About Snea Thinsan
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Snea believes he is just
a work in progress, trying to reposition himself in the worlds around him.
This site is a record of his recent learning as well as a sharing stage of
his thoughts to the world.
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Born and raised in Northern Thailand as
the fourth child to Mr. Prasit and Mrs. Kaew Thinsan, Snea spent his
childhood as a country boy raising buffaloes and helping with his family's
agricultural work. His grandparents, who had raised the family from extreme
poverty to somewhat a more secure economic status, wanted him to help with
the farming tasks as he was the oldest son of the family of nine children.
His love for schooling, however, took him away from home as far as
Australia, England, and the U.S.
Academically, Snea was trained as an English teacher at Chiang Mai
University. After his graduation, he started teaching English to
Indo-Chinese refugees at the Phanat Nikhom Refugee Processing Center with
the Consortium, a U.S. State Department-sponsored organization run under the
incorporation of World Education, Save the Children, and The Experiment in
International Living. After five years as an ESL teacher and teacher
trainer, in 1992, he went to Sydney University on the AIDAB's (Australian
International Development Assistance Bureau) EMSS (Equity & Merit
Scholarship Scheme) for his Master of Education in TESOL (Teaching English
to Speakers of Second or Other Languages). Returning to Thailand in 1994, he
accepted a job as a lecturer at the English Department, Chiang Mai
University. In 2000, he was granted the Chiang Mai University Scholarship to
support his PhD work in TEFL and CALL at Warwick University, where he also
served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant. In 2001, he left England to pursue
his PhD work under the sponsorship of the Fulbright Program at Indiana
University Bloomington, where he has served as an Associate Instructor since
2002. He is currently working full time as Distance Education Coordinator
for the Center for Social Studies and International Education, School of
Education, Indiana University. In 2006, he also served as an interim
English Language Program Manager for the Afghanistan Higher Education
Project under sponsorship of USAID. Having pulled the threads together
for the program, Snea returned to serve at IU, assisting the Afghan faculty
members selected for their graduate studies at IU's School of Education and
teaching a few graduate courses.
His research interests have shifted greatly over the years. Having seen the
repeated themes in the discussions among researchers and practitioners in
language teaching and applied linguistics, Snea expanded his interest into
CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) in search for something more
creative and meaningful in his career. A year in England then helped him see
also that there is not so much in CALL that would feed his spiritual quest,
although he still keeps his keen eyes on things within the CALL community.
His recent research interests are largely influenced by his academic and
non-academic experiences in the U.S. Snea is now deeply in action with
distance education, critical thinking, critical literacy, and critical pedagogy, which he
believes can be used to promote Education for Peace, his ultimate path. He
also seeks to see places for universal spirituality in education-- perhaps
under the umbrella of universal human rights and global peace seeking.
In a recent reflection (November, 2005), Snea wrote:
I have too much faith in education to
just allow myself to be in a restrictive position merely as language teacher/
researcher, not being able to influence anything much beyond my
classrooms/office. In addition, looking through the educational cracks,
particularly in developing countries, I am disappointed with the ways
education is taken for granted, the ways social and political practices have
misguided human progress, the ways educators see education as
fragmented ("specialized") areas/fields, and the ways solemn farce
in education is generally glorified through grant seeking business, self-promoting publications,
and superficially organized conferences. Of course, the positive
contributions outweigh these negativities, but I wish for a better
education across the globe. I truly want to help all
teachers, supporting staff, and educational administrators see their
ultimate roles as “educators” in a new light with pride, faith and a
more ambitious determination to help benefit the humankind as a global
community.
> Snea at IU:
Goodwill Ambassador |
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> Tasks completed in
2003-2005 academic years
Disclaimer:
I put virtually everything I've
written on this site, and there's a lot also about which I
have realized, but not shared here. Also, the stuffs
you see only reflect my progress at a certain point in time
and were often created under time constraints. Please access
the information on this site at your own risk! ;-)
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"I was an adventurous boy roaming the rice fields in
Northern Thailand;
I hope I won't
become a tamed academic after these PhD years in the
U.S."
-- Snea Thinsan |
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Last updated on
07/30/2008 by Snea Thinsan
Copyright 2004-5 Snea Thinsan.
All rights reserved. |
