Joe and CT, both 21 from England

Teaching English with the marvelous project that is Learn2Give is a truly life changing experience. After a technical difficulty involving a “Lost in Translation” detour to Udon Thani, a duo fresh from university were finally ready to - in light of a better phrase – get stuck in. The initial skepticism and fear faded quickly and any haze of doubt rapidly lifted by the gigantic and infectious smile of the sensitive and often comical character that is Gai. A sure fire guide to the sights and history of the city; within a few hours your eyes will be gorged with the ancient beauty of the city, your legs satisfyingly tired from being active and your stomach will be satiated with the rural and rustic culinary delights of Ubon.

We spent a few nights getting to know the city, before we met P. Pim who was to be our beloved host over the next few weeks, whose pupils we would be teaching. We got a rather bumpy three hour bus ride to Ban Pho Sai. Life in north-eastern Thailand is not the same as the hustle and bustle of Bangkok. People here love what they do and take their time doing and enjoying it. Rural eastern Thailand is verdant rice fields, enormous golden Buddhas and early morning wake-ups. While the lack of amenities may not be to everyone’s taste, to us this became our own little oasis. Through P. Pim we got to know her huge, wonderful family, her neighbours and friends. While few people outside of P. Pim and her immediate family spoke a word of English, we did not struggle too much. It’s amazing what a little bit of a language and a lot of body language can communicate.

We started work at Sarapi primary school and immediately fell in love. The kids, while their English was quite basic, were so enthusiastic and eager to learn that any game or song we introduced, no matter how ridiculous, was greeted with approval and unanimous participation. We had some advice from a friend who recommended bringing stamps to give to students; with the person with the most, receiving a prize. This was a truly brilliant idea and worked unbelievably well. After lessons we were invariably followed by groups of students desperate to practice their English in exchange for a stamp. Stamps helped make even the most mundane tasks fun and competitive.

We taught an average of four hours a day, and played an hour or so of sport with the kids after school. In exchange P. Pim would cook a feast for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The best food we have had in Thailand by a long way. Her determination to better her school and her community is incredible. We taught at Sarapi most days, but occasionally we would travel to a local school and teach there for one day. In total we taught at five different schools.

Though we had no previous teaching experience we soon acquired quite a comprehensive repertoire of different songs, games and approaches to teaching, so little preparation was required. P. Pim made sure that our first days in Sarapi had a plan, and she had created many flash cards, games and songs for us to play with the kids. For us, teaching in the short period of time we had was much more about inspiring the children to further their English learning, rather than sitting them down and teaching them the finer grammatical points which would have bored them and turned them off English. With this 'philosophy' in mind, both us and the students had lots of fun through countless games and songs.


At the weekends we returned to Ubon to participate in the English Crazy Camps, which bring together some 170 or so pupils and teach them fun English songs and games and hope to inspire them to continue learning English. It is run purely by volunteers from Ubon’s universities, and is a truly brilliant idea for getting kids into English. We were honoured to partake in this, assisting as best we could in pronunciation, and just generally helping out. We joined the camp twice and met so many incredible people; it was a great experience and helped give us more teaching techniques for when we returned to Sarapi.


The weekends gave us a chance to go out. With Aidan leading the way we had some really great nights out. P. Pim took us out for a particularly messy night with some of the teachers from her old school. Mót Geuw!!!

People here have an inspiring amount of energy and determination to help inspire rural children from poor schools to want to learn English. The respect you gain from the community is only outweighed by the sense of accomplishment and awe you feel when a child tells you “how many brothers or sisters they have”. Our only regret is that we won’t be able to stay for longer, although a change of plans is never out of the question; our two week stint soon became three. People do and have fallen in love with the lifestyle. The work is wonderful, the life is relaxed, the people are amazing…there aren’t enough superlatives to describe how awesome just a short three weeks teaching at a primary school in Sarapi is. A big part of our hearts will be left in Ubon - a small portion to every child taught and another to every friend made along the way.


We would recommend this project to anyone who is open minded and isn't expecting air conditioning etc. There are so many people we have to thank, Aom, Pang, Gai, Kratai, Aidan, everyone from English Crazy Camp, all the students at the schools we taught at, but particularly Sarapi and Netting, without whom none of this would have been possible. Most importantly we would like to thank P. Pim and her entire family who were such wonderful hosts and really made us feel at home.

Thank you all so much.