inutil

It's been several years since i last saw this topic crop up. Are there any new players offering this course to international students? I understand the obvious issues (poor teaching, almost no guidance and follow through), but realistically I'm an independent student and can find my own research. Im not really wedded to the whole idea of ESL to be honest,  but its accidentally become my career, so i should probably make myself useful. :) JUst wondering about general costs for a year (course+books+living expenses), and if there are some genuine choices in the market? 

Thanks dudes. 

Its very simple.

If that was a line of 20 year old guys and he had no authority to hide behind, would he still be doing that?

If no, he is a bully abusing his authority.

If yes, he's a violent lunatic and shouldn't be anywhere near a school.

hes still pretty sloped. Also, remember that now he has padding (considerably more than the straps on a backpack). I put a picture up of the bomber with and without precisely because the weight of the backpack could have been pulling the shoulders back as well as the extra padding of the arm straps. Images of course can lead to some odd conclusions, but this is quite a distinct difference. It doesnt mean its right, but it certainly poses a serious issue.

ETA: Also, as a bit of a gym bunny, the dude above is relatively in shape, the dude below is skinny-fat. (ETA2: not a professional opinion!)

Hokay...

Suspect:

Very narrow shoulders.

Bomber:

Clearly wider frame.

Images sourced from a google image search.

I lived in China for a year and had to deal with the great firewall. As an online gamer, its a pretty big deal to have decent connections. Heres what happens:

You have hard censorship and soft censorship.

Hard censorship are sites that are blocked by the state. Theres a list on wikipedia. Even my beloved grauniad was on it now and again. This is fairly straightforward stuff. Sites the government dont want you to access are blocked.

But what you dont really understand is the soft censorship. This is where handovers are jammed, locking up traffic and making non-Chinese websites slow to a crawl. On average a speed/ping test to San Francisco would deliver around 1/20th the speed inside China. Packet traces would show constant bottlenecks in the handover. Obviously i ONLY know this because i was constantly getting irked by an apparently broken internet. Its not because i actually understand what any of this shit means. Its still gobbledygook to me, but i spent a frustrating year running traces and doing speed tests. VPNs, great as they are, still end up being throttled. At best on a 30MB connection youd be getting around 2 or 3MB in mainland Europe and much less in the pacific. These would also be dropped frequently (kicking me out of my game or just locking up my browser).

The result is cynical: If you want to do business in China on the net, you locate your website in china. This means you'll need to agree to content terms devised by the state. Its almost ingenious in a way. You dont need to regulate your citizens and stop them from reading the news from outside of China, because the sheer frustration of waiting for websites to load does al the work for you. If youre on a mobile network and your baidu is loading at your carrier speed, whilst CNN is taking an age, youre just going to read the news in the state approved webpage. Also, if youre going to search for something, you COULD use google.hk, but given youll be waiting about half a minute for the page to even load (if theyre not locking it down) you might as well use Baidu again and get a bunch of results that are censored and approved by the state. Its like an intranet in a way

Anyways, hope that explains some of the knock ons to those of you who have yet to experience its joys.

" LOL ...no you are panicking at whats going to happen when the big event takes place

We dont think about the event!

I left Thailand 2 years ago. I was only there for about 5 months... and yet, i keep coming back to this site because of the stories. Before i click the bookmark, the thought always goes through my head, "what ridiculous things are going on in Thailand today?" and im never disappointed. I could have picked any thread to say this, but i chose this one because its so perfect: a bunch of lunatics in power, who keep pretending to try and garner consent for their madness whilst further entrenching social division in the name of social cohesion through oppressive means in an effort to stack the cards overwhelmingly in their favor when the time comes that international pressure finally forces them to relinquish power back to the people. No ones buying the shit theyre selling and no one really has to because no one cares if they do or dont. Its just random noise to give the appearance that something is happening. It just sums it all up.

Phonics is important, but i cant imagine teaching an M1-M3 class A A Apple. B B Bear...

They probably need it though. Around the second month of teaching my class, id started to become deeply suspicious that they couldnt read, so i gave them a reading test. The intention was to use a passage from the previous year textbook (so M2 would read a short passage from M1, M3 from M2 and so on). The rationale was that without coaching theyd certainly struggle a little, but should be able to at least say the more common words. It turned out i had been wildly overestimating their reading ability. By the middle of the first class it had become apparent that this plan was out the window, so i switched it down for the next class. Then down again. Eventually i settled on a P4 text. Almost all of the students struggled. Only M3 could read with any competence and fluency. Though i perhaps overstate this a little.

The amazing thing though was that all the students could easily read their current textbook and in particular the passage they'd most recently been exposed to. To a man and woman, it was near flawless. The conclusion could only have been that they'd spent agonising lessons repeating and memorising the text like a mantra without reading a single word. Arguably theyd spent their entire Middle school lives doing exactly this (possibly in the name of "speaking"), moving from one unintelligible text to another. Listen-repeat - Listen-repeat - Memorise - Regurgitate.

Again your left with the sense that people tasked with understanding the difference between reading and repeating should have picked this up in the 3 or so years they had with these kids. My worry and concern is that perhaps they have, but the test isnt really geared toward this distinction? Maybe understanding and (actual) reading skill is a kind of luxury given that middle school teachers are faced with a new intake of students every year that simply dont have the foundation skills necessary for middle school English. Possibly its just too much to fix, so they go with the easiest solution: faking it.

There are so many moving parts... its sort of hard to know where you need to jam in the crowbar to make the machinery stop without the whole thing falling apart. Is middle school English simply failing to pick up and address the failures of Primary school English, and in turn, is primary school English focusing too much on mirroring and preparing the students for the processes and methods of middle school? It seems to be a bit of a feedback loop.

I met one of the best teachers i've ever met in Trat in Thailand. She was the epitome of a vocational teacher. Whenever i hear people bad mouthing Thai teachers, i find it incredibly hard to reconcile it with my personal experience. Even in Samui, a shithole for public school education it seems, I met teachers who were clearly devoted to their students and enhancing their opportunities. If youve been inside the system for even a moderate amount of time you realise that there are far more serious issues than 'teaching quality' at the base of Thailand's education problems.

You can point to corruption, wasteful spending (our school had an entire room with state of the art equipment entirely devoted to promoting ASEAN and the AEC. You can point to politics such as the continual reforms, changes, and maybe even the clearly overzealous syllabus texts that are miles away from the students actual English level. You can point to the run down classrooms with no AC and doors that appear to shut the kids in like a stable. You can point to the grade inflation in tests that bear no reality to actual aptitude. You can point to the poor organisation and control of schools like personal fifedoms. You can point to the wider culture that sees education much the same way my parents saw it - playtime until i was old enough to get a proper job. I still recall the story told to me (by the teacher mentioned above) about her third grade kid who outperformed almost every other student in the district, but his parents, on balance decided that it was too expensive to send him to a decent high school and then college. Apparently this wasnt abnormal.

So Teachers are one cog in this massive machine (and as others have pointed out, tend to teach to the test because thats what theyre expected to do at the end of the da)y. Theres so much wrong with education in Thailand that its a constant shock to realise how much of the yearly budget is spent on it. The school sure as shit doesnt (random AEC room aside) see it.

What amazes me is that there actually foreigners living in Thailand on visa exempts only.

Who in their right mind could be bothered having to go to a border every 30 days to stamp in and out. That is no life.

Does anyone know anybody who actually does this?

I don't get why anyone would.

A trip to your local immigration office every 90 days VS a visa run every month???

seems like a no brainer to me

I had to do this in my time in Thailand. The reason: pure heel dragging on the part of the people who were supposed to sort out the documents for my visa. I arrived fully armed with all my relevant documents. Got a job almost immediately in a public school with an agency. Figured id get the visa done straight after... nope. After three months they were 'still waiting on signatures from..." After about my sixth visa hop, put my passport in the hands of the Cambodian mafia in Hat laek and 4 days later got a proper visa. Just in time to leave the country for China.

My impression is that its actually cheaper and less of a pain in the ass to keep you on a tourist visa/in-out waiver DESPITE the constant border hops interrupting your schedule. In fact, if i remember right, even my contract had a clause allowing me to take up to three days every two months to do a visa run.

So a couple of issues crop up: The first is the extremely convoluted visa process itself. Having never done it (my documents were not ready by the time i left), i have no direct experience of switching to an official ed visa, but reports suggest it to be a labyrinth (with very few people truly knowing or understanding how to complete it). The second (and arguably bigger issue): no visa requirement = more potential teachers = less pressure on wages.

In a way then, this is a positive. It helps force schools to pull their fingers out their butts and sort out the necessary documents. Its just unfortunate that there will be plenty of people getting hit by it all of a sudden. Heaven forfend that they might actually tell people in advance though.

Hes got a notoriously thin skin. Hes got an economy thats going nowhere. And hes now started biting into that delicious article 44.

/popcorn

We've all been there...

At uni, my flatmate work up around 4am, came into my room (im a pretty light sleeper), smiled at me when i asked him what he was doing, sat down at my desk, took a piss under my desk, then went back to his room to sleep. About two months later HIS friend climbed onto his chest of drawers, opened his sock drawer and peed in it. Obviously neither had any recollection of the event, and both were incredibly drunk at the time.

As someone who genuinely thinks there are serious issues with this 'case', i cant help but read this parent intervention as a genuine and sincere expression of their belief that the two young guys going to trial have a very strong case to answer. They have been briefed by the foreign office. They know more than anyone on this board does. It's fair then to assume that they are more capable of reaching an impartial decision on the merits of the case.

That of course being said, the prosecution have several issues they need to convince the public of.

The first and primary one is of course how 2 little dudes like that could suppress not only one guy very much bigger than them, but also restrain and prevent Hannah from raising an alarm. This is a serious issue that simply has yet to be answered. And it is a very big problem with the official story.

The second one pertains to the murder weapon itself and the infamous reconstruction. How on earth could they have forgotten the weapon they used on David? The police initially stated that the hoe was NOT the weapon used on David. They claimed it was a rock. The reconstruction showed the boys using the hoe with the strong guidance of the police. Was this simply over zealous policing? Were the boys in fact too drunk as they claimed (and was used to provide a strong motive against them?)

If they were drunk, then again, the story they managed to hold down and subdue both Hannah and David sounds incredible. How is this possible? Are we missing people?

Third, David's iphone was reported by the Bangkok post as being found in his luggage. It turned up much later in bushes. Was this a mistake? How did they know he was carrying an iphone 4 (they stated the make and model)?

Fourth, the taxi driver claim is incredibly serious. The police looked to fabricate evidence through witness testimony. This requires an investigation and should be used to attack any witness claims.

Fifth. The two men took a DNA test in the first week of the investigation when the police rounded up and tested all the Burmese workers. Two weeks later they took a second DNA test in custody and were found very quickly to be guilty. Were the initial results simply not revealed for fear of causing the two Burmese to flee? Either way, it requires a great deal of explanation.

Six: Burmese laborers report incidents of coercion in the initial investigation. Were these fabrications? Should it be shown that they were not (under cross examination), would it not reinforce the claims by the two defendants that their confession was also derived through coercion? Again, to be proven in court, but a serious issue fr the RTP should several witnesses corroborate one another.

Seven: Why did the prosecution struggle so hard to bring the case to trial?

Eight: The rest of the claims... who is the runner?, was the crime scene corrupted?, why was Hannah so savagely attacked? How could one of the defendants have been wearing the same t-shirt without any trace of Hannah's blood on it despite the ferocity and primal nature of the attack? What about that condom? Since it had traces of Hannahs DNA on the outside, who used it? Why have no prints been found on the murder weapon? Why has no one claimed to have found DNA from David on the hoe? Who handled the DNA material and has it been independently verified?

The sensible thing then is to keep some of these questions in mind in the ensuing case. So long as it is open and transparent then justice should be seen to be done.

In answer to your points directly:

1. Assuming it was.... when was that?

When the democratically elected members of parliament were enacting and voting on legislation and the opposition were holding them to account either through democratic means directly in house or indirectly through the media.

2. Causes/Effects way off target.

I dont recall stating the causes of the unrest in BKK nor do i infact recall stating anything of the effects. I said that HAD the Democrats held PTP to account POLITICALLY and DEMOCRATICALLY then PTP would have faced a strong split in their vote. These were not vote winning issues. Their core support were disgusted at the time with the amnesty bill as well. And the farmers were still waiting for payment and planning action. It does not take a political genius to see that these were issues that strongly affected the Shinawatra government and could have been easily capitalised on by the opposition. Heck, it could have even led to a split in the coalition as some parties may have felt that their continued involvement in the coalition was costing them support. If youd like to point out where this is controversial and off target, id of course be willing to listen.

3. Direct democracy rather facile.

Its point is to draw out one of the biggest features of representative democracy. To wit: you vote for the representative and when they are elected they are completely free to vote on their own conscience on not on the will of their electorate. Facile or not, if i want to make the point that a representative can and will do this, i can think of no better way than comparing it to "direct democracy". Direct democracy, in case you dont know, is where the person you elect is simply the mouthpiece of your groups democratic will and thus is not free to vote against the democratic will of their group. Its an important and necessary political distinction. I didnt even go into it. This means that Yingluck can in fact push for more types of amnesty to be put on the bill for the house, and then push her party to put it through a vote even if it pisses off her voting bloc. It also means that not only her, but also the representatives who voted for this bill on her behalf (whether out of conscience, political expedience, or just because they thought it would play well in their constituency), would have been rather worried when they saw the political backlash on not only the content of this bill, but also the way it was pushed through the house. Again, political acts have political consequences. This was not a vote winning action and LIKELY (im not psychic), would have cost PTP a great many votes in the next election.

4. Not having the army involved...

Since this is precisely the point of my entire post, im curious why youre making this as your final remark (in a post that seems to be arguing against my position). Its odd, dude. Its not the first time to be honest. Still, no harm, somehow you got that numpty above to agree with us both because he also didnt realise that you and i are actually making the same point

ah, so youre a troll... silly me

Hands up if you think YL can use her position as PM to help her family finacially and whitewash their criminal convictions?

as sad attempt to dichotomies the situation garnished with a dash of non-sequitur

Truth be told i dont have a problem at all with this. Ive seen plenty of laws passed through the house of commons on the last session of parliament that wouldnt make it through in a full house due entirely to bogus scheduling when most MPs are racing back home to begin their holidays. its the nature of the game. If a law can be passed by a party, then its a law unless there is a mechanism in the state's constitution to prevent this. And given that there are very few existing direct democracies in the world (almost all i believe are representative), then its the nature of the beast that they can push for a vote on just about anything they like as individuals (without any consideration to their constituents other than "will they vote for me again?"). So long as they can find a way to schedule it through the appropriate legislative channels and it passes the checks set up through the constitution (codified or otherwise), then its a law. I have no problems with this at all. They were elected by the people to represent them. They won the ballot. If they can rustle up the votes, they get to make new legislation. Thats what theyre elected to do.

But back to the above: were the senate to have not then blocked it (the senate of course did block it), the courts certainly would have. Thus: checks and balances. And in this case it looks like the system worked, no? The funny thing is that as the protests intensified, the amnesty bill actually would have cost PTP a HUGE amount of votes. With the funding for rice payments also around the corner at the time, it would have led to an absolute political catastrophe for PTP in their heartlands which the democrats, or parties allied to the democrats would have easily capitalised on. The tragedy is that this would have actually led to a more mature and stronger democracy. When a former entrenched area begins to split up, the campaign to retain or contest this seat becomes more focused on individual and personal self interest over ideological group identity. Further, in showing their political maturity in campaigning to hold PTP to account as well as illustrating their own capacity to govern, Thailand would be the winner. With a strong shadow government in place and holding the government of the day to account, the need for political intervention by the people is significantly reduced and indeed becomes more ridiculous.

So in answer to the question above. Yes! I agree wholeheartedly in it. And i agree with it because there is an electoral price to be paid for these acts in a democracy (whether mature, or moving toward maturity). It is an essential aspect of party led representative democracy. Political actions should have political consequences and the electorate should be allowed to make their minds up about how they view the behavior of their elected representative and the party they represent. If a party promises jam tomorrow with massive populist policies or instigates legislation that may be construed as being self-interested, then the electorate should be allowed to completely buy into it and support their representative if they like. They should be allowed to completely ignore the facts and vote on personalities instead if thats what they want. They should be allowed 100% to engage to a level they feel entirely comfortable with as an individual. Above all, even if those politicians were the worst scum of the world (within the limits of the constitution) to everyone in the country except them and their group, individuals should be entirely free to keep on voting for them for as long as they like. Because there will come a reckoning. And when it comes, that party will pay heavily at the ballot box. There will always be a reckoning. Thats what makes democracy fantastic. Its a pity that yet another power grab (by the leadership of the democrats) has once again held back the chances of the democrats to govern legitimately for another generation. Until the Democrats become a true force in Thai Democracy, Thailand will still be stuck with a dysfunctional and immature democracy. Thailand needs the Democrats to hold their own constituents to account and lead through the ballot box. Only then will Thailand be back on the path to democracy.

One only has to type in "Thailand" into Google and look at the images to see how Thailand is viewed and what other people take pictures of when they travel here. It's not that hard.

She doesn't have to look to far, or even deviate much from past campaigns - beaches, sun, islands, long tails, snorkeling, nightlife, temples, shopping, markets, animals, trekking etc etc.

Thailand is visually stunning. She's trying too hard and trying to do too many things for too many people. Focus.

But one only hopes she is sitting down with the other agencies and telling them to sort out the scams, ripoffs, policing, rubbish, infrastructure and everything else that undermines a great holiday in Thailand.

...and please, no more Press Releases.

Its the oddest thing!

I did exactly that and for the most part it was beaches some elephants, a temple or ten and about 5-10% cute girls.

Thats not the odd thing... heres the odd thing.

I did the same for Japan, almost the same results. Something iconic for about 15 results then a few more deviations.

But type in any of the big European countries and the first 10 to 20 results are all maps and flags. Its bizarre.

Its very much a pain in the arse to run that many sock puppets on facebook. Traffic on this site and on these threads are significantly easier to disrupt. Id go with the argument that regardless of anonymity (both are equivalent), one would involve a far more significant time investment (and the work of a lot of busy hands), whilst the other would require only a few people with nothing better to do than troll a message board. Im glad we've established though, that youre not suggesting anything at all to do with those accounts being fake, just that they might be anonymous (for whatever personal reasons of the individuals who own them). Any further clains would of course have been utter nonsense, after all.

Jdinasia@

No he was in full view when interviewed in the US by a visiting Thai TV channel

Please do not lie about the posters, they deserve a little respect take a look again, posts to the page are real. I can take a screen shot if you find difficulty in that.

I again ran through many posts on that page, the vast majority were not real names. Perhaps you are limiting yourself to English?

Alas people will need to make up their own minds if the posters on the conspiracy theorist page are real or not as we cannot link/post from there

The interview I saw with the admin was in Thai, his identity masked, his name not given.

Back to the topic

So let me ask, is your point here that theyre not real acocunts? That theyre all just sock puppets of a few random anti-government haters?

Are you suggesting... a conspiracy?

I thought you hated conspiracies, big man? And here you are with one of the daftest ones yet.

Just so you know. I also made up my last name on facebook. And it has nothing at all to do with the situation in Thailand. Its because i just dont want random people to type my name into a google search and find my facebook profile on their hits.

Well, it's obvious you are not "gay" according to my definition... pretty sad aren't you? I guess that happens when you are so often WRONG.

Hi guys! im straight! Did you know? I sleep with people of the opposite sex. Well... more as a preference... Its been a couple of years to be honest. More than likely ill just polish out a crafty one... Often to pictures and video clips of people of the opposite sex though! So i think im straight... I might be polysexual actually what with the qualifier...

wow, sexuality is complicated!

What does this have to do with this thread, you ask? I dont particularly know. Youd have to ask the people that seem to think its important enough that they keep bringing it up. So theres mine. Please feel free to mention it in some kind of Finbar Saunders manner any time you want to attack something i say in the future.

CCTV still is a dead end.

Some quick facts: CSILA already had a user with the exact same program for their CCTV. It showed exactly the same color changes. If its good enough proof for CSILA then it should be fine for thaivisa.

The problem here is singular:

This guy is apparently a power tripper. The argument goes that he is a jumped up full of himself kid who loves to express his influence.

He has CCTV stills (photoshopped or otherwise) showing he was in BKK during the time of the murders. Now, of course it doesnt prove he was off the island at the times of the murder, but his lawyer through him stated that he was not even on the island during that period. So...

If we assume this to be true, then we have one simple task:

Prove he was on the island in that window, as someone said, just one photo of him on the island would confirm he was there and in fact entirely implicate him given that now its clear he has been lying about his alibi.

And in over a month of trying, not one photo has emerged. People may rationally argue that there is a cover up on the island and that people fear for their safety. This may well be true... but we dont need locals. This is a tourist area. He likes tourists. The AC bar lives on tourists. If he was on that island in this period, he was photographed by a tourist. If everything else is true about him, it stands to reason.

So where on earth is the photograph? Im not saying it doesnt exist. I am asking why social media has failed to pursue this and put pressure out to find it. Surely someone could set up a resource bank to collect photographs from koh tao on the relevant dates and comb through them? Theyve found and trawled through all kinds of past photos to create weird associations about his preferences for blondes? If you know someone that was there during the period and in and around, what appears to be a very busy AC bar, then just check their photos for the guy. It cant be that hard? Surely if social media can do something, this would be it? I cant believe they havent done this. Which of course makes me think, rationally, that they have.

And the fact they havent unearthed this picture appears to show that possibly, at least for the moment, all swans are white, and he wasnt actually there.

I not sure why people are arguing about 'authority'. They seem to be missing the point somewhat.

This isnt the UK, they arent interpol. Its Thailand and Thailand has its own police force.

How the Brits would LOVE to not be involved here. But they are. They are because the investigation is a farce and it requires observation on procedure. The police sent there cannot and will not interfere outside of their remit. But what they will do is report their findings to the relevant authorities in the UK. These findings may be mundane confirming that the RTP are acting in good faith and the evidence against the pair is considered genuine and free from influence. Or it could be absolutely explosive. Hence, observation.

They are there to observe. The problem here is that they might well do exactly that. And when they report their observations, things may happen. They do not need to solve the crime. They simply need to observe the procedures and methods of the RTP's investigation. No trial need be carried out, no alternative theories need be put forward. They simply need to look at the current evidence, look at the means of how the RTP arrived at their conclusions and then observe. Should they feel they were impeded in their observations im sure this will form a significant aspect of their reports.

One can only conclude that the general has genuine faith in the RTP having caught the right people, since allowing the UK police on Thai soil to basically oversee the procedures of this investigation (and the reasons why they followed the leads they followed and discarded the leads they chose to discard), would smack of political naivety in the extreme. One need not find the real killers to establish corruption and collusion in the RTP. This case doesnt have to be solved to cause deep embarrassment to Thailand. Thus, its a huge risk to allow these 'observers' on Thai soil. Lets hope it pays off for the right people.