This page was started by CBOD 119er John Jerger, based primarily on just his personal classroom experiences. Being thus rather anecdotal in nature, none of the following is particularly sacrosanct; feel free to adjust things to fit your individual situation and add to the page based on your experiences. And as more people add to this page, feel free to delete this paragraph.

Quick-Jump Legend

Why Teach Computers
Ground Rules
Basic Two-Month Initial Lesson Plan
Tips and Tricks

Why Teach Computers

In spite of what Thai counterparts may think, not all of us are cut out to be English teachers. Still, working with the local schools is an excellent way to boost your recognition factor within the community and do some Intentional Relationship Building with people who can help you with camp projects. Even if you don't feel particularly computer savvy, the odds are good that you know more than the average Thai person about how to put basic computer programs to effective use.
Back to top

Ground Rules

Before you start teaching, it’s a good idea to set some basic rules for the class. These serve the dual purpose of adding structure to a potentially chaotic situation AND giving you a little bit of an ‘out’ if things don’t go well. Use this list to solidify your expectations for the class—not just expectations of the students, but of the school as well. Some examples:

• The class will be at X time once a week and last an hour. There’s no need to get especially wrapped up in starting exactly on time; since you’ll almost certainly be teaching at the schools, the computer students will probably be even more eager to start than you. Still, you need to agree with the head of the school as to when the classes should be.
• The school must provide you a co-teacher. Part of this is actually for Peace Corps standards, since your classes are considered more sustainable if a Thai adult will be able to continue them after you’re gone. At the same time, unless you speak Thai phenomenally well, the co-teacher will be helpful in explaining to all the students at once what you want them to do. Students also frequently behave a little better with a Thai kruu there, but don’t be afraid of teaching on your own some weeks if your co-teacher mysteriously disappears to other engagements.
• The computers are not for playing games, and you’re not there to baby-sit. Some students strongly associate computer usage with game-playing and/or internet use, completely unlike in America. The students should know that they are to focus just on the program(s) you’re teaching, and both the students and the school should recognize that you reserve the right to send away any student who doesn’t respect that. This isn’t an English class; it’s more of a privilege for the students than an academic requirement.
• No more than 2 or 3 students per computer. This is to keep the class a hands-on learning environment. Even with just two students per machine, oftentimes only one will do 95% of the “steering.” With more than 3 students, there is no way for all of them to be able to reach the keyboard and mouse.
• As a corollary, you probably don’t want to teach students directly if the school can only muster one or two working computers, since it’s unreasonable to limit class size to 6. Offer to walk any interested teachers through your lesson plans instead.
• Your co-teacher should help you plan lessons and projects. This is an especially good way of getting out of teaching at schools where your co-teacher is unreliable: simply say that you have a limited number of lessons already planned. Even if you have a project you really want to do, there’s no point in forcing it on a co-teacher who isn’t interested.

Back to top

Basic Two-Month Starter Lesson Schedule

Focusing on Word and PowerPoint
Lesson 1: Fonts and Formatting, Copy and Paste
Lesson 2: WordArt
Lesson 3: ClipArt
(Optional Project: Public Awareness Campaign)
Lesson 4: Regular pictures, PowerPoint Introduction
Lesson 5: Drawing in PowerPoint
Lesson 6: PowerPoint Animation and Sounds
Final Project: Student-Centered PowerPoints
Back to top

Tips and Tricks

• Use English programs to teach in Thai. The menus for any given version of a Microsoft Office program are positioned very similarly in the English and Thai versions (follow these links to see menu language comparisons of Word, Excel and PowerPoint). Few volunteers get so proficient at reading Thai as to be quickly able to sort out the Thai menus, but if you memorize the placement (and especially the associated icons) for the items you want to teach, you won’t have to worry about reading Thai. Since it can take a while to learn the menu placements, you might also want to consider bringing your own laptop to class as a reference the first time you tackle a new subject.
• You can add some of the otherwise hidden "toolbar" menus to Microsoft programs by right-clicking in the general menu area at the top of the page to pull up a list of all possible menus. Then select the menu you want. If there’s a already a check box next to the menu you want (thus indicating that it’s active already), look for it in less expected locations, like the bottom of the page. Note: contrary to the first tip, the list of menus seems to be in a different order in the English and Thai versions. Learn how to recognize the Thai word for “picture”—it’s the menu you’re most likely to find lacking on at least one computer per class.
• Check for toolbar buttons. Before discussing all of the buttons associated with a particular toolbar you’re trying to teach (for example, the picture-editing menu), consider doing a quick walk past all of the computers to make sure the toolbars are all showing the same icon buttons. To add (or remove) buttons, click on the small ‘down’ arrow on the far right of the menu you want (hovering over the arrow gives the tooltip “Toolbar Options”). If you’ve never done it before, practice using this in English a couple of times just to be used to how the toolbar options are set up. They look and work the same way for all Microsoft toolbars, so you needn’t worry about reading Thai to deal with this for your students.
• In a similar vein, thoroughly check all of your school’s student computers before teaching the first class. As much as we take the Microsoft Office programs for granted, they are occasionally loaded on computers that are too old to handle such functions as generating WordArt. Look to make sure that your desired programs are loaded on the computers (especially if you want to go beyond Word, PowerPoint and Excel), and check that the functions you’ll be teaching run smoothly.
• Protect your thumb drive. You’ll probably want to use a thumb drive to put files (homework assignments, pictures, example PowerPoint presentations) on to the student computers. Before you do this, make sure you have computer with up-to-date anti-virus software. Ideally, try to get the school computers themselves loaded with anti-virus software. Non-protected computers in Thailand tend to have a virus that instantly infects thumb drives, creating executable (.exe) files with the same names as the main folders on your thumb drive. Taking your thumb drive to another machine will spread the virus through Autorun protocols, and you don’t want to infect your own computer. Fortunately, an up-to-date anti-virus will stop the problem as soon as your thumb drive is inserted into a properly inoculated machine.
• Try to make lesson plans with your co-teacher AFTER each week’s class. John once tried arranging for lesson planning time before class, and found that class time actually started whenever he showed up at the school—there was no such thing as “before class.”
• If you’re having problems accessing your files due to the aforementioned virus, try typing your folder name at the end of the Windows Explorer address bar. No matter what the virus may do to hide your folder, it still exists, and you can open it by typing in its full address (something that looks like D:\FolderA\Folder2\ComputerClass).
• Learn the common keyboard shortcuts for programs, regardless of whether or not you intend to teach them. The keyboard is usually easier to reach than the mouse, and your students will be impressed at how quickly you can fix their problems. If there’s time, though, teach the students what you’re doing; convincing them of your magical computer abilities may make for an ego boost, but will only make them more reliant on you in the future.
• Don’t be afraid to teach just one computer at a time…as long as all of the students have something to do. For one thing, it’s easier to explain things when pointing at the screen and telling students where to click. But also, the Thai learning style is highly collaborative, and so a trick taught to a few students can spread throughout the class independently of you.
• Make your in-class assignments multi-staged. Assign the first stage of the work to everyone at once, and then assign the secondary [busy work] stage(s) to students as they finish the initial assignment. This way, you avoid having your best students sit around bored when they finish early.
• When giving in-class assignments, make things a race with small prizes (e.g. a cheap piece of candy) for the fastest students. Using candy is arguably unsustainable, since your co-teacher won’t likely do that when you’re gone. So what? The nature of the computer classes will change in your absence anyway, and five baht per week for a pack of Sugus is a cheap way of reinforcing that your classes are a privilege, not just another academic requirement.
• Finally, HAVE FUN. This is Thailand, and you’re working with children. Acting serious will only interfere with your efforts to teach.

Back to top