During December 2005, I volenteer as an english speaking teacher in a school in Thailand. I explained to the organisation in Nong Khai how i used animation in the classroom and how useful it had proved to be in schools, I had been working with for the last 10 years. Having acepted my offer I arrived in Nong Khai and found plastercine easy to find.

On my first day at the school, Ratchaprachanukruae 14, I was introduced during school assembly to around 1000 pupils. I was then taken to the room I would use for the next 3 weeks and found the pupils had errected a large banner with my name, they were preparing for a visit from a representive of the king.

The first class was quite difficult, finding few of the pupils could speak english and the teachers translating for me had difficulty understanding my accent. The pupils politly and respectfuly watched me demonsrate how to make a model from plastercine and after about 30 minutes I pointed at the model and asked them to now commence making their own models, initialy they were quite hesitant and seemed a little bit shy about the idea, in a way the language problem was a benifit as I had to put more effort into the demonstration but i found that many of the children were quite adept at using the plastercine and with some guidence from me they created some beautiful models.

I worked with 20 pupils for 2 days, the normal class size is around 40, covering all age ranges in the school. As word went around the school and so many of the pupils passing the room the request to join, my class grew, I would guess i worked with around 200 pupils and could have stayed many more weeks if the pupils had their way.

the pupils there had a deep respect for there teachers and from my view seemedwell diciplined, if a little bit loud and active. I also would like to thank all the teachers for looking after me, it had been a very hard few weeks but very rewarding.

Gary Rosborough