Let’s speak Thai

By SOPAPORN KURZ 
SPECIAL TO THE NATION 
BERLIN

 

Thai teachers from 11 countries in Europe participated in the 9th annual meeting of the Federation of Thai Language and Culture Teachers in Europe which was held recently in Berlin, Germany. /Photo by Sopaporn Kurz

 

A network of teachers living all over Europe discuss the best ways to teach the Thai language and culture to kids of mixed marriages
 

Several hundred thousand Thais are now living in Europe, mostly women with children. While many are Eurasian by birth, keeping them in touch with their mothers’ culture is seen as a vital part of their future and so teaching Thai to these kids has become one of the priorities for many volunteer groups of Thais throughout the continent. One of the organisations at the centre of this effort is the Federation of Thai Language and Culture Teachers in Europe (FTTE).

 

Set up in Lugano, Switzerland in March 2010, the FTTE has developed methods and curricula for teaching the Thai language and culture in existing schools while also supporting new ones. It raises funds to publish the series of Thai course books titled “Sawasdee”, developed by Salee Silapasatham, which are used in many schools throughout Europe and it also promotes such cultural activities as teaching traditional dance, Thai musical instruments and even organises summer camps in Thailand for children from various European countries.

 

Students from “Rak Don Tree Thai” group, from Waldkirsch and Kippenheim, Germany showed off their skills on traditional Thai music instruments at the FTTE Gala Dinner. The group was founded five years ago and also taught language and classical dance to Thai children.

 

As it marked nine years of continuous work, the FTTE held its annual meeting in Berlin from May 31 to June 2 on the topic “The Role of Thai Language (Native Language) abroad”. More than 130 members from 11 countries attended. Besides providing intensive workshops on many education-related topics, it also served as a platform for teachers to share their experiences and exchange ideas, tricks and tips on how to improve teaching Thai back home. 

 

“The nature of teaching Thai as a second language to children varies in Europe,” says Salee, who has been recognised as one of Thailand’s best teachers of English and has also organised workshops throughout Europe for more than a decade. 

 

“In Scandinavian countries, such as Norway and Sweden, the government provides Thai teachers to help ease the integration process for the kids. The Thai teachers give them tuition in all subjects in Thai as well as teaching the local language. These Thai teachers, all native speakers with a bachelor’s degree, are civil servants and receive the same pay as other teachers. 

 

Salee Silapasatham

 

“Elsewhere in Europe, it is a gathering of like-minded people who see the importance of kids being able to speak and have a good command of the Thai language. This has resulted in Thai schools spreading all over the continent. Some receive support from Thailand’s Office of Non-formal and Informal Education while others are entirely organised and managed by themselves.”

 

Sara Fenati of Italy’s Thai–Cervia School was taking part in the conference for a second year. Last year she attended the event in Norway in a private capacity and found it so beneficial that she convinced the school board to send her to this year’s event again on behalf of the school. 

 

Sara Fenati

 

“I met so many inspiring Thai teachers and learned so much. Some of tricks I learned, I was able to adapt to my class and it really works,” says Ferati who was born and spent the first 15 years of her life in Thailand before moving to Italy.

 

Thai-Cervia school has been established for five years and currently has three classes, two teachers and 12 students in total, ranging from five year-olds to teenagers. Sara, 22 and a Eurasian herself, says she never thought of becoming a Thai teacher but saw the importance of having a good command of Thai and grabbed the opportunity when it presented itself. “It’s fun and challenging,” she explains.

 

The challenges of teaching Thai in Italy come from both the private and public fronts, she adds. “We have kids whose mothers never speak Thai to them but expect that after taking a once-a-week class, they will be able to speak Thai. That’s not going to happen,” Fenati points out. 

 

“In some cases the Italian fathers do not support the idea, which makes it even more difficult for children to have a good attitude towards the language and the courage to practice it.

 

Unlike in Scandinavian countries, the lack of government support means they have to pay high rent for the classroom space, which in turn becomes a burden for parents as they have to pay high fees for the class.

 

“But attending these events has made me so proud to be Thai and has given me the courage to continue teaching,” she smiles.

 

Regular members of the FTTE have also seen progress. Unakorn Silpi, a member of FTTE’s Projects and Activities Committee and a mother of two who lives in France, has been coming to the meetings since 2011. “You can see that FTTE has stabilised and became stronger. At the beginning when they just started, all members were new to it and needed some time to learn and adjust to working with each other. Now everyone knows what it is about and their roles, so working together is much smoother. Besides, it is more organised – we already know who will host the event for the next two years. The hosts-to-be can start their preparations well in advance.”

 

Unakorn says she has benefited a lot from the activities. “My daughter attended the FTTE’s Music Instrument summer camp in Belgium for two consecutive years. She loves it and it has inspired her to do more.”

 

Now that the FTTE’s “Basic Thai Language for People Living Abroad” curriculum, which was developed in close consultation with Salee and is primarily for young children, has received endorsement from the Thai Education Ministry, the organisation is working on another major task.

 

“We are creating a curriculum for teaching the Thai language to adults,” explains Supannee Boontook, director of Projects and Activities. “We hope to set a standard of teaching Thai language to foreigners in European countries. Once it’s finished, we will also seek approval from the Ministry of Education in Thailand. This does not mean that we will force people to use our curriculum but we want to have it as a reference that everyone can look up to and adapt to their own uses.”

 

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of FTTE and the annual meeting will be held in Hague, the Netherlands between April 24 and 26 on the theme “Thai Language in the Digital World”.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/lifestyle/30371095

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-06-17

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Easy, either employ Thai teachers or send them to Thailand.

Teaching Thai as a second language? Perhaps as a third for the kids after English,Chinese?

My mixed daughter, 21, speaks/writes English, Thai and Laos (Issan), but she is the only one of her mixed Brit/Thai  friends in the UK who does so.  The others say its not worth their time and energy learning a language they will only use when they go to see their grandparents, who hardly speak to them anyway. They seem to prefer learning a European language or Mandarin, that will help them get a well paying job. I tend to agree with them. 

Edited June 17, 20197 yr by Pilotman

Apart from living in Thailand where else in the world would you need to be able to speak Thai? Some restaurant, I've been in a few Thai restaurants around the world especially in the middle east all the staff have been Philippians fat lot of good that is.

I have seen a few problems with farang/thai kids not speaking either language that good I think because the mother speaks crap Engrish

@ChipButty Baffling the workers at Thai restaurants when I visit home is one of my favourite things to do. Well worth it.

Why bother when Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Latin and others are far more useful.

17 minutes ago, makecoldplayhistory said:

Why bother when Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Latin and others are far more useful.

Latin! Who speaks that anymore. When I lived in Spain my kids were in a class that was teaching Catalina. They also had classes in Spanish , French, and English.

I got them out of the Catalina class. Useless for them as it's only spoke in Spain.

Yeah and of course indoctrinate them to Thainess. No thanks, keep your idiotic culture.

For leuk kreung living abroad and with family ties still in Thailand you can appreciate that this really can turn out to be a problem.  Even if they put in the work to learn Thai language, it's not easy to keep in practise sufficiently well to really keep the grandparents from feeling that they're foreign.  At the end of the day I think it's down to where they see their future as being.

8 hours ago, webfact said:

keeping them in touch with their mothers’ culture is seen as a vital part of their future

Why?

33 minutes ago, Misterwhisper said:

Why?

exactly; why, what future do they have if they learn Thai?  My daughter has no intention of living or working in Thailand, despite being duel Nationality. Her future is outside Thailand and she knows it. I see no future for returning mixed kids coming back here to live or work, why would they?  

“In Scandinavian countries, such as Norway and Sweden, the government provides Thai teachers to help ease the integration process for the kids. The Thai teachers give them tuition in all subjects in Thai as well as teaching the local language. These Thai teachers, all native speakers with a bachelor’s degree, are civil servants and receive the same pay as other teachers.

 

And I'm confident that these Thai people will receive a passport from a particular country in a short period. 

 

I mean it's great to see how they become a part of society which is way different from being an English foreign teacher in Thailand. Even with a teacher's license, there's not much light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Why foreign people who educate their kids are not given more rights in the form of a green card, the right to receive a pension after a certain amount of years,or just the opportunity to work for the government as well, having the chance to open up a bank account in one of those banks especially for Thai teachers. 

 

It's nice to see that Europeans do great things for Thai people, but what do Thai people do for foreigners in Thailand, who pay tax and educate their kids? Why do I sometimes get the feeling that foreigners are a kind of third-class citizens in Thailand?

 

I'm aware that I can leave whenever I want to, but it's almost impossible to take my family with me. 

1 hour ago, Pilotman said:

exactly; why, what future do they have if they learn Thai?  My daughter has no intention of living or working in Thailand, despite being duel Nationality. Her future is outside Thailand and she knows it. I see no future for returning mixed kids coming back here to live or work, why would they?  

 To answer a question with a question. Why not? Having a good education will guarantee you an excellent job in Thailand. 

 

Being able to speak, read, and write in Thai opens many more doors for them.

 

And what's wrong with learning a third, fourth, or even a fifth language?. 

29 minutes ago, Isaanbiker said:

 To answer a question with a question. Why not? Having a good education will guarantee you an excellent job in Thailand. 

 

Being able to speak, read, and write in Thai opens many more doors for them.

 

And what's wrong with learning a third, fourth, or even a fifth language?. 

many answers to those questions.  Why should my daughter, or anyone  mixed, duel nationality, want a lower paid job in a third world country when they can earn twice or three times as much in a similar job in a modern economy.  Why would they try to build a career in a place that has no labour  laws to speak of and dispenses with people based on age, gender, looks and family connections.  Learning Thai opens no doors to anyone outside Thailand worth opening and certainly not for young career minded youngsters. Nothing wrong with learning languages, but there are many more useful ones than Thai. 

Edited June 17, 20197 yr by Pilotman

My mate from the UK lives in Singapore with this Thai wife and their two English-Thai kids. He wants his missus to speak Thai to the kids but she always speaks English. The kids are learning Chinese as a second language. 

 

His idea is that he wants them to have some kind of Thai identity. His missus seems to have turned her back on Thailand and has chosen Chinese as their second language. I guess if me and my missus had kids and were raising them in a 3rd country, I wouldn't be that bothered about teaching them Thai either. It would be mostly for them to retain some of their heritage. 

^{What part's of culture,lying,thieving cheating,keeping face,making merit to be able to carry on with the same activity,give it a miss i reckon.}

this a good idea! but i've read some "incredibile" comments here explaining learning thai is more or less a waste of time! so you live in thailand or travel to thailand on  a regular basis, but you  don't want to learn the local's language and expect them to understand or to speak yours? or you don't want the kids you have with your thai partner to forget about their origins or cultural backgrounds? i can't get it! a mixed child needs to have both parents' cultural, historic and family heritage. anyway, there are excellent thai courses online and they are free of charge

Easy. Best way is don't. Farang who care about their biological children are wise to avoid educating or socializing the children in Thailand. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Pique Dard said:

or you don't want the kids you have with your thai partner to forget about their origins or cultural backgrounds?

Yes, ideal if they forget as much as possible.

 

They should focus on the culture that provides them the best preparation for a modern, competitve, thinking, knowledge-based world. 

6 hours ago, Greenside said:

For leuk kreung living abroad and with family ties still in Thailand you can appreciate that this really can turn out to be a problem.  Even if they put in the work to learn Thai language, it's not easy to keep in practise sufficiently well to really keep the grandparents from feeling that they're foreign.  At the end of the day I think it's down to where they see their future as being.

I think the issue is actually far deeper than language, though. 

 

Thais who develop in better quality countries inevitably have issues, not usually with language, but rather with differences in how they and Thailand Thais reason and communicate in a broader sense. 

 

It is sort of like Thais who speak English in a technical sense yet struggle to be understood because their reasoning is not aligned. 

 

It's culture that is the barrier. A Thai who learns to reason logically and question authority where appropriate and be inquisitive and avoid constant face-giving and face-saving will never understand Thainess 

Edited June 17, 20197 yr by Fex Bluse

5 hours ago, Pilotman said:

many answers to those questions.  Why should my daughter, or anyone  mixed, duel nationality, want a lower paid job in a third world country when they can earn twice or three times as much in a similar job in a modern economy.  Why would they try to build a career in a place that has no labour  laws to speak of and dispenses with people based on age, gender, looks and family connections.  Learning Thai opens no doors to anyone outside Thailand worth opening and certainly not for young career minded youngsters. Nothing wrong with learning languages, but there are many more useful ones than Thai. 

 

  I have two mixed,duel nationality children, who moved with us back to the U.K last year. While in Thailand they attended an International school,that taught them very little Thai. However they can speak good Thai and can read and write to a limited degree. We are hoping in the future  that they will be able to graduate from a good U.K university,with useful degrees. Then should they deside to live in Thailand, they will have far more opportunities, as their education will hopefully be far superior to 98%+ of Thai educated people. To this end, we take at least a holiday of one month, each year in Thailand, where they will receive daily private lessons in the Thai language. The benefits to our way of thinking, is their future job opportunities will not be restricted to only one country/ continent. Regarding language, they do take Chinese lesson, unfortunately not at school, where they are restricted to learning French,a beautiful language, but one that is becoming less relevant in the modern world.

 Having said this, it will be their decision, where they decide to finally live. I just hope it’s not the cold and miserable U.K. As both of their parents are intent on returning to live in Thailand. 

Edited June 17, 20197 yr by nontabury

2 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Yes, ideal if they forget as much as possible.

 

They should focus on the culture that provides them the best preparation for a modern, competitve, thinking, knowledge-based world. 

Indeed. In this day and age it's fully possible to cherry pick the best parts of each culture and create your own set of values instead of buying a wholesale package. From Thais .. nothing from the current culture. It's just inferior with the worst parts of other cultures quickly integrated into it, like a shit magnet. The extended family that existed before was something I liked. Destroyed by urbanization and social media. 

Our two boys were born and raised in the USA.  My wife never spoke Thai to them.  They do know to say "eat rice" and "eat sh!t". 

3 hours ago, Fex Bluse said:

Easy. Best way is don't. Farang who care about their biological children are wise to avoid educating or socializing the children in Thailand. 

 

 

Sad, but so true.

 

7 hours ago, Pilotman said:

many answers to those questions.  Why should my daughter, or anyone  mixed, duel nationality, want a lower paid job in a third world country when they can earn twice or three times as much in a similar job in a modern economy.  Why would they try to build a career in a place that has no labour  laws to speak of and dispenses with people based on age, gender, looks and family connections.  Learning Thai opens no doors to anyone outside Thailand worth opening and certainly not for young career minded youngsters. Nothing wrong with learning languages, but there are many more useful ones than Thai. 

There are many reasons for learning languages besides one's career prospects and money-earning potential. Especially if one is a child of mixed national heritage, where one might like to have an insight into both one's parents cultures and national backgrounds, which only being bi-lingual can provide. My daughter can speak Thai and English fluently, but not for reasons of money or career. She lives in UK and went to secondary school and university there, but became fluent in Thai growing up in Thailand. It is a great advantage for her to be able to travel back to Thailand whenever she wants and speak/write/understand her mother's language, unlike so many luk kreung who were denied this possibility by narrow thinking that Thai is somehow not a "useful" language. If she wanted to work there, she potentially could, but this is not the reason why being bi-lingual is a boon to her. It literally opens one's mind to a wider world, than narrow nationalistic thinking about language allows.

 

And for your information, the term "third world country" is totally out-dated and irrelevant term in the present day. It reflects more on your prejudices than anything.

11 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Yeah and of course indoctrinate them to Thainess. No thanks, keep your idiotic culture.

Where is a moderator?
I was banned by a moderator to post truth about Thailand and wondered what attracted  farangs to this land. I said it was full of smogs, air and beaches are dirty, roads and sois are over flowing with garbage, hence, stinky, rule by an authoritarian government but still the flow of farangs to live in this place never stops.  I could see the only positive thing is the availability of cheap sex and 20 years younger women  for marriage to pot belly, bald old farangs

9 hours ago, Pilotman said:

many answers to those questions.  Why should my daughter, or anyone  mixed, duel nationality, want a lower paid job in a third world country when they can earn twice or three times as much in a similar job in a modern economy.  Why would they try to build a career in a place that has no labour  laws to speak of and dispenses with people based on age, gender, looks and family connections.  Learning Thai opens no doors to anyone outside Thailand worth opening and certainly not for young career minded youngsters. Nothing wrong with learning languages, but there are many more useful ones than Thai. 

 

Not every job here is is badly paid and especially if you do your own thing there's plenty of money to be earned if you have dual nationality and language between a first and "third world" country. Call it geographical arbitrage if you want, but a trustable UK(US?) citizen that has all rights of a Thai and speaks their language will be highly valued in professions like law, medicine, engineering and especially Real Estate.

 

Sino-Thais are a good example and that is everywhere the case be it Russian-Germans, Chinese-Americans..., it's an edge i would not allow my children to give up in an age where they can't fully judge any of this yet.

 

No one wants your daugther to work in a shitty thai jobs, she can however tell other thais what to do as a managing partner of a Thai subsidery.

Edited June 17, 20197 yr by ThomasThBKK

11 hours ago, DrTuner said:

Indeed. In this day and age it's fully possible to cherry pick the best parts of each culture and create your own set of values instead of buying a wholesale package. From Thais .. nothing from the current culture. It's just inferior with the worst parts of other cultures quickly integrated into it, like a shit magnet. The extended family that existed before was something I liked. Destroyed by urbanization and social media. 

I agree with you, and, it's really not a dig at the people but the culture. I believe that people, irrespective of their nationality or "race", generally have similar capacity for doing good.

 

I've said it many, many times across the forums that I suspect Thais to be no different in this regard. I do, however, strongly believe Thai culture keeps the country in the Dark Ages. It is a culture that has not evolved to tackle modern life. It may have been suitable a long time ago but it is probably not in today's world. Indeed, it looks embarrassingly out of place and can be respected really only within Thailand by Thais. No other population can really take it seriously.

 

Much of Thai culture belongs in a museum of archaeology. 

21 hours ago, Pilotman said:

many answers to those questions.  Why should my daughter, or anyone  mixed, duel nationality, want a lower paid job in a third world country when they can earn twice or three times as much in a similar job in a modern economy.  Why would they try to build a career in a place that has no labour  laws to speak of and dispenses with people based on age, gender, looks and family connections.  Learning Thai opens no doors to anyone outside Thailand worth opening and certainly not for young career minded youngsters. Nothing wrong with learning languages, but there are many more useful ones than Thai. 

You are not taking into account the difference in living costs between countries. I would absolutely not be able to live in Sydney on a basic teachers salary (even in a double income family it would not be fun). After tax our family income puts use in the top 4% of Australian workers in Australia. Paying 40% tax to the government turns my stomach, adding onto that the insane cost of rent, food and electricity. Also, If you think discrimination, and neoptism is limited to non-western countries, think again.  

 

Yeah, why would ANYONE want to live in Thailand.