scorecard

My recollection is that the comment 'Thai will be the premier language spoken all over the World' was made quite a few years ago by an unimportant politician, and the comment was ignored.

...bunging...?

My son was studying the concepts of human rights from a textbook (I saw it, published by well respected international textbook publisher) with positive and negative examples from many countries. It wasn't a study of human rights specific to Singapore.

You are confused. That's not possible, for several decades all students in Singapore do all their studies in English and the curriculum ensures they can read, write, converse in English before they even start primary school. I've worked on projects, 2 days - 2 years many times in Singapore, all the staff / clients I worked with spoke and understood good - advanced - very advanced English, most at the very advanced level. Yes a few speak with a little bit of a chopped flow but still easy to understand what they are saying. So your comment is not possible.

Not true.

they sell christmas decorations / gifts etc., for revenue, nothing more, nothing less, it's a very productive marketing opportunity. And some shops decorate their venues quite well. The locals have no understanding of the history etc., and I don't expect them to.

Australia Post has been less than satisfactory for several years and they never seen to get their problem fixed. Their delivery of small online shopping packages is awful. When I was there again and again I got advice notes 'having delivery delays at the moment, expect delay of 2 weeks'. Or get an e.mail 'your package is waiting for you to pick up at xxx post office'. E.mail uncluded a tel no. of the said post office. Call them and get connected to a national hotline, operator not aware of any details. Eventually I searched and found another number and called, this time a much more snr. PO person who said 'But it's just a short trip to the PO'. I responded 'I paid a tpt fee for delivery to my home and my next call is to my local member of parliament'. Small parcel delivered to my home early next morning.

You must have been unlucky and spoke with the 1 Singaporean who didn't attend primary and high school in English as is required by the aligned regulations.

And on an angle of all of this when he went to the DMZ his arrogant daughter and her arrogant husband decided they would go walkabout inside the DMZ buildings ignoring the directions of the high ranking Nth Korean military staff, even opened drawers and cupboards. All totally ignoring diplomatic protocols, but no doubt ms. trump thought her daddy was the leader of the world so she was entitled to make her own rules.

e.g. 3 meetings with the Nth Korea guy, achieved nothing, and the nth korean guy made him look like a fool.

But there is a long trail of destruction...

qUOTE: "This event, unfolding amidst the complex geopolitical landscape of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,... Any reporting of matters connected to sovereignty should be worded very carefully / perfectly correct words. Are the correct words ' Israeli-Palestinian ' or ' Israeli - Hamas '?

Interesting. For me the most interesting part is the mention of Craigslist. I thought Craigslist was no longer allowed to operate any of it's categories anywhere. Is that correct? Or...

True. There's several training programs for this scenario in 'Teaching English as a second language' and more. In Bangkok. But most of these programs are too short, some as little as 20 hours, and operated on a franchise basis, the owner of the local franchise not even fully versed in the subject.

Reminds me of "tax payers are revolting".

You're being very judgemental all Aussies / Aussie surfers. Bogans exist in every country / culture.

Well said. My Thai wife (the light of my life, sadly now passed on) was a doctor of medicine with board certificate in 2 specialities, all achieved in Australia. Perfect English.

This is a subject that came up in the professors lounge at a 'prestigious' uni where I was teaching. A Thai professor repeated 'You cannot allow students to ask questions because maybe the teacher cannot answer the question'. I chimed in and said 'there many ways to handle all of this, for example: 'Lecturer says 'that's a good question and I'm going to split the class into small teams and you have 30 minutes to find an acceptable/ logical answer. (This is a class where students are encouraged to have a tablet or a smartphone in their bag and can use it to do assigned searches.)

" Promote and maintain the desire to learn " But the reality is that the teachers believe the focus should be on them, and not on the students. My Thai son went to high school in Singapore then returned to Bkk to study for his bachelor in Education with an additional sports major. (Note: He could have done his bachelor in education in Singapore but he discovered that the Thai ed ministry does not accept / recognise education degrees from any other country. In hs 4th year he had to do a six months work experience at a very big Thai high school in Bkk. He quickly discovered and was very disappointed to discover that the children were NOT the centre of the process nor the results. He tried to do a soft introduction of student centered learning which very quickly prompted a mass protest by the Thai teachers who, amongst other items, was not respecting the teachers as the centre of the universe. They also objected to my son teaching some English vocab as the lessons progressed. Headmistress screwed up by announcing that my son (a work experience unqualified boy) would conduct a series of 1 hr classes / lectures on student centered learning. This produced an even more serious protest by all the Thai teachers (young and old) who demanded that: - The headmistress same day send my son back to his uni with a report that his work was totally unsatisfactory. - The headmistress sign a document confirming that 'student centered learning' and similar terms would never be seen again at the school. - The headmistress resign immediately the above was done and an insistence that a specific older dragon teacher be installed as the headmistress. Quickly my son took it on himself to report back to his uni and they quickly found another school for him to do his work experience. All of the above broke his heart / broke his spirit.

Well we have an old aunty who speaks about 10 words of English and gets very angry when anybody tries to improve her pronunciation. E.g: She insists the word is sabaghetti, not spaghetti. And insists the correct word is com, not computer. She's tried to insist my Thai son (native speaker of Thai and English) correct the teachers at the schools his 3 kids attend, all of which have excellent well qualified and experienced native English teachers. The best are mid 20's, from the UK, relate well to the kids and keen to do good work.

My devices are set for UK English and that's just fine.

No true.

Where's the full list of 'scores'?

And many Thai and western folks don't understand hte brod accents of many UK people.

"until you root out the rotten education system in this country nothing will ever change." Totally agree. Band Aids a waste of time. IMHO the best approach/strategy would be to copy, in every aspect, the Singapore education system. It has excellent foundations and it works and it strongly incorporates student centered learning. My Thai son, for years my Thai son attended a 'bilingual' high school in Bkk (which promised many things: Qualified /experienced western teachers / student centered learning which continuously prompts the students to get involved. Plus Qualified /experienced Thai teachers who speak good English student centered learning which continuously prompts the students to get involved (but in reality never ever seen)). Then he transferred to a good high school in SIngapore. After 3 months he came back to Bkk (thanks budget airlines for cheap fares), got in the car at Swampy airport and started talking at length about human rights and the international court in the hague. And many other advanced subjects. A new son had arrived. All prompted by the Singapore education system. But of course changin Thailand to the S'pore Ed system would be a major undertaking and would take time. So let's get started. And there's proof, Vietnam has made major changes to it's education system, all copied from the S'pore Ed system. It works.