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Appendix 1: Ideas for Expansion

Here are some ideas to help expand the homestay pack in its current form. This will be necessary as villagers are exposed more frequently to English and will provide valuable additional material to longer term volunteers.

  • Contractions are commonly used in spoken English. To keep the homestay pack as a simple tool contractions have not been used. If villagers are becoming more confident and fluent with English production they should be taught the most common contractions and rules.
  • A clock flashcard is present in appendix 1 to help visually identify times. This can be used to help teach the time in English, which is very different than the Thai method.
  • Long term volunteer's keen to advance their Thai skills may find learning the Thai alphabet a useful tool. By interacting with the homestay families and teaching the Roman alphabet while learning the Thai alphabet both parties will progress with their language skills.
  • Getting to know your homestay family is all part of the overall homestay experience. By introducing further sections to the homestay pack introducing family lexis and hobbies, it will be easier to get to know your hosts and find out what you have in common. Pictures of your family are useful and mimes can be used to show hobbies.
  • There are common errors in pronunciation with Thai speakers. For example confusing the 'l' and 'r' sound and difficulty with the 'v' sound. This is similar with English speakers pronouncing Thai, the 'ng' sound an example. A wealth of materials can be found on the internet identifying these common errors. Practicing pronunciation would help to build confidence in the spoken language.
  • The existing flashcards can be used to illustrate different language points. You can identify countable and uncountable nouns, for example 'some water' and 'two fans'. You can show the difference between 'this' and 'that' and 'these' and 'those'.
  • If cardinal numbers are found to be easy you could introduce ordinal numbers. Using a calendar and asking 'when is your birthday?' can help to show this. It is important to illustrate the difference in use of the numbers, cardinal for amounts and ordinal for the order or rank.