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

[AJBangkok]

It’s just a matter of time.

 

https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/what-endangered-language

 

remind me what’s the Thai word for helicopter, motorway or hamburger.

[Toadie]

I think it's pretty well been covered. 

 

It not necessarily the additional numbers of teachers or the caliber of them. Its just pouring whatever on a pile of <deleted>. Be it the administration, Thai teachers, the Thai approach to teaching, class sizes or existing foriegn, "ummm ... teachers"  (by an extreme stretch). 

 

The entire approach to education is not designed to develop and promote learning. Greater focus on learning where ones station is in life.

 

Don't like that opinion? Two minutes Google search you can come across some really interesting articles.

[scottiddled]

There is already resentment of "privileged farang" teachers from (some) Thai staff, admins, etc. And that's at private international schools with plenty of flexibility in their budgets. How are things going to go over when this fabulous plan (which will no doubt be enacted and fully funded) takes hold and the powers that be realize...

 

...you can't attract quality NES candidates at Thai government school salaries?

...if you pay them what (they think) they're worth, they're stirring up a boatload of trouble when it comes to Thais (further) realizing how unappreciated their own teachers are?

 

Oh, and the whole reliance on rote learning, large class sizes, yadda yadda yadda. 

[aussienam]

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

US Canada and Aus speak English...hmmmm

 

Most of UK dont either.

 

 

The UK ..... don't they speak Arabic?  

[Scott]

Racist post removed. 

 

[Tops]

10 hours ago, hakancnx said:

One big step to improve the english level is to stop dubbing TV-programs. 

 

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

All foreign actors seem to be way smarter than me because the can speak Thai. A few weeks ago I saw a classic western featuring Clint Eastwood in 'A Fistful of Dollars'. He spoke fluent Thai already in 1964 ????. The Thai consider me stupid as I hardly speak Thai after 8 years. I rather see my self as a missionary so the Thai need to speak some English to have a conversation with me. According to Thai, Thailand is the center of the universe... Planet Thailand. 

 

I heard a PM saying a few years ago that Thai would be the world's language... Only brainwashed monkeys believe all the nonsense coming out of that mouth.

[George FmplesdaCosteedback]

More foreign English teachers to be hired? Wouldn't it be better to employ "native English speaking people"? Can we be more specific...

 

[George FmplesdaCosteedback]

1 hour ago, aussienam said:

The UK ..... don't they speak Arabic?  

Southall and London in general plus Leicester and midlands Arabic, Southampton it's Polish, Bradford and West Yorks Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani, Bristol and Scottish cities it's Romanian etc etc.

In the southern States of the USA about 30% of the population speak Spanish or Portuguese.

Statistics are on the official websites.

Edited December 3, 2019 by George FmplesdaCosteedback

[marf]

A friend of mine taught English in Thailand. His experience.

 

- Salary 35,000 for 40 hours a week in a private school. That's $1,150/month

- Hours 0700-1600 with an hour for lunch, five hours classes per day and three for office hours

- Must create and plan own lessons, plus prepare own materials (had to file a written plan in the record) and give and mark homework, he says about one to two hours on top of the office hours

- Yelled at by Director if even slightly late and must stay until the end of the day watching the clock

- Spent most of his time dealing with bad behaviour compared with teaching

- Most students have no interest whatsoever, but he was told that he can't fail them

- Paid holidays according to Thai public holidays plus 14 days

 

Gave up and went to China where he's now getting RMB  18,000 for 20 hours (4h x 5) classroom only in a university, which is about $2,600/month.

[brimacthai]

Thailand has many good English language teachers already living here and many will work for the lower wages Thailand offers it's foreign teachers.

 

The real issue is the requirement for a degree... any degree. Someone with a degree in housekeeping qualifies to teach English, in many cases they don't even have an English language teaching certificate like a TESOL but still qualify to teach English in the schools.

 

If you want to attract more and possibly better teachers, then make the requirement:

1. a recognized English language teaching certificate as priority,
2. experience in teaching English language and
3. if needed for a work permit a degree or equivalent experience.

This is why globally there seems to be a shortage of English language teachers... just look at the online job boards. They can't fill them because they only hire people with degrees in anything.

 

The degree was only to meet the governments requirement for a work permit. Even online teaching companies now require a degree and they don't even know why. There's no work permit needed to teach online but yet the companies (most anyways) require a degree and many don't require an English language teaching certificate.

 

Since 2014 I have taught for three online schools, the first one was for students in China only but the pay was too low. The second one was based in Europe and taught mainly European business students, I really liked this job but the company wasn't very good and again the pay was really low.

 

The online company I teach for now I've been with for 3 years, they are not really a school but a portal where students and teachers meet. It's taken a while to build up my students but it's pretty good now and they pay weekly. I set my own rates and hours too.

[ccarbaugh]

15 hours ago, Emdog said:

Is immigration on board for this? Have they even been consulted?

How about cutting through red tape and rip offs and allow retired native English speakers to teach part time? I was a teacher in USA & native English (okay, American) speaker. I don't need the money and would enjoy maybe 10 hrs a week... but I would not put up with ignorant administration making money off of my free time, among other things.

 

Identical situation here.  Also, at the many Thai Schools that I have worked at, the Passive-Aggressive, (Indirect Hostility,) was so thick that you couldn't cut it with a knife!  Methinks this might be one of the "among other things" emdog referred to above.  

[balo]

Nothing will happen, this is just a proposal. And as we all know, Thailand is the HUB of proposals. 

[EricTh]

8 hours ago, Huckenfell said:

I am a retired person, English grammar school educated. I have got plenty of spare time and would love to help teach young kids English. I am not overly anxious on wages, but without a work visa this is not possible. I am sure that somewhere in Isaan there would be a small school that would appreciate my help, something that i would happily do.

 

I believe that you can't teach without wages in a small school without a visa.

 

You still need a volunteer visa to do that.

 

[EricTh]

2 hours ago, balo said:

Nothing will happen, this is just a proposal. And as we all know, Thailand is the HUB of proposals. 

 

Most people don't seem to understand that the Thai language is so different from European languages that it takes a huge amount of effort to learn English for Thai people.

 

And vice versa of course.

 

It takes less effort for a European speaker to speak another European language because the grammar and phonology are more similar.

 

So this would just be a proposal but never become a reality.

Edited December 4, 2019 by EricTh

[GalaxyMan]

13 hours ago, DiJoDavO said:

There are many words which are written with an ส=s at the end. 

When talking about writing there certainly are words ending with an s. But talking about pronunciation, no. Because the s will get the sound of a d. Or more like a sudden stop. 

These words are mostly borrowed from another language, but why the s is not pronounced, I'm not sure. ????

I just asked my wife about this, showed her the letter you indicated. She says that the letter is there at the end of words, but never pronounced, sort of the like final 'e' in English words. Life is strange...language even more so.

[chainarong]

Pay better wages , free up your immigration procedures (90 day reporting etc) and stop bringing out the same old spiel, you've been doing this or replacing the education Minister every other month since 1980 and the education each year has slowly gone backwards.

[KhaoYai]

9 hours ago, ThomasThBKK said:

The whole world learns british english in school and the metric system.

I wish you were correct but a great many kids in Thailand are taught American English.

[KhaoYai]

11 hours ago, EricTh said:

American English movies are far more pervasive than British English movies unless you like to watch Mr Bean.

I'm not really interested in what is or is not pervasive. What I'm interested in is kids being taught correctly. If American English was the official standard or indeed French or Italian for that matter, I'd be happy with that too (note: too not to).

 

Thai kids are up against it from what I see, unless they have a good teacher and classmates that actually want to learn. They are given English language text books that contain a lot of mistakes and are often taught by non native English speakers or Americans. What they don't need is to also be taught American English where a boot is a trunk and a bonnet a hood. That may sound trivial but try putting yourself in the shoes of someone who's native langauge is tonal and has a completely different character set. Learning a different language is difficult enough for them without being taught incorrect words.

 

I would liken it to learning Isaan langauge when you think you're learning Thai.

Edited December 4, 2019 by KhaoYai

[Bugsy777]

My wife and I have been together for 8 years. In the beginning she spoke fairly broken English. We live in Australia. She now speaks quite good English, passed her driving exam and has her own car. She is no longer reserved at speaking in public. She did a one year course and I have also spent a lot of time helping her. 

However, despite our efforts, she still mixes up 'L' and 'R'. She also sounds an 'S' at the end of many words that don't have an 'S'.

In my research on this problem I have found that once this 'l,R' phenomena is in place, it is almost impossible to shift. Children who emigrate to English speaking countries under the age of about 10 do not have this issue.

 

Therefore, it seems that teaching English must start when they are very young. This is going to cost a huge amount of money and take many years to see results. I just can't see a Thai government treating this seriously because it interferes with the massive corruption that is endemic there.

[jaffas21]

If they want to retain or get good English teachers they need to do this, first year pay the standard 35-38k outside of bangkok, 2nd year it up to 55k 3rd year 60k plus any extra class.

 

Keeping the salaries at 1995 levels with enough money to eat what you want, but not enough to pay for a flight home or have a decent holiday isn't working. The salaries need to double at least by year three. Every teacher who has taught in my level in my school is now in China, that says it  all. Life isnt work, life is salary and holidays. We  work to live outside of work.

 

Thailand will not recruit teachers who stay unless they address this issue primarily.

 

The paperwork isnt even a factor, its much worse in the phillipines.

 

Also if they want the kids to get better stop passing everyone, it gets boring for the teachers, the parents pay money and expect results  but they need to take their share of the work and talk to their kids at home in English especially at primary 1,2 and 3 when it can make a difference. Start failing bad students and within a generation the students will be 5 x better

[KhaoYai]

3 minutes ago, jaffas21 said:

Every teacher who has taught in my level in my school is now in China, that says it  all.

Yep, I met three English teachers quite a few years ago at Suvarnabhumi. They were leaving for Hong Kong and although I think what they told me "the pay is 10 times what we get in Thailand" may just have been a 'figure of speech - their reason for leaving was clearly financial and they were going to get substantially higher salaries in HK.

[Assurancetourix]

15 hours ago, emptypockets said:

All good points but you are forgetting that English is the official language of ASEAN. It is the language of the future for anyone in Thailand wanting to do business etc.

I think you are wrong even english is the official language here in ASEAN .

Chinese ( Mandarin ) will be the language of the future in ASEAN .

 

Yinn gave us some excellent answers.
Students should already want to learn English, which I think is the key point,
However, it is not the case ;
the only thing that interests them is their smartphone and the stupid things they look at or write on in Thai.
I live in a small village in Issan, Sawang Daen Din, the city where are the post office, banks, hospital, the super market is 12 km;
When I go to the bank or the hospital or the Post Office Thai language is essential, no employee speaks even a few words of English.
Only 2 or 3 young doctors understand English.
But what is strange is what happens in Phangkhon 30 km from Sawang, another city of my province, that of Sakon Nakhon.
Phangkhon has the distinction of being inhabited by almost 100% Thai people of Vietnamese origin.
And in Phangkhon there are many traders who speak a little English ...
and even a young woman who is not a teacher and speaks French almost as well as me.
She has a university degree from the Faculty of Aix en Provence (France);
her sister speaks English very well, she is a graduate of a faculty in London.
Their parents speak only Thai ( and vietnamese and issan-lao ) but have very well understood that to speak English or French opens doors in interesting and remunerative trades.

Edited December 4, 2019 by Assurancetourix

[ubonr1971]

19 hours ago, darksidedog said:

What I read from this is that very little, if anything is going to be done or achieved, as they have the wrong priorities in mind, face and cost.

If you want the kids to learn English, it is far more likely when said teacher is a native speaker of it.

There are nowhere near enough positions taken by those that are, and highly unlikely that their meager numbers are likely to grow significantly.

There is a reluctance from those calling the shots to admit the obvious,  and open the doors to the right level of teacher, and they wouldn't want to pay them even if they acknowledged the need.

Bridge that hurdle and they might start to get somewhere.

The issue is that the MOE has no idea about teachers salaries. If they dont raise the monthly income above the 28k/ 30k range then the problem will never be solved. 

[SaamBaht]

This is fantastic! I guess this means they are going to start paying those underpaid native English speakers a living wage. Nice. 

[ChipButty]

9 hours ago, aussienam said:

The UK ..... don't they speak Arabic?  

No, Urdu and Punjabi 

[scottiddled]

6 hours ago, brimacthai said:

Thailand has many good English language teachers already living here and many will work for the lower wages Thailand offers it's foreign teachers.

 

The real issue is the requirement for a degree... any degree. Someone with a degree in housekeeping qualifies to teach English, in many cases they don't even have an English language teaching certificate like a TESOL but still qualify to teach English in the schools.

 

If you want to attract more and possibly better teachers, then make the requirement:

1. a recognized English language teaching certificate as priority,
2. experience in teaching English language and
3. if needed for a work permit a degree or equivalent experience.

This is why globally there seems to be a shortage of English language teachers... just look at the online job boards. They can't fill them because they only hire people with degrees in anything.

OK. Not going to argue with you about whether folks without a degree can make quality teachers (I'm skeptical, but everyone's different).

 

But this idea that Thailand's "lower wages" are attractive to quality western teachers is something I'll push back on. Whether the teachers are credentialed (degrees, "teaching certificate") or just special savants who are good teachers without formal qualifications, they can earn more elsewhere. I'm in Thailand mostly because I want to be here, but I can't deny that money plays a role. Thailand and China offered similar packages. If Thailand offered 20% less, I might not be here.

 

Everyone's situation is different. But if you're talking about people who are qualified to teach in western schools and capable of landing jobs there, 50,000 THB/month isn't really going to draw them to Thailand unless they really want to be in Thailand for other reasons. 

 

For the folks who aren't qualified to teach in the west, it's more complicated. If they're truly good at teaching and enjoy it, maybe low-paying jobs in Thailand are a way to get their feet in the door. But it's not hard for them to get a certification while they teach. What happens 3 or 5 years in when they're certified? Are they going to stay in Thailand when they can make 2x or 3x in their home countries or international teaching?

 

I won't go on a huge rant about income/wealth inequality, but this really is part of the bigger problem where Thai professionals aren't paid what they're really worth. If you think an entry-level Thai government school teacher is worth 15,000/month, it's hard to break free of that mindset and realize that you have to offer 65,000 for an experienced western English teacher. It's even harder once you confront the larger problem and view it as more than a "what do we need to pay to fill this specific need?" issue; it's a "what is appropriate pay for talented, qualified educators?" 

 

 

[ThomasThBKK]

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

I wish you were correct but a great many kids in Thailand are taught American English.

Not officially tho, that happens because they hire americans and that's their accent. Americans should be forced to teach british english, if they can't they aren't qualified.

 

But honestly... that's kinda a luxury problem to have, if every thai kid would speak halfway decent american english they would be way better off than they are now.

Might be an issue for you and your kids because you are a foreigner but even a thai kid learning some weird filipino english is better than a thai kid not speaking english at all imo.

 

It will never work out to hire only british people as teachers here, there's not enough supply. If you look at the number of english speakers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

 

Would be stupid to discard the 70 mio filipinos, the 40 mio germans, the 120 mio indians or the 280mio americans and focus only on the 60mio native brits....

 

[wealthychef]

22 hours 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.

You are right.  I accept payment in cashews and walnuts only. 

[Thingamabob]

How many times have we heard this ? For as long as they continue to employ English teachers who cannot speak English nothing will change.

[Bezdomny]

To be NES and have BA in irrelevant field with "2 Mondays, one Tuesday" TEFL course  doesn't make you English language teacher. Only teachers who actually studied language and speak at least 2 languages should teach language no matter where they are from. Practice in Thailand and top 10 EF EPI proves this.

 

https://www.thailand-business-news.com/news/76941-thailands-english-proficiency-falls-to-very-low.html

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index