Efforts renewed for improving students’ Chinese-language skills

[webfact]

Efforts renewed for improving students’ Chinese-language skills

By The Nation

 

File photo

 

The Office of the Vocational Education Commission (OVEC) has again tapped China’s largest textbook-publishing house, Higher Education Press (HEP), to help improve Thai vocational students’ ability to speak Mandarin and meet the business sector’s needs.
 

Panurut Klinpho, director of OVEC’s Bureau of Monitoring and Evaluation, said they will over the next five years improve and update textbooks, teachers’ handbooks and other curricular materials and organise short-term training for both students and teachers. 

Panurut presided at the signing of a memorandum of understanding on the project late last month at the OVEC office in Bangkok.

 

It represents the second phase of the project, following successful collaboration with HEP in 2013 that produced two textbooks – “Chinese Language for Communication 1” for students pursuing a Por Wor Chor certificate and “Chinese Language for Education 2” for those pursuing a Por Wor Sor advanced certificate level.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30360382

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-12-14

[mok199]

Call me skeptical ,but ...

[ChipButty]

Chinese are not coming no more, so sack that one back to English

[bluesofa]

They seemed to have omitted about how many native Mandarin speakers they will be recruiting to help increase students conversational ability.

[Vacuum]

29 minutes ago, webfact said:

to help improve Thai vocational students’ ability to speak Mandarin and meet the business sector’s needs.

Is this a request from the real masters/leaders?

[dcnx]

Just like the multiple pushes to get them to learn English.

 

Good luck. More failure on the horizon unless they bring in true Mandarin speakers and they are allowed to fail students.

[DrTuner]

If they can't be arsed to learn English, how would they ever bother with those matchstick letters?

[arithai12]

56 minutes ago, DrTuner said:

If they can't be arsed to learn English, how would they ever bother with those matchstick letters?

Don't look at this with your farang eyes (or ears).

The sounds and tones of the chinese/Mandarin language are much closer to Thai than those of the English language. Also, a significant fraction of Thai people are of chinese origin especially up North.

 

[djayz]

39 minutes ago, arithai12 said:

a significant fraction of Thai people are of chinese origin

Very good point, but the vast majority of them are second generation Thai and don't speak a word of Mandarin or Cantonese.

 

I wonder how do you say "I'm fine thank you and how are you?" in a robotic Chinese accent? 

 

All kidding aside, but they haven't mastered a single foreign language yet so whose brilliant idea was it to introduce yet another foreign language?!?! 

 

"I'm fine thank you and how are you?"

Edited December 14, 2018 by djayz

[Genmai]

I recall reading a newspaper article on a flight to Hong Kong written by an academic who was bemoaning the falling levels of English competency in stark contrast to the increase in Mandarin speakers and how it was telling of which of the two cultures had more influence on Hong Kong in the modern era. 

 

I also thought it was quite interesting last month when I went to have a noodle soup at the One Nimman food court in Chiang Mai and the noodle guy (Thai) looked up at me (obviously white), crossed his hands and yelled "不要!" (Bùyào, which basically means "do not want"). Not even an attempt at English. 

[yellowboat]

18 hours ago, webfact said:

Vocational Education Commission (OVEC) has again tapped China’s largest textbook-publishing house,

 

18 hours ago, mok199 said:

Call me skeptical ,but ...

You are correct to be so, as the text of the book shown has traditional Chinese characters.  Why would a China textbook have non simplified Chinese ?  It is best to learn both, so perhaps that is why for the use of traditional characters.   It still seems odd though.

 

18 hours ago, ChipButty said:

Chinese are not coming no more, so sack that one back to English

Oh pulleeezee,  They should learn Chinese so they can seek their fortune elsewhere, while escaping economic doldrums and  Thai bosses / office environments.  China is nearby and has huge prospects.  Malaysian Chinese control that country's economy and tend to like to speak Chinese.  Hong Kong and Singapore are also heavily Mandarinised.    Have met Thais in Chinese speaking communities, and they do very well.  Learning English, though helpful in the sciences,  won't help them succeed right away.

[ChipButty]

The staff in 7/11 might come in handy for them

[overherebc]

10 hours ago, djayz said:

Very good point, but the vast majority of them are second generation Thai and don't speak a word of Mandarin or Cantonese.

 

I wonder how do you say "I'm fine thank you and how are you?" in a robotic Chinese accent? 

 

All kidding aside, but they haven't mastered a single foreign language yet so whose brilliant idea was it to introduce yet another foreign language?!?! 

 

"I'm fine thank you and how are you?"

I am overherebc, how is your name?

[BestB]

Seeing how well they mastered English can only hope they can do better with Chinese.

 

Saying that it’s funny to read Chinese is needed for biz needs yet English or Japanese appearantly not

[Nice Boyd]

They failed at English, Now Chinese, Monkeys

[White Christmas13]

Good luck with learning all the dialects 

http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/spoken.htm  

[jvs]

A Chinese friend of mine is married to a Thai lady,he sent her to China to learn the language for one and a half year.

She speaks very fluent Chinese now and helps him in his business,all in Chinese.

[Burma Bill]

Chinese tourists are on the decline in LOS but could this be pre-emptive action for the future should LOS ever become an autonomous region of China when the "Silk Road" and "High Speed Rail" projects have been completed?

[hansnl]

12 hours ago, arithai12 said:

Don't look at this with your farang eyes (or ears).

The sounds and tones of the chinese/Mandarin language are much closer to Thai than those of the English language. Also, a significant fraction of Thai people are of chinese origin especially up North.

 

Yes, of course.

However, the international language of trade is English, and definitely not any Chinese language.

China does understand that very well and is trying to raise the knowledge of English.

Thailand should do the same!

[simon43]

I learned to speak conversational Mandarin years ago from a Thai teacher who taught me Mandarin, but using Thai language as the medium of instruction. (Her English skills were lacking).

 

But using Thai as the medium of instruction was beneficial. because it meant that I could write down the spoken Mandarin words using Thai, and therefore was able to fairly accurately indicate the correct tones to use.

 

Had I learnt Mandarin using English as the medium of instruction, I'd have to use Pinyin... Better to go straight from Thai to Mandarin.

[orchidfan]

Recent overseas flight on AirAsia where the cabin attendant serving the meal spoke to the Thai passenger in Thai, next to him, the Chinese passenger in Mandarin and me in perfect English. Quite impressive!

[TKDfella]

2 hours ago, hansnl said:

Yes, of course.

However, the international language of trade is English, and definitely not any Chinese language.

China does understand that very well and is trying to raise the knowledge of English.

Thailand should do the same!

Well, this is not necessarily true. When I was in China the fundamental language pursuit was that Chinese should replace English as the international language. Reason? Chinese is/was spoken by more people than English. The fact that the majority were in China didn't seem to bother them. This is/was on a list of pursuits of which this was no.4. No. 2 was the return of the disputed land(s) in the North and of course Taiwan. No.1 was to be the financial/business etc hub of the world and no.3 was that of scientific research. I cannot remember other items. Of course, whether they can achieve any or all of these is open to debate.

[madusa]

 Of course the Thais wouldn't be speaking Mandarin in a big way. Why? It seems to me the Thais have a built-in reject system for anything foreign including languages.

Governments in many many countries are not in touch with reality. So you can forget what they say or do. When it comes to learning foreign languages they are at lost what to do. Believe me I seen too many cases.

 Those in Tours industry and Hotels probably succeed in learning Mandarin faster because they are in direct contact with Chinese tourists and they have incentive to learn because they could make more money .Telling tourists lies and earning commissions the normal thing to do but this time they do it in Mandarin language instead of in English. See what I mean? It would be easier to cheat a Chinese tourist (from mainland china) than a Farang tourist. The Thais know that.

The rest of the Thais will take a lot longer to learn Mandarin. How many of you speak French after you had studied French in your college or school?

You don't learn foreign languages in school  or language schools. Just visit an English language school anywhere in Bangkok, see if you can find one student who can speak good English. That's all I am asking you to do to see the failure rate.

You have to inter-act with the Chinese to learn to speak well in Mandarin. You need to listen to them talking and also talk to them all the time only then you will improve and speak well.

Best way is to go to China choose a crime that will send you to prison for about 3 to 4 years. Yes, in prison you will learn fast. Free foods and free lessons. It's like a university.

Every single day you are in prison you speak Mandarin. Roll call, you learn how to shout your number in Mandarin. Library time, the warden ask you in Mandarin, "Ni shi wan kan sum merk shu" (what book do you like to read). See you learning fast.