Every education district in the country holds a free English Story Telling competition. A child stands up, alone, and tells a story in English for five minutes. Tens of thousands enter. The winners get a certificate and a medal, and that is all there has ever been.
Thai teachers have organized and judged it, unpaid, for seventy-four editions. We pay the prize money. That is all we do — that, and putting back the national final that has not been held since 2565.
สำหรับผู้ปกครอง · FOR PARENTS
โรงเรียนเป็นผู้ส่งลูกของคุณเข้าแข่งขันเล่านิทานภาษาอังกฤษ (Story Telling) ที่เขตพื้นที่การศึกษา — ฟรี ไม่มีค่าสมัคร · เด็กที่ได้เหรียญทองส่งคลิปมาให้เรา (ฟรี หมดเขต 31 มีนาคม 2570) · 10 คนที่ดีที่สุด มาแข่งสดที่ขอนแก่น เมษายน 2570 — เราจ่ายค่าเดินทาง ที่พัก และเงินรางวัล วิธีบอกคุณครู →
The first stage is not ours and never will be. It belongs to the Thai school system, it is free, and it is already excellent. We are not building a competing competition — we are adding the two things the existing one has never had: money, and somewhere for a district winner to go next.
August 2026 to March 2027. Run by your สำนักงานเขตพื้นที่การศึกษา as part of งานศิลปหัตถกรรมนักเรียน, free, on a school day, usually in a district hall, judged by Thai teachers. Your school enters you; there is no form a parent can fill in. Four age bands, five minutes on stage, no notes and no props.
Any child who took a gold medal in Story Telling at their district may send us a video of the same story. One take, no editing, sent over LINE. No travel, no fee, no school permission needed beyond a teacher's name. This stage exists so that getting to Khon Kaen never depends on what a family can afford.
Ten finalists on one stage, in the school holiday so that nobody misses a lesson. For April 2027 we are funding ten finalists, each with one family member and their coaching teacher — return travel, two nights' hotel and meals. The teacher gets a cash prize of their own, because a child who can tell a story in English in front of three hundred people did not get there alone.
There is no single national calendar anymore. Each of the 78 education districts in Isan announces its own dates, on its own website, usually four to six weeks ahead. We check them and publish what we find. If your district is not here, it has almost certainly not announced yet — not that it is not running.
We list only dates we have read on an official district announcement ourselves, with the date we checked. All of them, and how to find yours →
On November 18, 2010, at Ban Han Hee School in Rattanaburi district, Surin, a girl called Ploypailin Moonsri took the gold medal in Story Telling at งานศิลปหัตถกรรมนักเรียน. She is now a Thai teacher in the village schools around Rattanaburi, and she is the reason there is prize money.
She got a certificate. There was no prize money, there was nowhere to go next, and there is still nowhere to go next — no regional or national round has been held since ครั้งที่ 70 in 2565 — OBEC has written to schools each year since telling them the competition ends at the district. Every district champion in Isan since then has been the champion of nothing further.
That is the gap. It does not need a new competition built on top of it. It needs somebody to show up at the end of the existing one with a bus ticket, a hotel room and an envelope.
We went looking for evidence that competitions make children better at speaking English, as distinct from making them more enthusiastic about it. We did not find any — not for it, not against it. So we are not going to tell you that winning a storytelling prize improves a child's English, because nobody has shown that.
What the evidence does support is much more boring: ten weeks of short, specific, teacher-led practice on the handful of English sounds Thai speakers actually find hard. That is the work. This competition is the reason the work is worth doing — the ceremony at the end of the term, not the method.
So we built the method too, and gave it away free: Ploy Hears, a ten-week pronunciation clinic a teacher can run from one phone on a classroom screen. No login, no account, nothing stored, no charge, ever.
If we ever publish a claim on this site that we cannot show you the source for, write to hello@usaenglish.com and we will either source it or delete it.
Written for a Thai classroom, in English and Thai, from choosing a story to standing still on stage. Free, no sign-up, print them or use them on a screen. There is a judges' score sheet too, the same one we will use in Khon Kaen.
เว็บขององค์กรไม่แสวงหากำไร USAEnglish · A USAEnglish non-profit site — Rattanaburi, Surin.
ploy.com เรื่องของพลอย · her story usaenglish.com การแข่งขัน · the championship englishteacher.com แอปของเด็ก · the child's app eslteacher.com ใบงานของครู · the teacher's worksheets usaenglishteacher.com ครูอเมริกันที่ตรวจสอบแล้ว · verified American teachers tesolteacher.com หลักสูตร · the course
ใช้ฟรีทุกเว็บ ไม่ขายข้อมูล ถ้าเราแนะนำเว็บของเราเอง เราจะบอกทุกครั้ง — All free. We do not sell your data. When we point you to our own site, we say so.
USAEnglish เป็นองค์กรไม่แสวงหากำไร — องค์กรไม่แสวงหากำไรในประเทศไทย ถือหุ้น 49% โดยองค์กรการกุศล 501(c)(3) ของสหรัฐฯ · พลอยและเบนไม่รับเงินเดือน รับเฉพาะค่าใช้จ่ายจริง · หมายเลขทะเบียนจะเผยแพร่ที่นี่เดือนหน้า เพื่อให้ทุกคนตรวจสอบได้
USAEnglish is run as a non-profit — a Thai non-profit organization, 49% owned by a US 501(c)(3). Ploy and Ben take no salary, only their expenses. Registration numbers will be published here next month, for anyone to check.