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Libraries in Bangkok - yes we do have them!

Posted by Brian on April 1, 2009 at 6:08pm

About three months ago I started a small campaign to increase the profile of libraries in Bangkok, mostly via the website http://bangkoklibrary.com. As a teacher of English as a foreign language, I was keen to find out as much as possible about libraries in Bangkok, to develop good reading habits in my students and to find resources for expats and people like me living in Thailand. There are some really great libraries here - many of which are packed full of kids and university students. If anyone reading this post is based in Thailand, or would like to help me with the website, I would be very glad to hear from you. Also, I would love to visit some other schools to see what they have to offer in the way of library resources.

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Comments

Brian April 19, 2009 at 4:48pm

Hello Kim,

Thanks for your message. Although I've never been there, I'd imagine that working in West Africa is a very different experience to working here in Thailand. Thai students like to work in groups - or rather, they get one person to do the work and everyone else copies. Corruption is rampant (maybe the same where you work) and no students are allowed to fail exams, otherwise there'd be a "loss of face" for the students and their parents. The school never plans anything in advance; we often don't know when term will start or end until the week before! On the other hand, the kids I work with are very nice and I often return home with a smile on my face.

I like your idea about getting the students to record their voices. I did a similar thing a few years back (the files were saved to a local server, not the Internet) and it was very popular with the students. They put a *lot* of effort into speaking clearly as they knew their friends would listen.

Brian
Kim Piot April 19, 2009 at 9:35am

Hi Brian, I'd love to hear more about your experiences. I am working with libraries in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa.
I'm working at an American curriculum K-12 school, and voluteering my services to a couple of orphanages, to help them build libraries and computer centers...Let's swap stories!

Kim