E-Newsletter
April 2009

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Steve's Quarterly Update

Welcome %PERS_NAME%! Doesn’t time fly! We are four months into 2009 and in Thailand, teachers and students are already enjoying a break from their normal routine before the start of another semester.

During this time of year, many teachers are conducting summer courses or attending short courses and training to improve their teaching.

New English language learning and teaching resources have been added under the main menu to assist with this teaching and professional development. Have a look and see what interests you.

Please feel free to contact me about any areas of English language learning, teaching, management and administration that you care to discuss.

Contact Steve at:

steve@steves-english-zone.com

Or register as a member here.

News Articles

Every month new articles are added concerning all the latest developments in education reforms in the news. Previous articles have been archived under Archived News in the main menu for those of you who want to refer to past items of interest.

Subjects covered so far include the use of graded readers for English language learning, why Thai students do not like to learn English, support for teachers, and the continuing debts incurred by teachers and students.

Anyone with news items or comments that they think are relevant are welcome to forward them to me and I will do my best to reply to all correspondence.

New Papers

New papers have been added since the last newsletter, even though I wasn’t able to travel to all the places I intended to in order to present them.

One paper concerns the social networking site Flickr and how it can be used by Thai students as part of their coursework. The other is a continuing project concerning the training of primary school teachers of English in Thailand.

More papers are due in the coming months as the conference season (November to February) draws nearer, as well as in time for the next ThaiTESOL conference in August.

Primary School English Language Teachers

Since August 2008, three teachers from Bantatprachanukoon School in Ban Phue district Udon Thani have been undergoing teacher training with the view to improving their English language teaching skills.

In conjunction with the Ministry of Education, their progress has been carefully monitored resulting in a change of teaching style and an increase in teacher confidence.

Their progress will continue to be detailed on this website in the coming months with the introduction of video and MP3 content in time for the new semester.

Croston House Children’s Home

Regular readers will know that I have been involved with Glenn Croston and his children’s home for a while now, and I hope to be visiting again in May to conduct an English camp over a couple of days for the children.

Last year, Glen started The Friends of Croston House Children’s Home (Thailand) 500 Club in order to get people involved in the foundation, by making small monthly donations of 500 baht to offset the cost of running the home.

Many people in Thailand believe that charity should begin at home, so why not help out with this one?

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Steve Graham

Steve Graham is an English language teacher at the Language Center, Udon Thani Rajabhat University. This university in the north-east of Thailand is going through a period of change with a new campus being built and a new president at the helm.

Quality assurance through research and development are key areas that are now at the forefront of Udon Thani Rajabhat University’s educational policy.

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