Native Language @ ISB

Ich heiße Michaela, bin aber unter dem Spitznamen Lena bekannt. Ich bin 32 Jahre alt und wurde in Bonn in Deutschland geboren.
Nach meiner Sekundarschulzeit machte ich eine Ausbildung zur Erzieherin und arbeitete in einer kleinen altersgemischen Gruppen einer Elterninitiative sowie in einer heilpädagogischen Einrichtung.
Um die Welt zu erkunden kehrte ich 2007 Deutschland den Rücken und arbeitete für eine Firma im Mittelmeerraum.  Im Januar 2009 reiste ich als Rucksacktourist nach Thailand und verliebte mich in das Land und seine Schönheit. Einige Monate später begann ich einen Job an einer internationalen Schule in Saraburi bis die Swiss School Bangkok mir eine Anstellung als Erzieherin in ihrer Primarstufe anbot und ich so nach Bangkok umzog.
Nun bin ich seit sieben Jahren hier, unterrichte Deutsch als Fremdsprache und Muttersprache für Schüler aller Altersgruppen und unterschiedlichem Sprachniveau und helfe ihnen bei den Hausaufgaben.
In meiner Freizeit verbringe ich gerne Zeit mit meinen beiden Hunden und kümmere mich um Rucksacktouristen, die in meinem Gästezimmer unterkommen. Fotografie ist meine Leidenschaft.
Deshalb reise ich viel und nutze jede Gelegenheit zu fotografieren.

My name is Michaela Thimm, known as Lena. I am 32 years old and was born in Bonn, Germany. After high school I have studied early childhood education and worked as a kindergarten teacher in different pre-schools and private institutions.

With the idea of exploring the world I left Germany in 2007 to work for a company around the Mediterranean Sea. In January 2009 I came to Thailand for leisure and fell in love with the country and its beauty. Soon after that I worked at an International school in Saraburi until Swiss School Bangkok offered me a position in their primary school department and so I moved to Bangkok. Being here since almost seven years, I teach German as a foreign language and mother tongue to students of all age groups and help them with their homework.

During my free time I like to be with my two dogs and host lots of travelers at my home. Travel photographing is my passion. Therefore I am always on a go for new photo opportunities and travel destinations.

Miyuki Jessee

母国語クラスを担当しておりますジェシー美幸と申します。ISBでは、６年間日本語の指導を行っています。ひとえに日本語母国語クラスと言っても、子供達の日本語力や環境、経験は様々です。日本を離れた場所で、日本語を学ぶ環境を持てることは日本語力だけでなく、英語力、情緒の安定、そしてアイデンティーの形成の上でも非常に重要な役割を果たしています。日本語クラスで子供達の意識が変わっていく様子を目にすることができるのは、この活動の大きな励みとなっています。

I’ve been teaching at ISB for six years.  It has been an exciting project for me to work on MT with children with diverse background even though they share the same mother tongue.  The opportunity to work on their MT while they are away from home country is very important and powerful experience for children not only for linguistic development of MT, but emotionally and to facilitate developing English proficiency as well.  It’s been great pleasure to witness very positive experiences among kids through MT classes.

Supporting languages at ISB: the after school mother tongue program 2015-16

As our school year draws to a close it is a good opportunity to both reflect on what has developed in mother tongue support at ISB, as well as look forward to further growth in the future.

Currently we have 21 after school classes covering 8 language groups (Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Swedish). In total we have 97 children participating in the program, the majority of whom are from the elementary school. The teachers we have employed are qualified, have appropriate clearance, and all receive the child protection training offered by the school.

Apart from the classes themselves, we have an ISB mother tongue blog (https://inside.isb.ac.th/mothertongue/) which gives interested parents, teachers and community members the opportunity to explore the world of mother tongue maintenance and development; issues to do with the importance and benefits of bilingualism; brief snapshots of the classes in action; and biographies of the mother tongue teachers.

Other on-going projects commenced in Semester 2 include: a permanent mother tongue bulletin board outside the Elementary School Office where class activities are displayed on a rotating basis; the setting up of an Elementary School mother tongue special interest group; the development of a ‘Welcome to ISB’ video; the development of additional mother tongue classes in Middle School; and plans for the development of bilingual signage.

In a pleasing recent development, ISB is in negotiations with the educational group Danes Worldwide and NIST to formalize the teaching of Danish across a range of Bangkok schools based upon the ISB model. The involvement of the Danish-Thai Chamber of Commerce has been important in this development.

Looking to the future, there will be opportunities to explore how we might integrate mother tongue perspectives into our day-to-day school activities. We will also be looking to expand the number of languages we support, especially with some of the larger language communities.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the parents who have supported the program. Their contributions, in time, enthusiasm and financial support has allowed the program to flourish. Thanks also to Olga Steklova for her contributions – looking forward to more next year.

I would also like to recognize the efforts of our mother tongue teachers in the after school program. Without them we wouldn’t have a program. They have made strong connections with the children; designed interesting and engaging lessons; and showed great commitment, especially so in the case of those who travelled long distances to get here each week.

• Ms Guofang Tang and Ms Jingji Zhang for Chinese;
• Mr Christoffer Granhøj for Danish;
• Ms Jolanda Hofman and Ms Nicole Spanjer for Dutch;
• Mme Laurence Poyer for French;
• Ms Michaela Thimm (Lena) for German;
• Ms Miyuki Jessee for Japanese;
• Ms Mi Ok Choi and Ms Jung Young-Ae for Korean: and
• Ms Agneta de Bekassy for Swedish.

Paul Dufficy, May 2016