Bilingual schooling planned to boost English proficiency

[Gashead]

I pay around 50K a year for my 6 year old to have english, math, science taught in english by a non-asian teacher.  It started off well as the teacher was english with a teaching background.  Inevitably the school p1ssed him off and he left (along with another english guy).  They were replaced by Russians...... Their english is terrible and I am constantly correcting bad pronunciation.  I will be pulling him out next year and putting him back in the main stream.  If this is the standard I get a paying at a good school, I can only imagine what government schools with limited budgets will get.

[CosmicSurfer]

10 hours ago, Orton Rd said:

 

Pretty sure I read about 4 years ago the govt did a survey of all Thais teaching English and found only a handful were actually fluent in it, many cannot actually speak it at all. Just a guess but that might be a bit of the problem.

As an x-English teacher in Bangkok, I can assure you that MOST Thai English Teachers can NOT speak English very well... But They do know their Grammar rules... They bring in the native speakers to handle Conversation!!

CS

Edited November 9, 2019 by CosmicSurfer

[Benmart]

Seemingly, all the talk about improvement is in a foreign language that few can understand. The language is called "Hot air".

[lostmebike]

 

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

“We have already prepared the budget to support the programme through to 2021,

 ...  and one wonders will happen to all that extra 'budget'. New cars, brown envelopes and kiks aplenty. 

 

 

 

 

And here, we have finally have it ... Thailand's Archilles heel - 'management'.

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

but it needed, among other improvements, better education management.

[Pilotman]

13 hours ago, Momofarang said:

On the Subcontinent obviously, there there are as many English speakers as in the rest of the World.

Yes, but most are not native speakers and  not a lot of them qualified to teach.  They will end up just as badly off as they are now.  They could easily remove the stupid age restrictions on teachers, so that the many retired native speakers who live here can teach.  As usual here, it's all talk, smoke and mirrors.  

[Cadbury]

13 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan said on Friday that a bilingual curriculum – in Thai and English – would be in place from kindergarten up at more than 2,000 district schools starting in academic year 2020.

These little kindi tadpoles are going to be busy. Not only will they have a new curriculum for learning computer language and to write computer programmes but they will now have a Thai and English bilingual language curriculum to study up on as well. Good luck kids, the excellence of your teachers will see you through.

https://www.thaipbsworld.com/education-ministry-to-push-for-coding-as-third-language-for-thai-students/

[Pilotman]

58 minutes ago, Gashead said:

I pay around 50K a year for my 6 year old to have english, math, science taught in english by a non-asian teacher.  It started off well as the teacher was english with a teaching background.  Inevitably the school p1ssed him off and he left (along with another english guy).  They were replaced by Russians...... Their english is terrible and I am constantly correcting bad pronunciation.  I will be pulling him out next year and putting him back in the main stream.  If this is the standard I get a paying at a good school, I can only imagine what government schools with limited budgets will get.

This is a real problem that the Thais have to tackle, none native speakers, who think they can teach English when they can barely speak the language themselves.  Its a joke. No doubt to meet this new 'aspiration' they will employ hundreds of these so called teachers of English, so the kids will be no better off. 

[Number 6]

If they can get trained and degreed Filipino teachers that would cover the body count but in in my six years of teaching I've only ran into about 3-4 decent teachers in mathayom. I think they are suited best for pratom personally. In my experience they are often very poor subject teachers.

 

I think Scandanavians could be lumped in with what are now NES but I would not consider South Africans. Still NNES. There are some very clever Indians. Many women i tnink could be very enticed to comebto  Thailand and teach. Also think each teacher create a pronunciation video to check speech. All speakers NES included.

 

 

Top salaries in 99% of public schools is 43k pm no bonus.

 

Offering say 37.5 tax free with good insurance from schools. Then the government paying stipend direct to teacher for housing, transport @ 12.5k. 50k would attract many westerners.

 

Post graduate course teaching and education. Allow outside university in Singapore or Hong Kong to develop and run it.

 

Very inexpensive and simple method to renew license.

 

One standard 12 month holidays. Clear cut paid breaks and PD downtime.

 

Allow sabbatical for the cream of teachers to go to top 5 universities and collaborate on Education issues with Thai counterparts.

 

Allowing foreigners to form their own department within the school for autonomy with foreign HoD and one Thai admin.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Number 6

[newnative]

  Hopefully, it will be a start towards working on improving the dismal ranking Thailand has.  I'd like to see more broadcast shows with English subtitles--and vica versa.  I noticed in the article that the program is only funded through 2021--not a good sign if you are planning on starting the students at kindergarten and having them go through high school with the program.  

[Cadbury]

A year or so ago I kept company with a female English teacher at a vocational school. She spoke good English except for a few common pronunciation errors.

She was telling me the story of how her school director got rid of the qualified foreign English teachers so she could replace them with Filipino teachers. Reason being that she personally received a healthy commission from the employment agency for new Filipino appointees. 

Someone pointed out that the imported Filipino English teachers are the rejects from the call centres applicants.

Corruption and greed is top priority and is killing the education system. 

[kwonitoy]

1 hour ago, Gashead said:

I pay around 50K a year for my 6 year old to have english, math, science taught in english by a non-asian teacher.  It started off well as the teacher was english with a teaching background.  Inevitably the school p1ssed him off and he left (along with another english guy).  They were replaced by Russians...... Their english is terrible and I am constantly correcting bad pronunciation.  I will be pulling him out next year and putting him back in the main stream.  If this is the standard I get a paying at a good school, I can only imagine what government schools with limited budgets will get.

I'm at about 80K per year for an 8 year old.

Two teachers per class, one thai one native english speaker.

Previous teacher's were mostly young americans doing a year or two

Now being slowly replace by Filipino ladies, three so far. One I talked to spoke very good english, the other two were clueless.

End of the school year we're back to my home country

[Number 6]

12 hours ago, Slip said:

I am suggesting that as the country is already awash with Filipino teachers it could be achieved with a little extra investment.

 

I agree entirely that the chances of such a plan existing are less than high.

EDIT: And apologies cmarshall.  I had not specifically mentioned that example, which was kind of central to my point.

 

Looking on ajarn dot com you'll see literally hundreds of Filipinos looking for work as teachers. Most, judging by appearance I would not hire. Pretty much all the westerners I would not hire.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Number 6

[nickstav]

Several years ago my girlfriend took the English classes at the YMCA in Chiang Mai (which is rated one of the best in Chiang Mai). The first few modules were taught by "English speaking" Thais, before being taught by Farangs in later modules. She would show me her workbook and what the teacher was having them do. I was always telling her "this is wrong, this is not how we speak or write" ( one of my university degrees is in English literature). She mentioned this to the teacher, who told her don't listen to him and don't have him teach you anything. Huh?

[bananafish]

14 hours ago, taichiplanet said:

too late, better off teaching Chinese or Hindi,

Yea that's a great idea, that way they'll speak either Chinese or Hindi, and still have to learn English to fulfil the point of this initiative. 

[overherebc]

Revolutionary idea. !!

Give the kids books to read in english and let them ask the teacher questions, in english, about the words and phrases they don't understand.

Yes, I know, I know, they are not allowed to ask questions.

[miamiman123]

This was the plan in 2004.

what happened? EP schools that hire English teachers to teach are not doing their job. 

Many classes are allowed to play games during class. I often asked why the games were part of learning. Nonsense. 
This is why M1 students did not understand basic subject principles, as they were promoted from P6. 
The Filipino teachers are waiting to fill these vacant needed positions! 

Edited November 9, 2019 by miamiman123
Spelling

[overherebc]

7 minutes ago, miamiman123 said:

This was the plan in 2004.

what happened? EP schools that hire English teachers to teach are not doing their job. 

Many classes are allowed to play games during class. I often asked why the games were part of learning. Nonsense. 
This is why M1 students did not understand basic subject principles, as they were promoted from P6. 
The Filipino teachers are waiting to fill these vacant needed positions! 

Playing games is good for the teacher. It means they don't have to think too much or work at actually teaching. It also helps to pass the time for the teacher.

[DrTuner]

Bilinguals are useless. Teachers are either Thai or flippers. The result is sub par English. Both of my daughters had to spend a year getting their language skills to the level needed in a true international school after the primary in one of them.

Edited November 9, 2019 by DrTuner

[Saltire]

Great idea, but I agree the English proficiency of teachers is key. I live near my village high school and they have 5 or 6 'English' teachers. All levels get English lessons. I have spoken to them all over the years and none can hold a basic conversation with me in English. Many kids walk past my house on the way to school in the morning and afternoons and most say 'hello', but I gave up engaging them with a 'how are you', or a basic 'what is our name' as it was always met with an embarrassed laugh or a blank stare.

 

It annoys me every day when I think if they would only be more relaxed about volunteering, that I may be able to help them even a little, but it's a no-go with current visa/work permit restrictions.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Saltire

[Creasy]

Another knee jerk reaction from the ‘government ‘ when the horse has already bolted.

[donnacha]

The great danger is not that Thais cannot speak English, but that they do not realize how bad their English is.

As a native speaker surrounded by Thais running various small businesses, I am often asked for help in coming up with a brand name, slogan, or simple content that will appeal to an English-speaking audience. I write for a living, went to a fancy university and, of course, people see me reading all the time, so, they tend to conclude that I am literate in my own language. What blows my mind, however, is how often my suggestions are then later second-guessed by other Thais who, literally, cannot string a sentence together in English.

One example. My girlfriend's sister wanted to launch a brand of cute clothes for young children, nostalgic stuff such as sailor suits and butterfly nets for boys, frilly dresses and hats with ribbons for girls. It turns out that many Thais will dress their kids up in these specifically to take photos to post on Facebook and Instagram. The clothes are then packed away and never worn again. My girl's sister, already had a brandname, but wanted a slogan, so, I spent a while pondering something that would convey this idea of capturing that golden moment, while being short enough to fit on a clothes label.

I came up with the slogan "You are Only a Child Once", and I was pretty pleased with it. Job done.

Off they went to the printer to order 10,000 labels. The box arrived the following week but the slogan had changed to "You are Only Once a Child". Not a huge difference, but I was crestfallen because it simply wasn't right.

"What happened?" I asked. Well, she explained, when they got to the printshop, and the printer felt the slogan was incorrect. He was quite insistent, and she was now unsure. So, they settled the matter by asked a passing white guy who was obliging enough to give his opinion. He was from Romania but turned out to be an English teacher, which everyone was terribly impressed by. He agreed with the printer, so, the matter was settled and that became their slogan.

 

Edited November 9, 2019 by donnacha

[Artisi]

15 hours ago, cmarshall said:

Where will they get the teachers?

No problem, there are thousands of highly efficient Thai teachers experts in teaching English just busting to break loose and start using their expertise, this is beside the other few thousand native speaking teachers who are given ever opportunity to teach, complete with high wages, lucrative working conditions without all the immigration nonsense tracking their every move. 

 

So why wait till next year, it could be implemented today - no problems 

[DrTuner]

5 minutes ago, donnacha said:

The great danger is not that Thais cannot speak English, but that they do not realize how bad their English is.

As a native speaker surrounded by Thais running various small businesses, I am often asked for help in coming up with a brand name, slogan, or simple content that will appeal to an English-speaking audience. I write for a living, went to a fancy university and, of course, people see me reading all the time, so, they tend to conclude that I am literate in my own language. What blows my mind, however, is how often my suggestions are then later second-guessed by other Thais who, literally, cannot string a sentence together in English.

One example. My girlfriend's sister wanted to launch a brand of cute clothes for young children, nostalgic stuff such as sailor suits and butterfly nets for boys, frilly dresses and hats with ribbons for girls. It turns out that many Thais will dress their kids up in these specifically to take photos to post on Facebook and Instagram. The clothes are then packed away and never worn again. My girl's sister, already had a brandname, but wanted a slogan, so, I spent a while pondering something that would convey this idea of capturing that golden moment, while being short enough to fit on a clothes label.

I came up with the slogan "You are Only a Child Once", and I was pretty pleased with it. Job done.

Off they went to the printer to order 10,000 labels. The box arrived the following week but the slogan had changed to "You are Only Once a Child". Not a huge difference, but I was crestfallen because it simply wasn't right.

"What happened?" I asked. Well, she explained, when they got to the printshop, and the printer felt the slogan was incorrect. He was quite insistent, and she was now unsure. So, they settled the matter by asked a passing white guy who was obliging enough to give his opinion. He was from Romania but turned out to be an English teacher, which everyone was terribly impressed by. He agreed with the printer, so, the matter was settled and that became their slogan.

 

I like the Romanian version better. The first one sounds belittling. 

[Megasin1]

I have strong views on ths, developed probably the same as others who have half thai children and an ex who ran an english kindergarten. I could go on for ages about lack of strategic thinking, lack of english outside of school, etc etc but the best way of describing the issue is that if you spend a fortune on painting an elephant to look like a tiger, underneath all the paint it's still an elephant.

[Kurtf]

Ohh how wonderful. But there is one small problem. 95% of Thai teachers cannot speak English. So how the hell are they going to teach it to the little kids? When they stop giving out teaching credentials to Thai teachers that are not proficient in English, then and only then will English be taught in Thai public schools.

[Khun Paul]

One big problem is that no matter what , Schools are ill equipped to deal with this, Thai teachers tasked with dealing with it will not understand what the hell is going on and in the most part so-called English teachers will be recruited from NON English speaking countries as they are cheaper and can be paid less. In my time here NO self respecting qualified native English speaker will work in these District schools because the facilities are almost non existent .

A plan if it exists will be a knee jerk reaction and a sop to the negativity, hoping like many things it will be swept under the carpet , as it does not conform to what the PM has publically stated everyone will speak Thai soon, so why learn another Language. Or so I was informed 

 

 

Edited November 9, 2019 by Khun Paul

[Kurtf]

25 minutes ago, Artisi said:

No problem, there are thousands of highly efficient Thai teachers experts in teaching English just busting to break loose and start using their expertise, this is beside the other few thousand native speaking teachers who are given ever opportunity to teach, complete with high wages, lucrative working conditions without all the immigration nonsense tracking their every move. 

 

So why wait till next year, it could be implemented today - no problems 

All I can say to this post is....BS.

[Kerrie R]

16 hours ago, taichiplanet said:

too late, better off teaching Chinese or Hindi,

They already teach Chinese at our school. 

[Chongalulu]

14 hours ago, mok199 said:

If it were only that simple....

"Simple" is one thing you can rely on government officials to be...

[Chongalulu]

22 minutes ago, Megasin1 said:

I have strong views on ths, developed probably the same as others who have half thai children and an ex who ran an english kindergarten. I could go on for ages about lack of strategic thinking, lack of english outside of school, etc etc but the best way of describing the issue is that if you spend a fortune on painting an elephant to look like a tiger, underneath all the paint it's still an elephant.

But they can’t see the elephant in the room.