My kid just got the lowest mark possible for English in his school report

[BritManToo]

1 out of 5 for English, his poorest result in his yearly grades.

Which is a bit surprising as he's a native English speaker, English Birth Certificate, English passport, and refuses to use any language but English at home, choosing to only watch TV in English.

[darksidedog]

Have you checked it? It could be that the teacher is making the mistakes. Happened with my son a few years back. He wasn't getting 10 out of 10 but when I checked it his answers were fine. The teacher was the one who couldn't spell properly.

Edit: Before anyone asks, Yes, I pulled my kid from the school.

[BritManToo]

Just now, darksidedog said:

Have you checked it? It could be that the teacher is making the mistakes. Happened with my son a few years back. He wasn't getting 10 out of 10 but when I checked it his answers were fine. The teacher was the one who couldn't spell properly.

 

He's only 7, I'm not worried, I'm just laughing at the competence of Thai 'English' teachers.

Had the same problems with my Thai daughter at high school, the teachers marked her down for her ability as a native English speaker.

[Dmaxdan]

I have a friend here who has had a similar problem with his son. Constantly marked near the bottom of his class for English. The boy is about 11 years old, was born here and has never traveled outside of Thailand, yet he speaks English fluently, to the point that he even has a south coast British accent. His father has concluded that the low marks are based purely on jealousy, or/and complete ignorance. 

 

 

 

 

[sanemax]

Just now, Dmaxdan said:

I have a friend here who has had a similar problem with his son. Constantly marked near the bottom of his class for English. The boy is about 11 years old, was born here and has never traveled outside of Thailand, yet he speaks English fluently, to the point that he even has a south coast British accent. His father has concluded that the low marks are based purely on jealousy, or/and complete ignorance. 

 

Maybe he pronounces "Get how" incorrectly by calling it a *Guest house* ?

[CGW]

33 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Which is a bit surprising as he's a native English speaker, English Birth Certificate, English passport, and refuses to use any language but English at home, choosing to only watch TV in English.

"Teacher" probably doesn't understand "proper" English - or jealous? ???? 

[from the home of CC]

 I once helped out at a village school when I lived down south years ago, they wanted a native speaker to run the English class. The problem was that the learning material was full of blatant errors. Since the teachers weren't properly qualified they didn't realize this and used the erroneous material to grade papers. 

[Puchaiyank]

How many times has he spoken up and corrected his English teacher's bad English?

[Vacuum]

7 minutes ago, CGW said:

"Teacher" probably doesn't understand "proper" English - or jealous? ???? 

Or didn't receive the brown envelope.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

59 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

1 out of 5 for English, his poorest result in his yearly grades.

 

You never really answered the question of whether you had checked any of your son's graded English class tests/assignments to see whether the answers he provided really were wrong or not???

 

 

[soalbundy]

28 minutes ago, Puchaiyank said:

How many times has he spoken up and corrected his English teacher's bad English?

oooops, but hasn't adversely affected my sons (11) marks, his teacher complains that his reading abilities in English are better than those of his Thai reading so I have stopped reading English with him and have started reading Thai with him, he hates it, Thai, he says, is too complicated. Tough luck boy, get better at it.

[DavisH]

4 hours ago, soalbundy said:

oooops, but hasn't adversely affected my sons (11) marks, his teacher complains that his reading abilities in English are better than those of his Thai reading so I have stopped reading English with him and have started reading Thai with him, he hates it, Thai, he says, is too complicated. Tough luck boy, get better at it.

My son is the same. He prefers studying the English subjects (Math/Sci/Engish language) more than the Thai ones. Thai subjects basically involve regurgitating what is in the book and guessing the correct answer. He doesn't like that. I think he doesn't like their teaching style as well - and that includes many other students, not just him. Thai teachers don't like answering questions, for one thing. The downer s that I will probably have to pay through the nose for him to go to an International program in university. Possibly overseas after that. 

[batata]

you worry about a Thai teaching English given the lowest mark to your kid... would waste 5 seconds thinking about it

[impulse]

I don't know how it is in Thailand, but a neighbor in China asked me if I could help her son in English class.  I perused the material and some sample questions (with answers) and told her that my help would be useless- in fact, counterproductive.  He doesn't need my help.  He needs better teaching materials.  Sooooo many errors.

 

[canuckamuck]

 Yeah, that's the problem, with my kids too. They know how to speak English correctly. So they need to learn it wrong for school. Like a third language.

[robint]

I used to help out at my local school in Isaan.  The thai teacher there was a very nice lady well educated, married to the local police Lt also mild mannered and would drink some philippine Tanduay brandy, nicer than Sangthip.  Everything was going fine and I did saturday morning english club for them. the kids all turned up enthusiastically

 

It all went sour when her husband turned up on friday evening looking very embarrassed with his very apologetic wife. She explained to me that I should no longer come to school. Another school nearby had complained to the HO in Khorat that her school ws getting unfair help to succeed.  If I was caught in the school by one of their senior inspectors, i could be locked up and deported with a heavy fine.

 

Never underestimate thai jealousy

[soalbundy]

11 hours ago, DavisH said:

My son is the same. He prefers studying the English subjects (Math/Sci/Engish language) more than the Thai ones. Thai subjects basically involve regurgitating what is in the book and guessing the correct answer. He doesn't like that. I think he doesn't like their teaching style as well - and that includes many other students, not just him. Thai teachers don't like answering questions, for one thing. The downer s that I will probably have to pay through the nose for him to go to an International program in university. Possibly overseas after that. 

If he is going to spend his adult life here it is better that he adapts to the Thai system. I think that the purpose of Thai universities is more about collecting contacts for one's professional life than extreme learning, the equivalent of the British 'old school ties', it's not what you know but who you know.

At a German firm that I worked for the Thai 'sister firm' sent over one of their top young engineers to the German office to gain experience, the German engineers found him to have remarkable holes in his knowledge but that was all brushed aside because his father went to the same university as the owner of the Thai firm so he was coached along while he spent most of his time playing games on the internet. 

[luckyluke]

There is often a big difference between an academic and a social language. 

 

With the English I learned at school, I wasn't (still aren't) able to understand  the English spoken by some native British. 

 

 

[soalbundy]

32 minutes ago, robint said:

I used to help out at my local school in Isaan.  The thai teacher there was a very nice lady well educated, married to the local police Lt also mild mannered and would drink some philippine Tanduay brandy, nicer than Sangthip.  Everything was going fine and I did saturday morning english club for them. the kids all turned up enthusiastically

 

It all went sour when her husband turned up on friday evening looking very embarrassed with his very apologetic wife. She explained to me that I should no longer come to school. Another school nearby had complained to the HO in Khorat that her school ws getting unfair help to succeed.  If I was caught in the school by one of their senior inspectors, i could be locked up and deported with a heavy fine.

 

Never underestimate thai jealousy

Yes it is all about money and prestige. The schools hold yearly competitions in the English language where they send their best English speaking pupils to compete against each other, the winning school gets government grants and the teachers don't lose out either. My son has always been sent to these competitions and has won each year, his next school of higher education where both of my stepdaughters attended are licking all ten fingers at the chance of getting him for this reason, they know him personally through my stepdaughters and sweet talk him about attending there which he will do anyway. Actually the school is very good, I used to check my daughters homework and was quite surprised at the high standard (and discipline) of the education, especially in maths, where despite my polytechnical education the 17 year olds lost me.

[soalbundy]

3 minutes ago, luckyluke said:

There is often a big difference between an academic and a social language. 

 

With the English I learned at school, I wasn't (still aren't) able to understand  the English spoken by some native British. 

 

 

At my school in England we had a French girl in my class who always came bottom of the class in the French language exams.

As for not understanding some native English speakers, that isn't unusual, some Brits, especially the younger ones aren't capable of stringing two sentences together in a logical way which added to regional accents can make them difficult to understand. I once met an English teacher from Birmingham in Bangkok and even I could barely understand him, he had a degree in English literature, God help us.

[Damrongsak]

I guess I lucked out.  We had two half-Thai kids in the USA and my wife never spoke Thai with them.  Shame that they don't speak Thai, but whatever. They could say "eat rice" and "eat crap" in Thai.  Good enough. 

[Aspaltso]

I read in a previous Thai visa post about 6 months ago that a study was done(I can't remember who did it) but anyways; Thai English teachers have the English skill ability of middle school students in western Countries. I can echo that from my experience teaching at Thai schools. I wouldn't worry too much about your sons English marks.

[Damrongsak]

1 minute ago, soalbundy said:

At my school in England we had a French girl in my class who always came bottom of the class in the French language exams.

As for not understanding some native English speakers, that isn't unusual, some Brits, especially the younger ones aren't capable of stringing two sentences together in a logical way which added to regional accents can make them difficult to understand. I once met an English teacher from Birmingham in Bangkok and even I could barely understand him, he had a degree in English literature, God help us.

I heard a talk by an Englishman, author of the Redwall Mysteries, in a library in the USA. Brian Jacques.  He talked about traveling about the UK and how he couldn't understand people from one village to another.  Fascinating talk.

[Curt1591]

Many English tests have little to do with the spoken word. There are thousands of native English speakers that can't pass English tests.

[luckyluke]

It would be interesting to know on what the bad results are based. 

 

If it is on speaking/understanding, there is certainly a communication problem between the teacher and the pupil. 

 

If it is on writing there may be a greater chance it is the pupil who is wrong. 

[Orton Rd]

5 minutes ago, Curt1591 said:

Many English tests have little to do with the spoken word. There are thousands of native English speakers that can't pass English tests.

Biggest mistake here is the obsession with grammar, puts the kids right off as it's hard and boring. Mrs often asks me obscure questions on English grammar, never even heard of half of it! They need to learn vocabulary and actually speak, work books on grammar seems to be what most classes consist of.

[luckyluke]

I always put, when possible, English subtitles, when I watch English spoken movies. 

 

The only time I don't need it, is for the nature programs spoken in by Sir David Attenborough. 

[Aforek]

50 minutes ago, soalbundy said:

At my school in England we had a French girl in my class who always came bottom of the class in the French language exams.

 

I am very surprised of this! How is it possible ? if the exam and questions were normal, she should have been the first of her class; in my classroom, in France, there was an American guy ( brillant guy !) who got  19.5/20 in English (normal, for me ); the teacher just said she couldn't give him 20/20 , just because it couldn't be done 

[Scott]

It's a very good idea to check with the school and find out specifically what resulted in the low score.   There are a lot of possibilities, and not all of them may relate to his academic performance.   Perhaps he is acting up in class, not doing assigned work and other things.   His teacher may be targeting him for some reason, so as a parent you owe it to your child to make sure he is headed in the right direction.  

 

[kingstonkid]

Had a anuban student i tutored.  The private school through everything they could to make her lose confidence.  Lol eventually the parent was asked if daughter could not learn anymore because she was disrupting the class by correcting the teachers english