Yesterday (Wednesay June 25th), I had the opportunity to provide a workshop for the Thai English teachers from the various schools we are working with. The title of the workshop was Listening and Speaking: Strategies for Interaction in the Classroom. As we observed classes last year and this year, it was apparent that the focus in these classrooms in on reading and writing, and that students end up not being able to speak the language well. This is one reason the focus of our UTSA students’ teaching as been on oral language development.
I provided the Thai teachers with some of the same training I provided to our UTSA teachers. The focus was on using cooperative learning structures as a way to provide more opportunities for students to interact in authentic and meaningful ways. As I explained each structure, I had them try it out. They loved it. I also had video clips of an excellent lesson taught by JoAnn. As they watched the video clips, we discussed the strategies JoAnn used to maximize the interaction of her students, and how each activity built on the previous activity to enable students to speak and listen in English with confidence. The teachers were very enthusiastic. Many of them promised they would make changes to their teaching to incorporate the ideas they gained from the workshop. I was greatly impressed with the Thai ESL teachers.
We were honored to have Mr. Wanchai Pongsa, Director of the Trang Education Office 1, the provincial office for the Thai Ministry of Education. He helped present the certificates to each participant, and gave a speech at the end. At the ceremony he met some of our teachers, and also got to see the video clips of JoAnn's teaching. Dr. Perrotta and I had met with him in the morning to discuss the continuation of the program. We feel fortunate that he came by and got a close-up look at what we have been doing. In his comments, he mentioned how he was impressed with our program and wants to support it. 
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