On Monday, the English teacher comes up with the lesson plan on the topic “sickness.” On Monday the teacher runs the class himself. Start the class with “Parts-of-body song” and let students touch the right body parts. Then he introduces the conversation: “How do you feel today?/Are you OK?/Are you feeling well?” and the answers are “I feel well.” or “I don’t feel well. I have a cold/fever/headache/diarrhea/stomachache/” (Students learn to pronounce and remember these sickness words first.) Group activities require student to write sentences on the paper. The problem arises. The teacher did not explain clearly enough what he expects students to do, and students cannot write the reply to the questions.

In general, the English teacher understands fully what active learning is and it is very promising that the teacher will further the project and put it into action not only in his class but also in the classes in the entire school. After SEALNet team and the teacher have been working together for one and a half week, we come up with the simple finalized version of active academic activities and their results. The English teacher can explain the lessons to the students very well and he can always add the funny tricks into the lesson to entertain students, and it works!

On Tuesday, SEALNet team runs the class in the same topic as yesterday.
1. Body Parts Song
2. Competition between 2 groups to perform the song/dance
3. Skits
Class is divided into 4 groups. Each group is assigned one new vocabulary word, they have to come up with a skit in Thai that presents the word’s meaning. In another word, the students are responsible of teaching their classmates new vocabulary words. (In this case: headache, stomachache, cold, fever). Then each group comes up and performs their skit in front of the class. The class repeats the new word after each skit.
1. Question&Answer lesson
Students learn the meaning and pronunciation of one question (How do you feel today?) and two answers (I feel well or I don’t feel well). By using the new vocab words they learnt, they can make up an answer about having a headache or stomachache, etc…
 
Outcomes and problems:
Students seem to enjoy the lesson and they are more creative than we have expected. Group activity seems to be a very fit exercise for them. There is no particular problem that’s worth mentioning here J