Kritawit is a senior student at Silapakorn University, majoring in architecture. He is preparing for his thesis project, a privately-run concert hall. During his university career, he has visited almost every major architectural site in the country. If everything goes according to plan, he will graduate in April next year.

After graduation he hopes to settle down in his hometown in a southern province. Ultimately, he would like to own a construction supplies store or perhaps open a country-style restaurant — maybe at the same time if he is successful.

He loves country life as much as city life and his interests vary from playing the guitar to trekking as well as cooking his own spicy native dishes. In his spare time he likes to watch sports and nature programmes. He's a pretty good basketball player himself and he is learning how to play tennis. And no matter how busy he is with his studies, he always must find some time on weekends for his love of movies.

Alfred is 34 years old. He has been in Bangkok for about six months now working for a foreign investment group which looks for properties to buy in the Bangkok area. He now lives in a fully-serviced apartment in the Sukhumvit area, but he is thinking seriously about buying a condominium.

Alfred is interested in business, but he has many other interests. He enjoys eating at nice restaurants and he also likes to visit interesting entertainment spots around the capital, especially those where sports events are shown on television. Coming from England, he particularly likes football, rugby and cricket.

One thing he has not done much of in Thailand is to travel upcountry. He wants to begin doing this on weekends and is looking for good ideas on where to go. He also thinks it is about the right time to begin learning some Thai, but he's not sure how to start.

Sylvia is a 14-year-old high school student who has lived in Thailand for almost six years. She attends an international school in the Bangkok area. She is taking a wide range of courses, but she tends to do best in non-science courses like foreign languages and art. She likes film-making and she has become quite good with her video camera. She has written, directed and filmed several short stories using her friends and family as actors.

She has almost no interest in general news, except when it involves movie stars or popular singers. Sometimes an unusual news story will catch her attention too, but she avoids politics and other "hard news". She is getting more interested in stories involving American society because she will almost certainly attend university there when she finishes high school.

She speaks reasonably good Thai and she can cook quite a number of Thai dishes as well. She is always on the lookout for interesting Thai recipes. Her favourite foods are European, however, particularly Italian and French. As for clothes, she likes to be up-to-date — for a teenager, that is. She is not much interested in high society fashion.

Krissana, a 48-year-old department manager, has been working for a private company for 5 years. Prior to that she taught English for nearly twenty years. She says she's tired of her job, however, and wants to find something fresh and exciting to do. She might even try to go into business for herself if she can't find a job that attracts her.

In her free time, she likes to sew and is especially interested in exploring new techniques. That is why she is a member of the Elna Sewing Club. To keep fit, she plays tennis two or three times a week. She loves Thai food, especially, nam prik. She says it forces her to eat more vegetables. She also loves noodles and fish dishes. Sometimes she enjoys Chinese food at a nice restaurant.

Krissana is very interested in Thai politics and is following the election campaign for Bangkok governor very closely. She is also rather religious, so every religious holiday she visits Buddhist temples. She likes to travel too. Her favourite tourist sites are historical places. She also hopes to visit Sydney once again to recall her years as an Australian-government-sponsored student.

Acharn Phatcharaporn Nontakanun

For this lesson, we worked very closely with Archarn Phatcharaporn Nontakanun and the rest of the English language staff at Saint Joseph Bangna School. Below Archarn Phatcharaporn explains how this came about and what she did to prepare her class for the lesson.

I always thought of the Bangkok Post as an important resource for teaching English because it is an example of authentic reading material. I had no idea how to adapt it for my class, however. One day I discussed this with a colleague and she proposed that we contact the Bangkok Post and request a demonstration.

This we did and we received a positive response from the Bangkok Post’s educational services department. We were also given very thorough instructions on how to prepare for the visit which was scheduled for June 5th.

First we chose the English class which would participate in the lesson. The class was then divided into seven groups and I explained the objectives behind the activities they would be doing. I also explained how they should carry out the assignments that had been outlined for them by the educational services department.

This is a set of the tasks completed by one group of students.

Starting about ten days before the lesson, the Bangkok Post delivered five copies of the newspaper each day for one week. The newspapers were distributed to the class and each group was responsible for one day’s newspaper. They were assigned to find out what was in each day’s newspaper and to clip out various articles, photos with captions and cartoons. They were given detailed instructions and examples to make this easier. Altogether, the activities were completed in three days – all outside class hours.

Saint Joseph Bangna teachers try out an activity before the students arrive.

On the day of the demonstration, the three members of the educational services staff first met with the teachers to explain the objectives of the lesson. The students then came in and for the next hour and a half they completed the activities featured on this page. This was followed by an afternoon session for the teachers which reviewed the lesson and gave other suggestions for the using the Bangkok Post in the classroom.

My colleagues and I felt that we gained a lot of useful ideas from the day and my students said they learned many interesting things from the experience.

The pre-demonstration activities described above were designed to give the class an overall familiarity with the contents of the Bangkok Post over a typical week. The in-class activities were designed to build on this experience and allow the students to apply what they had learned to novel situations. This application step is often missing from language lesson, but it is a key step in solidifying what has been previously studied.

We also stressed that the activities were designed as much to teach "life skills" as they were to teach language skills. The students learned what type of content they could expect to find in an English language newspaper and specifically where to look to find it in the Bangkok Post. They also learned the hard way that groups work most efficiently when they divide the work among themselves. With activity one, most groups had each member try to answer all the question — a very slow process.

Next week: another introductory lesson in which we look at the Bangkok Post's weekend leisure section real.time.