Face and silly preparation for competitions

[onlycw]

Am needing to vent. This may likely turn into a rant.

 

Clever P5 students with quite a good command of English get misguided by Thai head teachers. Rote memorization, even for "impromptu speach".

 

Let's kill creativity. Let's waste the kids' time. Let them make fools of themselves, struggling with adult content, adult language and stuff adults make them memorize:

 

Technical stuff about buildings, construction, architecture.

 

My suggestions were

 

1. let me re-write the text. Simplify it. Shorten it.

2. Let's teach them the  c o n c e p t s. Once they fully understand what it's all about, they will find the words. No need to make them learn anything by heart!

 

Must be about face, when clever kids are - sorry, - abused. The kids won't benefit. It may put them off English alltogether. Cui bono?

 

This is a supposedly leading school. Good night, Thai education.

 

Start allowing kids to be kids. Protect them from this nonsense!

[MrPatrickThai]

My kids went to stupid competitions, missing valuable school time. They did debates, spelling tests, and speeches because of their fluency in English.

Who care about skits, and bloody spelling bees?

[NetJunkie116]

13 hours ago, onlycw said:

"impromptu speach".

 

Must be a new type of competition.

[Scott]

Let's stay away from criticizing grammar/spelling.   This is a discussion board, not a Ph.D. thesis site.

 

I appreciate your frustration, but try to use those situations as a learning experience.   We often had competitions and I tried to use the time to memorize something as a time to work on speaking clearly.   Some of the nonsense can be a confidence builder for students.   That said, much of it is a waste of time, but all you can do is make the best of it.

 

[Rhys]

...let them be kids... of course, look what happened up north...in that cave.. ophs.. forgot an adult/teacher was with them..

[connda]

On 8/8/2018 at 10:37 PM, MrPatrickThai said:

Who care about skits

Happens in the West too.  I pretty much lost what little regard I had for management when the upper management team in our Lab's IT department pull a few hundred employees away from work in order to present an upper management skit to the plebs in order to create 'team spirit'.  Dressed up in costumes and tried to 'make funny' on the stage.  It at best was incredibly juvenile. The vast majority of employees walked away shaking their heads at the stupidity with the exception of the brown-nosers and management wannabes who fawned over the nonsensical skit as being 'cute'.  So, it's not a stretch to see that folks who gravitate toward executive positions aren't the sharpest tacks in the box. In IT they tend to be the ones who are unable to cut it technically. 

[Lacessit]

4 hours ago, connda said:

Happens in the West too.  I pretty much lost what little regard I had for management when the upper management team in our Lab's IT department pull a few hundred employees away from work in order to present an upper management skit to the plebs in order to create 'team spirit'.  Dressed up in costumes and tried to 'make funny' on the stage.  It at best was incredibly juvenile. The vast majority of employees walked away shaking their heads at the stupidity with the exception of the brown-nosers and management wannabes who fawned over the nonsensical skit as being 'cute'.  So, it's not a stretch to see that folks who gravitate toward executive positions aren't the sharpest tacks in the box. In IT they tend to be the ones who are unable to cut it technically. 

Ain't that the truth. Funny how the management types put one down if one is not "management material".

The HR people can dress it up any way they want; however, the basic truth remains ideas and creativity are the province of the individual. Sure, groups, teams or whatever you want to call them can develop ideas; however, the idea always comes from one person.

 

 

[kingstonkid]

The issue involves all students.  I had one that mom calls and asks if I can spend extra time with son as the school has put him in speaking competition.  No idea what the topic is no help from the school and no guidelines.  Being a public speaker I put him through the same prep that i had and do.  He aced it.

 

I have another student that is great at painting and drawing, she has a great imagination as well.  The teacher chose her for the competition and then told her that her style was wrong and she needed to do it his way.  Mom went to school and tore the director a new one as well as the teacher.  Daughter is no longer allowed to do any competitions.  BTW due to competitions, the daughter had to do homework until 11 each night to make up for class time lost.  She is in P$.

 

The problem with the private schools is that they are all competing for dollars.  Forget education.  They need to be able to advertise our students did this.

 

Same as the ONET they put up big billboards with students pictures touting that their students did so good.  No mention of the fact that the child spends 2 hours a week in private classes learning how to pass the test and to read.