August 23, 2005

Dear Friends,

It has been so long since we’ve been free to sit down and write a newsletter that it’s hard to know where to begin. So much has been happening with our ministry that affirms and challenges us, reminding us of God’s great purpose, His great love, and that there is so much to be done in His Name.

After spending three years visiting the 25 church schools supervised by our ecumenical partner, the Church of Christ in Thailand, we put together a report for the church. The CCT’s Education Ministry, following our recommendations, set up a task force of English teachers and administrators to help us find solutions to the problems currently facing the English programs of many schools. Out of our work, three solutions were found. The first was to set up an English resource center to provide free teaching materials and other resources to schools. The second was to set up a training center for English teachers to provide teachers with more intensive training. The third was to set up a continuing program of school visits to help assess local needs and guide schools in improving themselves.

This October, we will have the first session of classes at the training center. Khanita and I have put together two classes out of what we learned from the English teachers. One class will use simulations, demonstrations, and discussions to help teachers improve their skills in planning and preparing lessons, using teaching materials, managing the classroom, teaching communication (not memorization), and encouraging students to participate in the lessons. The second class will help teachers improve their English pronunciation and grammar usage and will use classroom discussions and individual presentations to improve their skills and confidence in speaking. The training center will offer these classes twice a year during school breaks, and in the future we hope to arrange for regional meetings to give training classes for those who can’t come to the center.

Being able to apply more communicative teaching techniques and having a greater variety of resources from which they can expand their curriculum, we have found teachers in our most recent visits to be more creative and students much more interested and understanding of how English will positively impact their future.

While all of this has been affirming of our ministry and what we have learned about teachers’ needs, the challenges facing the Thai education system reveal that our work is cut out for us. The government recently came out with a report that discovered 60 percent of public and private schools have failed in adapting to the changes required by the Education Reform Act of 1997. Teaching in all subjects is below standard, many of the best teachers have quit due to low salaries or low morale, and many schools have stopped trying to meet the new standards due to a lack of necessary resources and training opportunities. Parents and even students are complaining about the growing mess.

Challenged as we are already, we have begun to preach to the CCT’s Education Ministry and to schools that the English programs can serve as models for other subject areas. Changes in leadership that will take place in the Education Ministry next year, along with the start of an open dialogue on how the ministry needs to change in order to better respond to school needs will, we hope and pray, start a process that will help students receive the kind of education they’re entitled to.

We ask that you keep this in your prayers for the children of Thailand so that they may know God’s love through an education that prepares them for life, makes them good and caring people, and ministers to them the Word of love and peace.

Our prayers for you,

Scott and Khanita Satterfield

The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 121