The parents’ corner
Using the Bangkok Post with your children
The Bangkok Post is a wonderful
source of learning material for your children. It will help them
learn English, but it will also improve their knowledge of the world
around them.
At first glance, the Bangkok Post may appear difficult, but as you
begin to discover how to use it, you will find that is not a big
problem. First of all, there are several hundreds stories every
day, many of them quite short, so you can always find something
suitable.
Secondly, as a newspaper produced in Thailand, the Bangkok Post
covers much of the same news you find in Thai-language newspapers
and that you see on television.
Find an interesting story that is making news in the Thai media
and look to see if it is covered in the Bangkok Post. There is a
good chance that it will be. Then talk about the story with your
child in Thai. What is the story about? What happened? Why is the
story interesting? Then, with your child, look at the story in the
Bangkok Post. Notice the words and phrases it uses to describe the
story in English.
Photos, too, are great conversation starters and they are also good
for learning vocabulary. That is because they are accompanied by
short texts (captions) to explain them.
Thirdly, the Bangkok Post produces a newspaper every day, but the
way it does so stays the same day after day. For example, news is
always written in the same style that makes it is very easy to learn
and understand. The content is much the same as well. Almost every
day, for example, there is an election somewhere in the world and
it usually finds its way into the newspaper.
Finally, there is a lot of fun stuff in the newspaper. The comics
are the most obvious example, but for older children there are horoscopes,
movie reviews and advice columns. Boys will also be interested in
the sports news and girls might be more attracted to fashion and
cooking columns, for example.
As your child becomes more proficient in reading the Bangkok Post,
let them take the take the initiative. You might casually ask them
what they have been reading and express and interest in their answers.
Ask them if they have learned any interesting new English words.
That way you can improve your English as well.
University entrance examinations
Getting their child into
a good university is an obvious concern for many parents. One stumbling
block is often the university entrance examination, be it the national
examination or the examinations produced by individual universities.
English is always an important section of the examination and here
the Bangkok Post can be a great help. In fact, if your children
can read the Bangkok Post comfortably, they are almost guaranteed
a high score in English language.
Here it is important for you child to start early and to spend 10-15
minutes a day with the newspaper for four or more days a week. We
urge schools to start them by Mattayom 4 and that would be a good
age for you to start them as well. Check to see if your child’s
school is in the Bangkok Post network.
Our introductory course is ideal for this. Many schools are using
this and we will eventually mak it available online for subscribers
as well. This website also has lessons at least five times a week
and encourage your children to take advantage of them. Better yet,
why not do the lessons together with them?
The Bangkok Post with young children
You might be surprised,
but elementary schools in many western countries use the English
language newspaper with their children. It is used to help them
learn the alphabet, develop their phonic skills and to find interesting
topics to explore. Obviously photos are great for this. Right here
in Bangkok, there are international schools that encourage children
as early as the second grade to clip interesting items from the
newspaper and to bring them to class for discussion.
Each Tuesday, the back page of the learning post has a special column
for young children. It is called kidscoop and it is one of the most
popular columns in the newspaper for parents to use with their children.
