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The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume III - 2011 67 Suwilai Premsrirat Figure 8: Listening to the stories from the community; Figure 9: Telling picture stories Figure 10: Reading big books; Figure 11: Learning in 4 skills listening (thinking), speaking, reading and writing The Patani Malay-Thai bilingual project is being piloted in 4 primary schools in 4 southernmost provinces of Thailand where kindergarten 1 and 2 are taught first in Patani Malay, while the Thai language is introduced gradually. This approach will continue through primary grade 6. The Southern Border Province Administrative Center plans to expand the project into 27 schools in the academic year 2012. Comparing the test scores of learners (Grade 1 student in mathmatics, sciences, social sciences, Thai, Patani Malay) of the Patani Malay pilot bilingual classes with the scores of learners belonging to control groups, it was found that the students in the pilot classes scored higher (avg. 72.14%) than those belonging to the comparison groups (41.91%). Furthermore, it was also observed that the learners in the pilot classes were happy, talkative, and creative. They loved going 54-75_mac9 5/3/12, 10:42 PM 67