More foreign English teachers set to be hired as Thais aim for better than basic English

[Bournville]

9 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Most of the problem is the teachers they hire not speaking English well.

It should be restricted to foreigners from countries that speak English as their first language.

Not Filipinos, African, Russians, Dutch, etc. who either speak English badly or with incomprehensible accents.

Exactly. I dated a Thai girl who was an English teacher.i thought she was kidding! 

[Quack]

14 minutes ago, recom273 said:

Another problem is that they aren’t allowed to teach English, lessons are forever interrupted by events and activities, special day or weeks lot to meaningless tests.

You're suggesting they shouldn't spend more time learning how to carve fruit? ????

[dcnx]

Hire them then cage them in with restrictions on how they can teach. It’s the Thai way.

[realenglish1]

Native speakers are from Australia the UK and the USA and Canada People from the Philippines are not native speaking To then English is their second language If you want improved  English then hire people from a native speaking country as listed above otherwise you are only going to learn "Pass the sugar"

[248900_1469958220]

Their answer will be to throw a lot of cheap Filipinos at the problem....a bit like the philosophy behind having 10 Thais standing around in the stationary section at your local dept store....SOMEONE will surely do something if there are enough of them????!!!!......sadly, it doesnt work out that way. Filipinos are ok with very young learners. I have worked with quite a few and they are just not cut out for anything above say, Prathom 3 or 4....

 

 

[legend49]

could be hired next year ; could is not a guarantee its a maybe or passive action. WILL is a positive action.

 

Will they be REAL teachers, who have a degree in education with specialty subjects of English Communication, or tourists who can speak more English than a Thai government official?

[CGW]

46 minutes ago, hakancnx said:

Especially cartoons in english. Kids learns a lot from them...

They do indeed! mainly that mindless violence is perfectly acceptable! ???? 

[Borzandy]

1 hour ago, shadowofacloud said:

This will be a great, indisputable success. Me no have doubt.

 

 

same same

[Assurancetourix]

26 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

who either speak English badly or with incomprehensible accents.

 

It's not just them;
I remember meeting a London Englishman who pronounced sunday or monday like that: sundaille, mondaille, ...

 

It will therefore be necessary to find teachers of English native English with the pronunciation of Oxford and nothing else;
Australians, New Zealanders or English-speaking Canadians who are native English are excluded?

[Hanaguma]

Hey, I would love to come to Thailand and do some teaching, especially when I am nearing retirement age. But I would want to be paid as well.  If you want to hire professionals, they need to be qualified, respected, and paid.  I have seen job ads for universities in Thailand where the starting salary is something in the area of US$1,000 per month.  Who is going to give up a lucrative job elsewhere to earn that salary? I make that in less than a week in Japan. Plus I get paid holidays, professional development support, etc.  

 

Something tells me that this program will be very short lived.

[PremiumLane]

1 hour ago, strawpanda said:

though they're not going to work for peanuts

and also in environments where there are little to no standards

[Teee]

1 hour ago, champers said:

BP reporting that the Phillipines Embassy has been consulted with a view to bringing in more Filipino English speakers as teachers.

The problem with Fillipino teachers is their grammer is terrible. 

I know many many Fillipino 'teachers' in Bangkok...all good friends of mine....but they have no qualifications to teach.

If the Thais really want to have children learn and speak English they must check that the said teacher has the correct(not fake) certificates of education.

 

[Selatan]

It would be difficult for the Thais to improve their English if they don't have the culture or the opportunity of using multiple languages in their daily lives unlike the Malaysians or the SIngaporeans. Here's a trilngual song in English, Chinese and Malay with a conversation in Tamil, an Indian language:

 

[Langkawee]

1 hour ago, strawpanda said:

I'm a British native speaker of English with an MA in TEFL. I do a lot of academic proofreading for non-native speakers/teachers of English doing MAs, PhDs etc. Some of them are very good, some less so, but there's definitely an important role for native speakers, though they're not going to work for peanuts.

I would definitely work for walnuts. 

[Jackin1960]

The short answer to the problem is to employ enough native English speaking English, math, and science teachers to teach lessons in English in every school. This is at least a twenty year program before English speaking Thai teachers leaving university can start to replace the Native English Teachers. Even then they should keep Native speaking English teachers teaching English at university. Anyone who has watched a Thai teacher teaching English will understand the problem.     

[ThomasThBKK]

6 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

 

It's not just them;
I remember meeting a London Englishman who pronounced sunday or monday like that: sundaille, mondaille, ...

 

It will therefore be necessary to find teachers of English native English with the pronunciation of Oxford and nothing else;
Australians, New Zealanders or English-speaking Canadians who are native English are excluded?

 

Exactly, my english is prolly easier to understand than that of random americans from the bronx or an irish taxi driver. Nationality doesn't mean anything here.

Foreigner on average speak slower and are easier to understand, they use less sophisticated vocabulary, exactly because it's not their native tongue - and that makes it easier for the ones listening.

All european english teachers learn Oxford language, most european teacher spend actual time living in england to study it....

 

 

[Chiang Mai Bill]

Employing many more 'qualified' Teachers of English would be a good policy to introduce. But by far the ideal would be to employ Thai nationals as English teachers -- but poor 'resources' makes this impossible to achieve!

 

Another great hurdle is to convince the students that it will be beneficial for them to learn English. Most students have no desire, and see no reason, to learn English! They see no advantage in their future expectations. They are Thai, they will live in Thailand, their friends speak Thai -- so what's the purpose of learning English.

 

I taught English and, during my time teaching,  never came across one student over the age of 12 that wanted to learn English -- and many didn't want to learn any subject at all. Many Parents have no interest in their child's education -- due to the fact they themselves had a poor education and exist in employment that needs no other language than Thai.

 

Until the Thai education system is improved and parents are better educated little will change.

[donnacha]

49 minutes ago, EricTh said:

On the contrary, many of the adverts that I saw do specify 'native English speakers' only.

The problem is that, in the absence of actual native English speakers clubbing together to insist upon a sensible definition of what constitutes a native English speaker, huge numbers of people from all over the world are under the illusion that they are native English speakers and will not hesitate to apply for those jobs.

Thailand's tragedy is that levels of ignorance are so deeply entrenched in the educational system that most headmasters have too little English to even begin assessing the English ability of applicants.
 

 

56 minutes ago, EricTh said:

The problem is that most native English speakers don't know how to teach English to a non-native speaker. They teach the same way as 'back home' to native English speaker and this method causes a lot of confusion for Thai students.

The rote learning that Thai educators are so obsessed by is so laughably ineffective for language teaching that pretty much anything a native English speaker does is going to be more an improvement.

A development worth noting is that some Thai kids who were given tablet devices at a very young age, and thereby exposed to the universe of Children's entertainment on YouTube, are managing to absorb a more natural grasp of English than their parents or teachers. It is quite shocking  to come across 7 year olds speaking to me with the same fluency as their American equivalents would, while their bewildered parents look on, not understanding 95% of the conversation.

To be fair, they are probably getting exposed to a lot of bad stuff too, so, I think we can soon expect a generation of well-spoken nymphomaniacs to emerge.

[davidstipek]

Easiest way is to have Immigration, interview who they think would be Outstanding Applicants as Retiree's renew their Class O Visa's for 2020 year. If they Qualify give them free renewable Visa's as long as they Teach, an Income and Family Medical/Dental. Would not have responsibility to get Applicants here from their home Country, would already be Knowledgeable Thai Culture and Laws plus be settled here!

 

Education System wants Help … Then They need to get off their A**es and look what's here now! Real English... No accents to confuse students. Offer Basics in Return you will have your Answers!!! fulfilled!!!

[crickets]

32k a month, no holiday pay, difficult visa and permit process. Good luck on finding native teachers.

[Moonlover]

I'm on marriage rather than retirement extension so I am able to get a work permit and I get on well with village kids. I'm sure they'd love to have me spend a few hours in school with them.

 

Part of my task in Saudi Arabia was, what they termed, 'English Enrichment' so I have experience to offer. Just give the school the budget and me the chance.

[Hanaguma]

You also need to consider that the majority of Thais actually don't NEED English in their daily lives. Making it a mandatory subject, especially beyond elementary school, is a waste of precious resources.  Set up English as an elective class, allow students who actually want to learn to go, and that will solve half the problem.

 

The other half involves dedicated teacher training for Thais who want to be language teachers. Set up rigorous courses at select universities for those who want to become teachers. Hire specialists with higher degrees to teach them. Give them long practicums to get used to being in the classroom.  This would be a great long term investment, which is why it will never happen.

 

 

[Crusader]

One of the main problems over the years has been the fact that too many places hire unqualified staff.  Just because someone is a native speaker does not make him (or her) a teacher.  I have also often heard so called "English teachers" in places like coffee shops and some department stores...Oh my goodness, it is actually criminal what some are getting away with.  There are more than a few bad apples in this barrel.

[Surasak]

41 minutes ago, realenglish1 said:

Native speakers are from Australia the UK and the USA and Canada People from the Philippines are not native speaking To then English is their second language If you want improved  English then hire people from a native speaking country as listed above otherwise you are only going to learn "Pass the sugar"

Oh! How sweet.????

[thecyclist]

1 hour ago, shadowofacloud said:

This will be a great, indisputable success. Me no have doubt.

 

 

Is there anything tackled by Thais that is not an indisputable success? 

[sead]

Oh dear. Better than basic....  I guess they think they already know basics..

[peter14]

blame the worsening state  of economy  and the stupid crasy   visa process....    thai  non sense

[mike787]

Better make those visas into Thailand easier if you want to keep the teachers around.

[lemonjelly]

A step forward would be to get consultants in from The British Council (for example) and create a standardized syllabus using the same text books nationwide that are aimed at everyday conversational English with the  ONET English exam corresponding to this rather than the train wreck we have now of different schools using different teaching media for an exam that often seems to be created by old educators in Bangkok trying to impress their peers by setting questions obviously over the students heads and to top it all, screwing up the answer keys. 

[pixelaoffy]

2 hours ago, champers said:

BP reporting that the Phillipines Embassy has been consulted with a view to bringing in more Filipino English speakers as teachers.

yup and thats the Thai way....... Cheap.. 15k baht a month and real teachers they are not .