Foreign Teacher Crackdown To Continue

[PeaceBlondie]

Whether or not it is well-funded or well-managed, the UN agency is UNESCO, but Thailand can take care of this problem with its own resources, if it wishes. After all, it built the Night Safari in Chiang Mai, and it built the Swamp-bunny airport....

[lost_in_space]

Whether or not it is well-funded or well-managed, the UN agency is UNESCO, but Thailand can take care of this problem with its own resources, if it wishes. After all, it built the Night Safari in Chiang Mai, and it built the Swamp-bunny airport....

agree, like hunger and disease, this is not a technical or financial problem, it's a problem of political will.

[Ijustwannateach]

Clearly there is a need for an international body to provide checks and accreditation for teachers. The problems seem to affect the poorest of countries, where allocation of funds to facilitate this are non existant.

Why, I would love to know, does the UN not tackle problems like these? They have various agencies which are well funded, but never seem to actually serve a purpose. Surely this body should provide the network?

Well, except there would be a few little problems like the national sovereignty of Thailand (why should they give up their right to control what happens in the country to an international body? would they agree publicly that they couldn't handle it themselves?) and which country's (and in the case of the U.S. where this is no national licensing but only local licensing, which state's) standards will be considered the "international" ones?

And actually, there isn't really a "problem," except a lack of hard work, thoroughness, and basic will to do the job. Teacher's licenses and college degrees aren't a mystery. You either have them or you don't. If you have them, they can be checked, if one's organisation has the will. Same with police records. All the Thai government has to do is hire a few truly competent individuals with near-native fluency in English, and preferably some experience in the most relevant countries. Set a *reasonable* and consistent timetable- like, let's say, current teachers and their schools arrange for police checks by this time *next year*, by which time all new teachers will also be required to have clearances. Publish a consistent schedule of what is required to do teaching in a discipline (a relevant college degree, plus/minus educational degree, plus/minus current teacher's license)- then crack down HEAVILY on schools (not the teachers, the schools) which illegally employ teachers. Allow for some grandfathering and lesser qualifications for TEFL teachers, especially if not teaching children.

But suggesting reasonable steps like these presupposes two things: that the bureaucracy here actually operates in a rational, consistent manner; and that the long-term intent is really, really, to discourage the cheap foreign labour supply here.

"Steven"

[mark lamai]

did everyone forget its a joke.??

you cannot take it seriously.

Thai gov. doesn't care, they just kick Farang to save face and get votes.

schools don't care, anyone will do, just make money for us.

e.g.

a high ranking cleric of the catholic church attends a wedding ceremony of a farang teaccher to a 15 year old girl.

and many other stories.

alleged paedohphile farang teaccher simply moved upcountry to another school.

etc etc..

[tracer]

It's noteworthy in that it is confirmation by Immigration of what many had speculated in that the John Mark Karr case provided the impetus to reform not only teacher requirements but also likely played a role in the enforecement of the 90-day visa-free regulations.

Indeed, his case cast a dark shadow of world attention on Thailand with far reaching implications.

It was 100% clear after that idiot managed to get a firstclass trip back home and admitting to silly things that a backlash would come. Secondly it will have no effect on how teachers will behave here...

Doesnt even have any relationship to how they behave at home....

A lot of these guys never were abroad and now suddenly find themselves in thailand...

I have SEEN them change their behaviour...

Take a releatively straight teacher from any country and dump hom in Thailand, nopbody has any idea how that guy will behave. Unless the get checked on...

Illegal workers: should be easy with the computer in use, asuming they have anyone who can program the thing to sort and coordinate some data...

I am damned sure that it shouldnt take more then a few days to write crude specs and then follow that by some testruns over an area where people are relatively known what they do... O horror, it may need farang help...

[tracer]

John Mark Karr, thanks for NOTHING!!

Is this idiot now permanently banned from Thailand and other countries in this area??

I still suspect he had an urgent reason to get home which had nothing to do with his teaching.

I could teach many years ago, I didnt like it as it was a subject where of the 30 students maybe 2 were interested and anyway, industry paid a LOT better. I wouldnt at pensionable age even know where the certificates are as they got left somewhere during my travels and nobody ever was interested anyway for the work I did...

If I wouldnt have been able to do the work, I would have had a big kick back home. Same if you messed around with other employees or people working for you.

It essentially was an offence getting you the sack. In other words what should have happened to Clinton.

[tracer]

From my experience, Thai students can get all the English language theory and grammar from books and non native speakers/teachers. What they need native language speakers for is to correct their English and get them communicating in English (talking/listening). Thus do you need to be a qualified English teacher for correcting English conversation? I believe there should be two types of English language teacher; the proper qualified teacher, and the casual native speaker just for communication classes. The latter just needs to have a reasonable command of his/her native language and not necessarily be highly qualified? My sister did the casual conversation type teaching many years ago in Hong Kong, and it seemed to work out very well.

Have you ever checked the books?? The idiots made rules and exceptions on Plow. throw, and that whoe range of words written the same...

I have SEEN it and instead of saying its all due to dialects in the UK causing some words to be spelled rather illogical, they stuck the high school students with lists of rules and exceptions...

I can only say I am happy that in Holland we didnt have those crappy books.

It seems at present there are a lot of farang created books and they are even worse. I just told my daughter, one year to go and next year exam and then you can forget all that crap.

No way she will be an english teacher, she speaks and writes it better then the teacher...

[redewenur]

It seems to me that in a country with so few English speakers any Native English speaker would be a benefit. A criminal background check should suffice.

Agreed. Whilst it's often a good idea to aim high, there's a danger of supporting grandiose ideas.

We find Thai kids inundated with the mechanics of English. For example, schools try to teach the names of a dozen tenses and a dozen flavours of adjective. Kids are also expected to learn the phonetic alphabet. All the while, most never get beyond a few simple sentences such as "My name is...I live in...” I'm dumfounded - admittedly sometimes infuriated - that the education authorities, who must surely be fully aware of this, seem perfectly happy to press on with the charade, and still support the idea that native-English speakers, keen to provide help, must have a degree.

I have no quarrel with the vetting for criminal background, but an interview by the school ought to suffice with regard to linguistic competence. One doesn't need hold a degree in auto-mechanics to teach people to drive.

[Khun ?]

Would it not be best if the thai government put recruiting stations in countries where they wanted to

hire teachers from. They could get release forms for criminal checks and references of past. No reason to put up with all these people trying to ecscape a miserable unhealthy life from their home country. If they have no pride in where they come from they sure do not need to be teaching their ill regrets to foreign stundents just because they know the language.

From many of the lott I met in Thailand from english spoken countries New Zealand and Australia

have the better attitudes to reflect positively on the students. The U.S. and U.K. would be the minority and last resort lower paying positions to be considered. After all you are not trying to teach and create english professors and teachers. Those students will come from thais that get eductaed in foreign countries.

Just seen on the tube where the U.K. and U.S come in near the very bottom of raising children in a healthy manner. Never should they accept the ones that just show up in country and will accept any

amount, or type of work to be beneficial to their educational system.

Having all these unhappy under paid teachers that were miserable before they got to Thailand be healthy to the local educational system.