Published on Sep 8, 2004

Concentration and sense of fun are key to progress by students at the Bangkok School for the Blind

‘Involved,” repeated a group of students at the Bangkok School for the Blind.

“Associated,” the students clearly pronounced.

It was amazing to hear these young vision-impaired students perfectly pronouncing every English word after their teacher, even though they had heard those words just once.

“Hearing is the heart of the vision-impaired,” said Jiraporn Aimdilok, principal of the Bangkok School for the Blind. “Even though these kids are blind, their brains are normal and they can learn everything like other able children as long as they can hear.”

“Be concerned with, be involved in, be associated with…” sang the group of Prathom 4 students while dancing cheerfully.

“Especially when you use music integrated with English vocabulary learning, it’ll help the kids to remember things more easily and of course they’ll have a lot of fun because they can express themselves through singing and dancing,” said the 63-year-old Jiraporn.

Learning English and having fun should not be limited to sighted students. Given an equal educational opportunity, blind people can move on to higher paid and more prestigious jobs such as operators, interpreters and translators instead of selling lottery tickets or begging for money.

“Most vision-impaired can learn well because they have a high degree of concentration. Since they can’t see, they don’t get distracted,” said Rungpetch Nilkosol, an English teacher at the school.

However, the education options for vision-impaired students will not improve unless sighted people give them a chance. “You can help blind people in many ways but giving them the chance – the chance of equal education, the chance of hiring them for work and the chance of letting them live their lives – is the most necessary,” said Jiraporn.

In terms of educational opportunity, teaching aids at the school are in short supply, said 42-year-old Rungpetch. The project “Braille can sing” developed by Enconcept E-Academy is an example of how sighted people can help fill the gap.

The academy composed its own songs which incorporate English vocabulary and grammar into the music to help students learn English better and tried out this “memolody” technique with blind students who were enrolled in the academy.

Eventually, many of these children earned seats in university with high English scores. Hence, Enconcept decided to produce 24 copies of CDs with songs from the academy together with lyrics in Braille to be distributed to 11 schools for the blind throughout the Kingdom.

“We want vision-impaired kids to have a good attitude towards the language. Being fluent in the language is not just limited to the sighted. If they don’t give up, they can always develop to reach their full capacity,” said Arisara Tanapakit, head of Edutainers at Enconcept, who led her team to demonstrate the use of the memolody technique.

“The kids here are so open and fun. Although they seemed shy at the beginning, they co-operated a lot and did whatever we asked when they became familiar with us. They laughed, sang, danced and had confidence when pronouncing the English words even more than sighted kids,” she said.

The vision-impaired students at the blind schools study English following the Ministry of Education’s curriculum similar to other Thai schools. They learn English approximately 60 minutes per day, four to five days a week with Thai national teachers.

“In the [traditional] English classes we [usually] don’t do anything much but read Braille and do homework and it’s quite boring,” said Sutivej Suksa, a 15-year-old vision-impaired student at the Bangkok school.

“I really enjoyed the special class of Enconcept today. I danced crazily and it was so joyful. I hope the people outside will visit us at the school and do activities with us more,” said 14-year-old Tanapoom Paktra.

Other activities that sighted people can engage in with the vision-impaired students include tutoring, storytelling, reading, typing, music and singing activities as well as sports such as judo and yoga.

“Some of these children are tense and miserable because they are upset about their sightlessness. When outsiders come to do activities with them, the kids feel happy and refreshed and can learn things that are different from what they learn at school,” said Wanee Chorsawat, the aunt of a Prathom 4 student at the school.

“When the blind kids spend time with people from outside the school, they learn about social manners – how to adapt and adjust with different kinds of people,” said English teacher Rungpetch.

The Bangkok School for Blind spends about Bt8,000,000 a year covering everything from educational materials to food and accommodation. About half of the budget comes from the Ministry of Education and the rest is from tuition and donations. Each student at the school is requested to pay Bt1,000 per four-month term for the boarding school and Bt750 per term for day school.

“I wish there would be more donations to the school. Since the number of students is increasing every year, the school will have more expenses to build more buildings and facilities sufficient for the students,” said Kanchana Mongkolsitthichai, a grandmother of the 15-year-old student.

Rojana Manowalailao

The Nation

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Schools for the blind

1 Education and Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind,

Roi-Et (043) 512989

2 Northern School for the Blind, Chiang Mai (053) 278009

3 Education Service for the Blind, Nakhon Ratchasima (044) 213581

4 Pattaya Redemptorist School for the Blind, Chon Buri (038) 225963

5 Lampang Education School for the Blind, Lampang (054) 316395

6 Khon Kaen Education School for the Blind,

Khon Kaen (043) 239499, (043) 242098

7 School for the Blind and the Blind with Multiple

Handicaps, Lop Buri (036) 425 827-8

8 Home for the Blind with Multiple Disabilities,

Bangkok (02) 510 4895

9 Santijintana Memorial School, Phrae (054) 614235-6

10 The Bangkok School for the Blind, Bangkok (02) 534 8365-8

11 Southward School for the Blind, Surat Thani (077) 211493-4

Note: The number of vision-impaired students registered as handicapped as of October 2003 was 37,693, consisting of 20,032 males and 17,661 females.