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gerryBScot
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Posts posted by gerryBScot
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Howard Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has a large number of books that touch on education in Asia, especially China. He, his wife and his adopted Chinese son spent a year studying the nature of education in China, It is, of course, quite different from education in many Western countries. We might find fault with education that is transmissive rather than encouraging individual thought and initiative but the resiliance of culture can not be ignored. Here in Japan, returnees from study in the West don't fit in if they have become westernized to the point of being brash and abrasive in the eyes of their classmates or workmates. There are many, many differences between education in Japan and education in the UK or the USA and Japanese culture will win out every time. The works of Howard Gardner are very interesting. Please Google him and have a look at his books.
Thanks for this, very interesting. I'm familiar with Gardner's mainstream work on learning styles but was unaware of his work on education in China so will do as bidden!
The OP, specifically the letter cited, is very much about the Thai system and I think the best thing that could be said of it is it would like to copy the robust systems in countries like Korea, Japan and China. However the issue here really isn't about transmissive or any other style of teaching - it's about quality. I doubt whether my Thai students could stand up to the rigours of the Chinese system if it is anything like what was portrayed in the TV documentaries. Maybe the new intake could but....
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I agree with the sentiments in the letter. I think this issue of criticality and thinking is what separates traditional Western and Eastern approaches to teaching and learning. If you want to see what happens when these two different approaches come together check out : Are our Kids Strong Enough? Chinese School. This a BBC produced documentary (3 episodes) which can be quite easily accessed through the normal channels. Basically it is the story of a high performing state school in Hampshire, England deciding to run a Chinese school for some of its Year 9 students ; they bring in five Chinese teachers and in effect run an experiment to see who performs the best: the Chinese school or the normal school. I don't think it is the most authentic programme I've ever seen, kids are clearly performing for the mikes and cameras, but it does a wonderful job in highlighting the issues between the different approaches.
On the subject of critical thinking it's a word that is banded about a lot in educational circles. I am not sure it can be taught. Rather it's a process and it is something that is developed. It can't be learned in a hurry. It's something that is built up over a lot of years and practise. You're not going to fill this perceived gap by for instance running a 'critical thinking' course for university entrants in their last year of school. It is in fact developed from day one at school and supported at home. And it is about fun. It is about reading a story and inviting small children to think about what happened next and it builds from there and is incorporated into every aspect of school life. It is quite different from transmission style teaching which is what its name says it is: the teacher is up front transmitting his/her expertise to the students whom would never dream to ask any questions.
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There are rather a lot of misconceptions about what makes for a good teacher. I daresay the OP's sketch, uncannily accurate of some teachers in Thailand, hardly points to a dedicated chalky. However we need to be careful about this. It's a bit like football managers. As a general rule great football players hardly make great managers .... Ferguson, Wenger, Mourinho etc were hardly star names as footballers but have been something else as football managers and coaches. In the same way there is no connection whatsoever between academic credentials and teaching ability. A well known researcher and academic, Dylan Wiliam, one of the leading lights of the Assessment for Learning approach, points to this in his work: there is no connection between teachers with top degrees from top universities enabling their students to get better academic results in exams. There is something more to being a teacher than qualifications - I would suggest experience and experience of life would come in quite useful as a teacher. So please be alive to the possibility that some of these teachers may actually be very effective as teachers and working with young people.
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I did the will power route but only succeeded after I had quit drinking. I did that via AA and I modified the mantras: the first cigarette is the one that does the damage; one is too many and 20 is not enough etc. Ultimately I found quitting much more challenging than with other things like booze and gambling - I distinctly recall wanting to smoke every day for the first two years and then it just went and I have never been bothered since. That was about 10 years ago. I have no doubt quitting drinking had helped but also the developing restrictions on where you could smoke really helped - so being in the UK and not being able to smoke inside a restaurant, for instance, probably saved me. Good luck, it's worth persevering with and the madness will eventually leave you.
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Well that's a good question. it is undoubtedly promotional because if it is a Thai school they are likely to do the Thai national curriculum as well as A-level or IB but only the most able students will do the latter.
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A-level is the standard final year exam taken by students in schools in England & Wales the results of which usually determine university entrance. I think there are also international versions of these qualifications too so their curriculum is taught in national and international schools. They are equivalent in this respect to IB but not necessarily the same. Both will secure university entrance depending on level of pass.
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The real problem is the system lags about 50 years behind the time. The classrooms I teach in resemble the classes I was taught in. Everything is still based on teacher transmission and rote learning. By all means get rid of the corruption, but that is just the tip of the ice berg in so far as education is concerned. Tomorrow's world, with which all education systems must be concerned, is going to be heavily interconnected with today's students doing jobs that haven't even been invented yet. What is Thailand doing to prepare its students for this exciting new world? Not a lot.
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Some thoughts for today:
"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom"
"You never know what is enough until you have had more than enough'.
William Blake, Proverbs of Hell, from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell",1793
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Cooked just out of interest and excuse me if you've already answered this in the thread, how do you feel in the morning when you wake up?
Same as I did before. Does that make a difference?
How was that Cooked - you feel normal or hungover or what? For what it's worth you're probably someone who has a very high tolerance to alcohol. This is the problem with 'norms', they take no account of variations. What you drink in a day might kill another person over a short period of time. Your metabolic rate might be very fast too to enable you to process alcohol very quickly. There's a whole range of variables. Hence I would agree with those that have said to you that it really is all about how you feel and what you want. If you're happy trying to slow it down go for it. Good luck.
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Cooked just out of interest and excuse me if you've already answered this in the thread, how do you feel in the morning when you wake up?
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gerryBScot
Correct fellow member.
Talking & listening concurrently - impossible?
Fang I am not sure I understand your short hand. I certainly agree that I needed to listen, and still do; in fact I had to learn to listen. I was a belligerent expert on all manner of stuff that I knew nothing about. Yeah I am that guy, as that guy I am much better for not drinking.
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Congratulations, Gerry
For me my actions as a sober alcoholic matter (a lot). Example matters. Speak the truth as it is.
I entered the doors in 1984 - almost 36yo.
They said - take the cotton wool out of your ears - LISTEN TO THE SIMILARITIES - not the differences.
It ain't easy BUT well worth it.
I had little going for me - plenty against.
Serious respect, brother! They told me to take the cotton wool out of my ears and stick it in my mouth! I didn't like it much!
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Cooked, your question is a good one. For me, when I tried to stop or cool it, it lasted for a few days usually and then I was off again for any reason - win, lose or draw. I drank for any reason, good bad or indifferent. I was probably a different kind of drunk from you however. I would describe myself as a binge drinker, so I stopped, but once I was on it, well it was mental. If I had a really heavy session and came out of it feeling OK, as sometimes happened, I recall having a conversation with myself about not being an alkie. That usually triggered an even bigger session next time safe in the knowledge I wasn't an alkie! I don't have this debate today, this conversation ended, it's blissful at times not having this!
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I'm blessed with sobriety and haven't had a drink in 12 + years. I don't miss anything about it at all and as I have sometimes said, if I was told "It's been a big mistake, Gerry, you're not an alcoholic, you can drink" my view right now is I would stick with not drinking because in my own mind I always associate being sober with having a hugely different and ultimately much better life. On the other hand as an active drunk I would have developed massive resentments against people for some of the things that have been said in some of the posts. My only way of coping with resentment was to torment myself with an inexplicable internal dialogue consisting of rage and vitriol, which always led to me get hammered and I say hammered, not drunk. You might have seen me standing alone at a bar drinking like a lunatic and caught up in my own wee world, unaware of anything going on around me. As a wise cracker said to me: You can always tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell them very much. I would respectfully suggest that we should show a bit of respect to the OP and would also like to suggest that the scare tactics as a general rule don't work for people like me. I rather liked the attention and the controversy and it usually gave me another set of resentments and excuses to get hammered.
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As you can see Cooked, it's a laugh a minute on here! I wonder what you'll be accused of next!
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I have seen games on Celtic TV in sports bar from time to time and reception was good. That's what I will be doing tonight. "If" they get through I will be at home for final qualifying round.
Thanks Salty. I've just found out that it is being shown on ESPN UK which is streamed by ILIKEHDTV so a three hour all channel pass will cost 40 baht or thereabouts;if that fails I'll need to shell out 12.99 GBP for the Celtic TV sub!
Here's hoping. Glad we've got an 0-1 lead but would have preferred at least one more. Could be a tough one.
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Why are you signing up with an agency in the first place? It means no conditions - usually no paid holidays not even on public holidays. The schools and agents are often in cahoots - the school pays the agent 40,000 per month and the agent pays you 30,000; the agent and school do a deal and everyone is happy, except you. You should only ever work for an agency if you absolutely have no alternative. Forget about being sued - you can't get blood out of a stone. I am sure one of the joys you will experience with your agent is that the terms and conditions you signed up for are ignored by him/her whenever it is convenient for them to do so - they will most certainly not feel obliged to honour of the terms you agreed. Welcome to teaching in Thailand!
You may not know this but that is how the world works.
The agent gets paid for its service, the school chooses to be served by the agent and the teacher decides whether they accept the salary, terms and conditions. Nobody is being forced to accept the arrangement.
If you went to 7/11 and complained that galaxy ice creams would only cost 30 baht if the distributor is cut out of the supply chain, you'd be laughed at.
Absolutely no problem with the concept of agency, no problem with it period. No problem with market economy either. Except here in LOS where it is invariably abused. Another tool used to exploit would be teachers and indirectly a significant contributor to the general decline in teaching standards, which directly affects the education of Thai students....but who cares about that because we are making a buck! No problem with market economy or reality either.
I know of one case where a poor soul was recruited at 30,000 per month by a school and a month later was introduced to her new employer, an agent, who duly reduced her salary to 15,000...... she told them what to do with the job.
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Hail boys. Is tonight's big game, ko 11.30pm Thai time, being shown on any channels that can be accessed by streaming? I see CetlicTV has it - I'm happy to pay to watch it but anyone had any experience of watching it here in LOS? Any quality issues? Thoughts and suggestions welcome.
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Why are you signing up with an agency in the first place? It means no conditions - usually no paid holidays not even on public holidays. The schools and agents are often in cahoots - the school pays the agent 40,000 per month and the agent pays you 30,000; the agent and school do a deal and everyone is happy, except you. You should only ever work for an agency if you absolutely have no alternative. Forget about being sued - you can't get blood out of a stone. I am sure one of the joys you will experience with your agent is that the terms and conditions you signed up for are ignored by him/her whenever it is convenient for them to do so - they will most certainly not feel obliged to honour of the terms you agreed. Welcome to teaching in Thailand!
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Why don't you forget litigation and head to the official taxi rank, tell the girl where you want to go, she'll give you a price and write it on a card for you and give it to your driver and off you go. Life is simple and sweet!
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Hey Forrest I love it. Great work. You touch on a very important point which is often unacknowledged. An understanding of why Thai is difficult to learn should help those of us involved in teaching English to Thai learners: it's the same the other way round. Totally different concepts.
That's why I really like the English textbooks that have been developed for Japanese learners like Let's Go: Japanese is as different conceptually from English as Thai is. Teaching a Thai person English is not the same as a Brit learning French.
Thai and English do have a lot in common, structure wise. As both are still subject verb object, although adjectives/adverbs are in reverse order, and although the alphabets are different it's still an alphabet (as opposed to say Chinese). English & Thai also both use classifiers (although Thai uses them in more situations).
Tenses & plurals are often the most difficult thing for Thai students to learn in English as they don't have these in Thai. Well they have tenses, but it's a very simple structure (kinda like using "I will" for all future sentences & "already" for all past tense sentences).
Knowing Thai can definitely help with teaching English, as you can then understand the mistakes which they make and help them by explaining the differences.
I think the education system is to blame for Thai students not being able to speak more English. The languages are similar enough that forming sentences etc shouldn't be a problem, although due to the differences most students would probably make mistakes with their grammar (e.g. Go instead of went, car fast instead of fast car) and forget their 's's on words.
However as the Thai education system primarily focuses on vocabulary, rather than on how to actually use the language, students do actually know a lot of words, but they're unable/not confident enough to put them into coherent sentences. For example, sometimes the teachers at my school ask me to explain things to them like "what's a killjoy", because that's what's in the next lesson from the textbook. So they're teaching words which are very very rarely used, to students who often couldn't even form a full sentence to tell you how they came to school or what they had for lunch.
I am not disagreeing with your general drift except I think you are underestimating the differences : different script, different sounds, tones, punctuation, capitalisation, no spaces between words, auxiliary verbs and that's just for starters before considering tense and the weird and whacky world of questioning formats. You'll be well aware of how Thai kids are not taught how to write Roman letters and so do it in their own way, etc.
What constantly amazes me is no attempt is made to systematically bridge these differences - for instance it really is easy to teach a child how to write properly using Roman letters once they can hold a pencil. I don't understand why they don't start teaching phonics at the earliest opportunity - nothing else that I know of has the same impact on a child's ability to read and connect letters and clusters of letter to sounds; forget the alphabet...
None of this stuff is esoteric with access to it dependent on membership of goat-abusing secret societies or their like - it's all there in the public domain, in books for instance, and there are many 'foreign' teachers here who know this stuff as it has been at the backbone of their own teaching formation..... but the last thing these guys will do is ask for advice because they have an undergraduate and masters degree in English and that confers expertise....you know the deal.
But I do love 'gai yang' and it is now time to head out and have lunch time feast.
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Learning Thai is not easy. English is a crazy language, no doubt, but thia is . . . just strange. Below is my poem about learning Thai just so you know are not alone if you are struggling with the language as I am.
On Learning Thai (Chong Khae, Thailand)
Forty-four consonants with classy names
like snake, rat, and a little boat you row
not to say anything of old geezer which
my Thai wife’s four-year old granddaughter
with Shirley Temple curls says I am.
Thirty-two vowels which orbit the consonants like planets.
They wax and wane and sometimes go into retrograde
So severe they disappear. Most of these make noises
I last made during a physical exam when the rubber-gloved
doctor digitally checked my prostrate: Vowel E-U-U-U-A!
Five different tones, so it’s OK to have
high tones in low places and a funny mix of
four tone markers – one of which is the logo
for the International Red Cross – wait a minute,
five tones but only four markers?. Who invented
this language, Yogi Berra?
There are no capitals, but that’s OK because
there’s no punctuation, either. thaitextexudeslikea
sausagefromamachineinastraightlinesuntilitstopskhrap
I don’t think this farang will ever master Thai.
English may be crazy, but Thai needs another adjective
altogether khrap . . . (the last I think, comes close).
Hey Forrest I love it. Great work. You touch on a very important point which is often unacknowledged. An understanding of why Thai is difficult to learn should help those of us involved in teaching English to Thai learners: it's the same the other way round. Totally different concepts.
That's why I really like the English textbooks that have been developed for Japanese learners like Let's Go: Japanese is as different conceptually from English as Thai is. Teaching a Thai person English is not the same as a Brit learning French.
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Yeah Tesco Lotus is a disaster in Thailand. They appear to have major distribution issues. I think you would need to be crazy to buy fresh stuff there like vegetables. My local markets here sell spuds, excellent floury spuds too that are delicious.....cheaper and fresher. My kids love mashed tatters and sometimes too with a little mince.
They used to sell nice tea bags, too, their own brand, cheap too and then they disappeared off the shelves never to be replaced: so I have to make do with the inferior and more expensive Yellow Label.
In real terms the local markets are the place to shop: retailers much friendlier, they want your trade and so they generally don't rip you off as they want you to return, except the moron who sells fresh fish: I just send the wife over to buy the fish from him but the attraction(!) is it is killed in front of you. If cooked fresh the fish tastes quite different from the Tesco stuff. I really like the chit chat too, there's always somebody recommending I try a dish of some sort and all in all makes for a very pleasant experience and much preferable to that in Lotussssss which has little to commend it apart from the convenience element.
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Many thanks for these helpful comments which underline how ignorant I am. I thought virtually everything these days was smart!
What takes place in Thai schools is not education.
in Higher Education in Thailand
Posted
Ah I didn't mention the results of the tests because I don't want to spoil it for anyone who watches the shows!
I don't agree with your last sentence but it's probably semantic! I think Thai kids, like all kids, do have the ability but the wider culture stifles their natural curiosity and they learn to conform with the pervasiveness mindlessness.