brucetefl

It means what we have always promised--the Thongsook BA TESOL is a Bachelors degree--the basic requirement for teaching in Thailand.

We had a choice to make the BA a B.Ed but discovered it would require five years of study.  I made the choice to stick to the BA (which most are finishing in three years) and then add the M Ed.  I believe it is far more marketable and, ultimately, profitable for the teacher.

Does this mean that the Thai MOE will not accept a Thongsook BA in TESOL for work permits? 

Yep

Thanks for the comments.  We are looking at normal Thai Masters degrees now and 36 credits is standard with 12 credits for the research is common from what I have seen although most Thai's in international programs opt for classes instead of the research.  

Thesis would be classroom-based research or something similar.

Yes I do have a masters degree.  We had a capstone project.  Why snarky?  Thailand is different than back home.

Full accredited 100+ year old state university from the US.  

Hey my daughter won and she is NOT in a hi so school! Of course she is luk krung so kind of cheating!

So now that we now know that teachers in Thailand will likely require teachers to obtain a B Ed or M Ed, with no tests available, I have an completely hypothetical question for the group.

What would some of you think of an M Ed.  Thai standard says it should be 36 credits.  Probably 24 credits (8 classes) of face-to-face classes and 12 credits of a major thesis (50+ pages).

Concentration possibilities include TESOL, Educational Leadership and Instructional Technology.  What would you want?

What if you could choose between getting the M Ed from a Thai university or from BOTH a Thai university and a US university?  Would that be interesting?  If you chose to get the dual M Ed from Thailand and the US, it will obviously be much more difficult and much more expensive.  

What pricing would be considered reasonable?

70,000 baht for the M Ed from the Thai university?  I think that is already far cheaper than ABAC and others.

195,000 for the M Ed from the US and Thai university.

Assuming the program is 18 months, we are looking at ROUGHLY either 3,500 per month for the Thai M Ed or 10,000 for the US Thai degree.

This is purely HYPOTHETICAL.  Just wondering what the groups thoughts are.

So apparently... the TCT is out the window?

I would love to hear someone's interpretation on this.

I am completely against English programs for kids like mine. My daughter is not the best student in the world. She's just an average student. But her put her in an English program and she is the top. Of course. She's competing with a bunch of kids who speak minimal English. I'd rather have her learn the subject matter.

There are probably ways to get around that. All of this happened 10 years ago. Man, I am old.

And mine was completely off the record. When we started we were told that it was technically illegal but that no one cared. Things have now changed.

They were different for each kid but basically Pratom 2 or 3 and Pratom 4 or 5. And I needed the owner of the school to allow them to skip--thus the favors I did for her.

You cannot easily do P6 because the M1 wants to see the P6 diploma.

And they took the entire year off. They studied with the Filipina teacher about 12 hours per week, which was really plenty considering it was basically one on one.

each of my children spent two years of their primary education studying at home with a Filipina teacher. They studied the basic curriculum that the other students were studying, but they did it in English. Sometimes I would have two of my children studying together. Sometimes it would just be one. At the time I was paying 15,000 per month, 60,000 per term, 120,000 per year. With two kids together that's still far cheaper than most international schools.

Bruce, was this full-time? ie, they didn't go to any school, they only studied at home with the Filipino teacher Monday-Friday 9-4 (or whatever time)?

From what ages did they do it (What school years did they miss out on, Grade 2 and Grade 3, for example)?

Was it officially listed as Home Schooling with the MoE?

I am interested in Home Schooling for the future, but split half and half between myself and a Filipino teacher.

I never said that TV was their entire education! Just that when they did watch TV it was exclusively in English.

theres more to education than speaking english ,don't see how TV is education ,my experience if under 10 you have a chance with thai children in a western school

Well here is something similar, in as something as innocuous as American College Football.

The former Athletic Director of a university will not vote for his former team in any way.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/11309550/tom-osborne-recused-voting-nebraska-cornhuskers-college-poll

Its ok to be biased.  I have posted here many times saying something like this:

"check out the BA TESOL at Thongsook.  It might be perfect for you, but of course I am biased."

Or something like this:

"I am the head of the NRA and I want to tell you my ideas on gun control."

But how would you feel about this?  Same guy writes an article and says the following:

"I am a gun owner and I have inside information that the government is going to come take away your guns."  And then proceeds on with a lot of obvious speculation and self serving fear mongering.  never mentioning he is the head of the NRA.

This last one OBVIOUSLY crossed the line.  And its pretty similar to that article.

There is nothing wrong with schools being licensed.  And nothing wrong with the laws being enforced.

But would the New York Times post an article about Gun Control written by the head of the NRA?  Posted as fact instead of opinion?

This guy has an agenda and wants to close down his competitors.  If the article is to be posted on a TEFL site it should be by someone who does not have an obvious bias.  Its really unprofessional, in my opinion.

I will say again--if I had EVER try to pull this stunt (and I have always been able to) the Thailand TEFL crowd would have burned me at the stake.

lets take it one step farther.  My wife was the head of the Non-formal Education committee of Rayong and had many connections in Bangkok as well.  What if I had used my connections to try to close down my competitors.  I would love to know if he has tried something similar in Chiang Mai.  In fact, I think I will have to start investigating.

There are 60+ million people who will speak Thai to your kids in Thailand.

At home I spoke English with them exclusively.

All TV, movies and cartoons, English.

And all three of my kids are fluent in English.

if you want to have a part in raising your kids you need ''good''communication'',that will end when they begin to speak and speak only in thai,i see to often foreign fathers with thier kids and all they do is grin at each other and the odd pinch.have your child learn your native language.if you want a deep lasting relationship with your children,communication is paramount,and i dont mean''hiew khow mai'',or ''pai nai''...the local teachers speak poor english""the thai style'' eg ''litin bit'',or ''pompem'' which is thai for problem...public is ok if you tutor them at home,but you must be agrresive about it,and want to have your child succeed,do not,trust the thai school system to teach your child..

The modern education system which we all use was initially created by the Prussians several hundred years ago to train bureaucrats and army officers. At the time it was to create yes men, not creative thinkers. Today it's more like warehousing children so parents have time to do other things.

John Holt, the famous American educator and author who wrote "How Children Fail"...

(read his book HERE) http://www.cep-elqui.org/uploads/6/8/2/3/6823046/how-children-fail-john-holt.pdf

... was asked by the US Department of Education to assist in the reorganization of the US school system. After a few months he resigned. He said the only way to make the education system better would be to completely destroyed and build it up from scratch.

He was a strong advocate of homeschooling.

If you believe that then you have never tried to run an English school in Thailand.

Ya I can see that.  If I was going to scam people I would avoid the obvious choices of drugs and gambling and fraud schemes and start a phony school teaching English.  Big bucks from the kids paying some back packer 20 baht an hour to teach them how to play games on the internet.  

Thongsook College. PM me if you want more information.

Yes my info is outdated.

http://www.hslda.org/hs/international/Thailand/default.asp

Ultimately, if they refuse to get their teachers permission to stay in the kingdom in some fashion, they will lose their teachers.