English Mate program draws interest

The hi-tech application for high school students, supported by the National Innovation Agency, was part of the “Smart classroom”, which can be used effectively for independent study. Students could learn English through Hollywood movies as the vocabulary, phrases and idioms used in dialogues were explained on the screen. They could also take the end-of-lesson tests for language proficiency, which could be checked automatically by the program. Those interested can download the program from english-mate.com, although users have to later pay an annual fee of Bt175 per person. 

The program was presented and drew great interest from participants at the Education Ministry’s exhibition at Centara Grand at CentralWorld Hotel from October 30-31. The exhibition, which was divided into zones such as the Language Zone (including Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian and English), Critical Thinking Zone, Educational Innovation Zone and Language for Career Zone, also featured activities likes an English speech contest and a demonstration by the Non-Formal Education Office on how to teach Chinese to the elderly. 

One of the interesting booths was Patai Udom Suksa School’s 

exhibition on innovative ways to develop children’s intelligence. It got the teachers to apply analytical thinking to handmade materials such as “numeric puzzles”.

Pimchit Mataw, a Thai language teacher at Nawaminthrachinuthit Satriwitthaya 2 School, said the exhibition provided many good 

solutions for teaching children with reading and writing problems, such as the technique of introducing a lesson in the format of a game to get the students engaged in class.

Another Thai language teacher from Ampawan Sueksa School in Bangkok’s Dusit district, Somchit Sumpalee, said the exhibition’s impressive lesson was about children’s potential in analytical thinking and how to develop that further. Emphasising that such a skill was key, she said that from her experience, she noticed that students hadn’t developed such skills as much as they should, so the various teaching materials at the event could come in handy in conducting classroom lessons. 

Kritiyanee Chatpipatanapal, a fifth-grader at Suksanari Wittaya School, said she was impressed by the exhibition’s various eye-opening activities. In particular, the use of 50 tubes, duct tape and strings to build a bridge for ping-pong balls to cross was a fun and challenging lesson that required thinking skills and careful planning.

Anatchai Sa-ngamon, a fifth-grader at La Salle School, said this exhibition could motivate people to pay attention to foreign languages especially English, which was one of world’s most common languages, so those with English proficiency would have a better chance in life career-wise and would be able to communicate with people from around the world more effectively.