Part II.pdf - MTB-MLE Network

At the initial planning stage, the participants, comprising NFE administrators, practitioners, adult
educators, linguists and local teachers, shared their experiences reflecting the importance of studying
the needs of the target group and mobilizing the community for participation in the programme.
Some recommendations were:
• Upon joining a literacy class, the ethnic minorities want to focus on oral Thai in order
to communicate with other people.
• Normally, in running literacy class, we set goals of what we want to achieve. However,
we should remember that we should not force people to learn what we want to teach,
but to learn what they want to learn. If they want to start with talking, let them and
encourage them to progress to reading and writing. It’s more important for CLC teachers
to develop relationships with the people and to learn their needs and how help them
achieve their goals.
• The ethnic minorities in remote areas probably will not be interested in literacy. They
are not accustomed to attending literacy classes. A reward, for example, giving them
pigs or chickens to raise or to allow them to watch a television programme at the CLC
after the class, might motivate community members to attend the class. Some learners
want to learn the language of their ancestors in order to read and understand the writings
of the herbalists. The teachers need to know the objectives of the learners.
• Learning is a social process. The target group wants to learn in group. It is the task of
the facilitators to investigate the prior knowledge of the learners and identify the new
things that they want to learn. In working with minorities, the teachers should start
with the learners’ experiences or with their strong points.
• The Karen teacher reflected that it is good to develop the material with both the Karen
and Thai languages so that the Karen will be proud of their language.
• In developing a writing system for minority people, it is important to know what kind
of script they want. If they do not want a particular script or they do not like a particular
script, other choices should be made.
It takes time to study the needs of ethnic minority peoples or to mobilize a community for mother
tongue education. People need to work closely with community members and build trust relationships.
Fortunately, in our project site we have both CLC teachers and Karen teachers staying in the village
who know the local people and can introduce us to the community.
Developing writing systems (orthography development)
This is a very important stage of the project. Linguists in association and cooperation with Pwo
Karens worked together. There were 3 activities:
Activity 1: Workshop on the Examination and Analysis of the Pwo Karen sound system.
(10-14 March 2003, Payap University, Chiang Mai)
The findings of previous research on Pwo Karen in Srisawat District, Kanchanaburi and Hot District,
Chiang Mai, were used as the basis for collecting words to illustrate the Omkoi Pwo Karen sound
system. About 360 words were collected to illustrate the consonants, vowels and tones of Omkoi
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