Engaging
Teachers and Students in Conversational English
During previous Firefly Mission’s expedition to the
schools in Mae Hong Son, the members realised that both
the children and teachers were not able to communicate
confidently in English due to its lack of opportunity to
use the language. Thus Firefly Mission has identified
that the Conversational English project is valuable to
the children and teachers.
In Project Gaa-roo-na, we will find creative and fun ways (e.g. through games and story telling) to encourage the children to converse in English. We will involve the local teachers too as over the long run, they are the ones who will spend more time with the children and has a stronger impact on their education. Thus, by passing on the games and songs to the teachers, they can continue to use it as a tool increase their confidence in conversing in English.
Upgrading of Community
Library
Upgrading of the community library is a further step at
helping to support the education in Mae Hong Son. We
hope to donate both English and Myanmar books to the
library. The books to be donated will include both books
for children and for general knowledge. We hope that
through such efforts we will be able to foster learning
and to promote interested to read and speak English even
after we leave.
Sharing of Proper
Dental Hygiene Practices
Tooth-brushes and tooth-paste will be distributed to the
children and we will share with them dental hygiene
practices. Proper dental hygiene, when taught properly
at a young age, could help prevent many dental related
problems later on in life.
Cultural Exchange
The objective of the cultural Exchange is for the
participants to get a greater awareness of the cultural
similarity and differences between Singapore and
Thailand. Songs and dances will be performed on the last
day of our stay at Mae Hong Son to highlight the rich
culture that exist in both countries.
On top of that, we will be doing cultural documentation of the villagers. This is done through interviews with the villagers. Audio, photographs and video records may also be taken to supplement our documentation. The objective of the cultural documentation is to create a heighten sense of social awareness among the participants. A possible additional benefit would be that we may be able to identify additional needs the villagers and children may have that we can help in future mission.