Teachers-to-be can graduate with poor English, Thai panel decides

[BTB1977]

I was introduced to my nieces English teacher awhile back. I was shocked that He could not have a basic conversation with me. T.I.T

[nickstav]

There are so many other things, higher up on the ladder than speaking English, that will keep most of Thailand from developing into a global nation.

[Borzandy]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Teachers-to-be can graduate with poor English, panel decides

They don't care about poor English. Even when they speak Thai to each other, they have to repeat and repeat to be understood.

[elliss]

9 minutes ago, nickstav said:

There are so many other things, higher up on the ladder than speaking English,

             Speaking Chinese ..

[mok199]

2 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

Well, who speaks English these days anyhow? Good for them to see the advantages of sticking with an obscure language that no other country speaks. It gives the kids more time for parade practice anyhow.

HAHAHH.... Its all ''emotion stickers'' now....

[Chippy151]

1 hour ago, robblok said:

Yes the expats are out in anger, i see this as good too why hold back good math teachers if they are bad at languages. I bet most expats here dont speak much Thai. 

 

Yes English teachers should have good English command but others don't need it. I did not need English language in my program to graduate for an accounting tax education. Why should Thai teachers. 

It would be nice if they could set an example to their students. Teach the students that if you learn English you can have a conversation with someone who isn't Thai. That alone must be worth something.

Also, I believe that teachers should encourage their students to be interested in the outside world. 

But again, from my experience, good luck with that.

[Mavideol]

most of the countries with dictatorship or military junta governments don't want their people to have good education, that way avoid getting challenged.....

 

[Chippy151]

2 hours ago, SoilSpoil said:

Good news for my kids, who are fluent in both languages. Their future job market value stays guaranteed.

Good point.

But still not enough of a reason to allow my daughter to go to school here.

I'm sure she will enjoy her holidays here every couple of years though.

[SoilSpoil]

2 minutes ago, Chippy151 said:

Good point.

But still not enough of a reason to allow my daughter to go to school here.

I'm sure she will enjoy her holidays here every couple of years though.

As we live here, we gotta go with the flow. We keep them home a lot and do a lot of homeschooling though.

[Chippy151]

3 minutes ago, SoilSpoil said:

As we live here, we gotta go with the flow. We keep them home a lot and do a lot of homeschooling though.

Unless someone has a massive salary here, homeschooling is the way to go. 

[Teddy3943]

Luckily these teachers to be can't fully comprehend all the replies of this topic...

[Nice Boyd]

Keep em Stupid for the Low paid jobs , so companies can hire them for pennies, So the Corrupt govt can make money...

[thaichiro]

Like most things in Thailand, it comes down to money. If teachers were paid more, instead of the over inflated salaries of worthless military officers and other publicly paid parasites, you would attract higher level people into the profession. As it stands, when teachers need lo take loans to get through the month, you’re not going to get the best.

[mickymouse1]

There is no need whatsoever to have any English language skills to qualify as a Teacher in a non English speaking Nation.

Teachers in the UK are not obliged to have any knowledge of German or French etc.

 

[Srikcir]

1 hour ago, robblok said:

I know first hand of people who wanted to become an English teacher they had a special education with loads of English.

The survival and sustainable growth of Thailand's economy is dependent on international interaction, whether it be with foreign tourism, trade, transportation or services. English is the current international language.

For a nation that has grown tourism (including related transportation and services) to 25% of total GDP and exports to 65% of total GDP, remaining a closed linguistic society defunct in English will damage the country in the long term. Large and medium size Thai companies are expanding into ASEAN and Pacific Rim nations - having acuity in English might ease commercial entry. If Thailand becomes a member of TPP it will be trading also with Western Hemisphere nations where English is largely a second language.

 

Thailand 4.0 is directed towards transitioning Thailand from a domestic economy to global economy. The withdrawal of English proficiency works against that program. If Thailand wants to remain a village in the global economic scale - fine. It will never grow beyond a developing nation, less likely to escape the the middle-income trap and likely contract to an economic society of something less.

[StayinThailand2much]

3 hours ago, Chippy151 said:

When my wife was doing her English  test to become a teacher, almoat all of her classmates copied the 2 or 3 who knew some English.

That applies to all subjects here. The longer I live in Thailand, the more I see meaning in what the Khmer Rouge did (minus the killings, of course). Send all the lazy students onto the rice fields; at least they can do something useful there. ????

[puukao]

In a few years, I've met maybe two Thais would can speak English well enough to survive back in farangland.  I have ZERO problem with them never studying English.   

 

1.  Get smarter.  In your own language, GREAT!!!  

2.  Apply this skill to make money in your own country.  Great.  

3.  If you are happy, stop and enjoy.  Have a family, travel, whatever, who cares.

 

Plan B

 

1.  Not enough money.  OK, study English.  Learn English.  Figure out how to speak, write, and read English.

2.  Too smart for school....you are the smartest kid in the room?  OK, learn English, study English, figure out how to understand English.

 

If you are a teacher and complaining about your job, money, etc.... well, you better start to understand all these letters i'm putting together here.  LOL

 

[robblok]

6 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

The survival and sustainable growth of Thailand's economy is dependent on international interaction, whether it be with foreign tourism, trade, transportation or services. English is the current international language.

For a nation that has grown tourism (including related transportation and services) to 25% of total GDP and exports to 65% of total GDP, remaining a closed linguistic society defunct in English will damage the country in the long term. Large and medium size Thai companies are expanding into ASEAN and Pacific Rim nations - having acuity in English might ease commercial entry. If Thailand becomes a member of TPP it will be trading also with Western Hemisphere nations where English is largely a second language.

 

Thailand 4.0 is directed towards transitioning Thailand from a domestic economy to global economy. The withdrawal of English proficiency works against that program. If Thailand wants to remain a village in the global economic scale - fine. It will never grow beyond a developing nation, less likely to escape the the middle-income trap and likely contract to an economic society of something less.

I did not say English was not important, i said its not important for teachers who specialize in other subjects. Math, accounting, PE, History. Its the same in my country people all get a basic education in English but higher levels are not mandatory for those that study other fields. For people who do study English or educations that need English a higher level is mandatory.

That is exactly the same that they are doing here for the teachers. 

 

But if teachers are teaching English they should have a suitable level of English seems logical to me. 

 

Mainly its foreigners here who have sour grapes as they don't want to learn Thai even though they live here and expect people to speak English. Good luck with that.

 

Of course people who work in tourism should have better command of English, an ex of mine was a tourguide she was required to get a higher grade for English if she wanted a license that covered foreign tourists too. So they do differentiate here. A lot of trade is done with China so Chinese is useful too. Just up to the people who are in selling stuff to update their knowledge.

[elephant45]

Good, it will stay cheap to live here. What amazes me is when I go to a hospital and a supposed Doctor cannot speak hardly any English even at at a claimed major international hospital. I wonder what the failure rate at CMU Medical school is? Maybe zero? You pay, you pass.

[jackdd]

25 minutes ago, mickymouse1 said:

There is no need whatsoever to have any English language skills to qualify as a Teacher in a non English speaking Nation.

Teachers in the UK are not obliged to have any knowledge of German or French etc.

You are comparing apples with oranges.

English is the world language, if you want to educate yourself most information will be in English. Without a proper level of English knowledge you just can't do this.

If you study anything at a German university it is usually a necessity to be able to understand English (anything technical or scientific 100%). The course itself might be in German, but you should not be surprised if you get handed a 50 page research paper in English and nobody will ask you if you are able to understand this, it is just expected.

If somebody only teaches Thai this might not be required, but for most other classes English is just required if you want to study and later teach it properly.

[GLewis]

Wear uniforms and dont think just follow. Keeping the junta happy. Makes it much easier to stay in power. As evidenced by most people polled view Prayuth as the most suitable pm.   Keep them stupid should be the countries slogan..

[HalfLight]

So no change there then.

 

If a student cannot get a good grasp of spoken English, then their ability to master any other of the STEM subjects must be in doubt. What Thailand will continue to have is hordes of uneducated University students being churned out because the teachers are uneducated.

 

Still, no matter, Thais are special.

 

 

[holy cow cm]

22 minutes ago, tomazbodner said:

Maybe true. But wouldn't you want a teacher who is actually capable of learning himself to teach your kids?

Not the point here. We are not talking about English teachers on the whole. 

[HalfLight]

2 minutes ago, GLewis said:

Wear uniforms and dont think just follow. Keeping the junta happy. Makes it much easier to stay in power. As evidenced by most people polled view Prayuth as the most suitable pm.   Keep them stupid should be the countries slogan..

'Keep them stupid, keep them uneducated has been the country's motto for decades. But many Thais are starting to wake up to the fact that a decent wage is more important than the myth that a demi-God is looking after them. It'll take another 10 years, a financial collapse and everyone in ASEAN whizzing right past them before they'll do anything about it.

 

What they (the folk that run Thailand for their own benefit) don't want is educated people. Educated people have minds of their own and won't believe some army drone telling them they have to keep being stupid and that they should be happy with what they've got.

 

 

 

[chippendale]

46 minutes ago, mickymouse1 said:

There is no need whatsoever to have any English language skills to qualify as a Teacher in a non English speaking Nation.

Teachers in the UK are not obliged to have any knowledge of German or French etc.

 

Are you one of those Englishmen who doesn't understand a single foreign language?

 

English is the world's lingua franca. Any teacher ought to be proficient in it, as most books, research papers and teaching materials are published in English. The majority of Thai students don't understand English and they will struggle when they travel anywhere outside Thailand or try to find a decent job. Globalisation will turn them into uneducated servants.

[Grusa]

As a native English speaker, I was required to learn French and one other language, at school, and a foreign language was obligatory to enter further education. I was given the choice of Latin or Russian - I took Russian. 

 

The French has been extremely useful to me throughout my life, the Russian I never had any opportunity to use until I came here, where it would be almost as useful as Thai, but I can no longer string a meaningful sentence together...not that I was ever very good at it anyway. 

[robsamui]

1 hour ago, Chippy151 said:

It would be nice if they could set an example to their students. Teach the students that if you learn English you can have a conversation with someone who isn't Thai. That alone must be worth something.

Also, I believe that teachers should encourage their students to be interested in the outside world. 

But again, from my experience, good luck with that.

WHAT! Administratively Thailand has spent the last several hundred years NOT wanting to have conversations with people who were not Thai, and discouraging their nation from being interested in the world outside. Good luck needed, indeed!

[hotchilli]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

A STRONG grasp of the English language will not be required of teacher-education graduates, the committee in charge of preparing a teacher qualifications framework has decided.

So carry on as normal then...

Expect another generation of illiterate children who's only grasp of the language is:

I'm fine thank you, and you?

[Baerboxer]

5 hours ago, canuckamuck said:

Well, who speaks English these days anyhow? Good for them to see the advantages of sticking with an obscure language that no other country speaks. It gives the kids more time for parade practice anyhow.

 

Ah, you forget something important old chum. In the future, Thai is set to replace English as the world's lingua franca.

 

The omnipotent all-knowing one said so! ????

[ChipButty]

Teach them the Highway Code first