter I couldn't begin to understand. We need some Thai language videos first.

I think the next adult class should be to learn the words to an English song so they can video tape it and sing to us supporters online... Maybe the one by Clarence...it's be sassifing.

Or maybe just see if they can translate any Thai songs into English. That would be nice

Keep an eye on this thread, folks!  In the near future, this is about to be kicked up a notch (or two or three!) and you will have to see it to believe it.

Today we started to build something which we believe will take Isara's Learning Center into it's next phase of development. And we're all VERY excited about its potential.

Thanks to a suggestion made by thartley, we are in the process of creating a classroom which can be taught remotely from any where in the world. This will allow anyone to teach our classes from their own home or office.  All you need is a free Skype account and you can teach a class in Thailand. How cool is that?  To make the experience more comfortable for the teacher and students we decided to use the classrooms whiteboard as the virtual whiteboard as well. To do that we will be projecting lesson plans, typed within chat software, onto the whiteboard using an LCD projector. So the teacher will talk and type and the students will hear and see it, real-time.

The first step was to get an LCD projector. Fortunately the computer shop where Ming use to work gave us a great price on one. Next, we had to build a rack for it (out of reach from the students) which is what we did today.

 

Then all we had to do was setup the computer, hide the cables, and test out the new projector with our class this evening.

 

This evening's lesson was about cooking. After teaching some vocabulary we then asked our students to explain how to make Som Tum (Papaya Salad). While they were writing their recipes we played some YouTube videos of people making som tum. We also showed a scene from the cartoon Ratatouille, about a rat who can cook.  The students said the lesson was a lot more fun and interesting with the visuals. They also said they were happy they didn't have to read my handwriting any more.

Preliminary tests with the web conferencing have worked so we think we're ready to do a dress rehearsal this weekend. Keep your fingers crossed and thanks for the suggestion, thartley.

   This is great news!  Great idea Terri and  thanks to PK and Ming for pulling it  together.   Looking forward to seeing and hearing the results.

  This is so VERY exciting and how perfectly appropriate for our very own moderator, Ginafish, to be our first world interactive volunteer.   Job well done Ginafish!      Amazing concept Terri! 

Just think  now if you want to volunteer to teach at the ILC all you have to do is sign up for a Free Skype account and buy a microphone and you can teach a class from your home or office. Wow!!  

Ginafish, how was your class experience?     

You're welcome back, any time, Gina.

Thartley was our guest teacher last Wednesday. Yes, I know she lives only two blocks from the ILC, but we had to test out the webcam feature. lol



Thartley asked a lot of questions and drew a lot of pictures for the students to see. Thanks for your help, thartley.

Devona - Thanks for stepping up to teach! You've got a lot going on and the students will really appreciate you teaching them! Thank YOU!