English teacher with poor pronunciation sparks online storm

[Bangkok Barry]

19 hours ago, cooked said:

IAn English English teacher I know fought for years to get them to admit that the text book they were using contained many serious and unnecessary errors and that putting the scholars through exams based on this textbook was pointless. 

My wife, who speaks English just fine, was studying at a university to be able to teach English to others. Some pages she brought home had something like 40 errors in the three sheets of A4. I went through and corrected them all, she gave them to the lecturer and the lecturer put them straight in the bin.

[barry553]

So many ignorant comments on here. As long as the teacher modifies their speech so as to be clear and understood, accent is not a big problem. In fact different accents should be celebrated as it makes people sound interesting. We all have our own subjective tastes, I think for instance a lot of American speakers sound awful, they are easier to understand than British, sure but that doesn't in any way mean they will be good teachers. 

[The Theory]

There are many farang who "believe" what they teach is English. The fact is "it's not". 

[bluesofa]

16 minutes ago, n00dle said:

35 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

I saw a native American booking into a hotel. The receptionist asked if he had a reservation.

He replied that did have one, but the government took it off him.

Alas it worked the other way, native populations were forced onto reservations, where previously they had enjoyed freedom of movement.

If he had been able to book in, he'd probably have enjoyed freedom of movement in his bathroom.

[lks7689]

20 hours ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

I saw the program and my kids were in bits laughing. It was truly bad English. Was she auditioned before being put on the TV?

Maybe she learnt her English from tukky, who had a comedy show on TV as an English teacher with poor pronunciation.

[bluesofa]

11 minutes ago, n00dle said:

I wish every american would speak like Boss Hogg

Don't they?

[Deli]

I am a Non - NES, never had a NES teacher BUT I wanted to learn the language for many different reasons. Apart from the highly unqualified teachers in this country, people just don't care about useful education. Sabai sabai...

[EvetsKram]

19 hours ago, EricTh said:

 

Many people fail to understand that Thai people are learning English as a second language and NOT first language.

 

It's perfectly normal not to speak perfect English as long as people can understand them.

 

I've known many foreigners who still can't speak perfect Thai after many years of studying Thai.

 

 

 

Mainly because most westerners have Indian palate,  Thais have Chinese one.  It's why we & they have problems with different sounds.  That video included much bad grammar & spelling too,  not only poor pronunciation.  This government wants many more Thais speaking english but with teachers like her they are shooting themselves in both feet

[SuwadeeS]

All the foreign teachers are checked and double checked and bla, bla bla etc. 

Why not do the same with Thai English teachers????

If Thai teacher want to teach English they must obtain an international 

recognized English teacher degree or certificate issued by an English

native country institute.

Nobody of them would pass the English test.

 

 

[bluesofa]

12 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

My wife, who speaks English just fine, was studying at a university to be able to teach English to others. Some pages she brought home had something like 40 errors in the three sheets of A4. I went through and corrected them all, she gave them to the lecturer and the lecturer put them straight in the bin.

Of course.

Putting them in the bin is the attempt to avoid loss of face, refusing to accept they don't know the language well enough to teach it.

 

[Khunangkaro]

She is not an English teacher, but a Thai teaching Thinglish. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Khunangkaro
Edited

[TPI]

19 hours ago, kcpattaya said:

Video?

It's there, you just have to "click" on the photo!

[EvetsKram]

7 minutes ago, SuwadeeS said:

All the foreign teachers are checked and double checked and bla, bla bla etc. 

Why not do the same with Thai English teachers????

If Thai teacher want to teach English they must obtain an international 

recognized English teacher degree or certificate issued by an English

native country institute.

Nobody of them would pass the English test.

 

 

Obviously this does not exist anywhere & if it did then you would definitely fail

[lks7689]

19 hours ago, EricTh said:

 

Many people fail to understand that Thai people are learning English as a second language and NOT first language.

 

It's perfectly normal not to speak perfect English as long as people can understand them.

 

I've known many foreigners who still can't speak perfect Thai after many years of studying Thai.

 

 

 

Plenty of countries have taught two languages in their education system with better results. The issue here is more about having a higher quality teaching medium instead of accepting mediocrity? 

[bluesofa]

20 minutes ago, Tony125 said:

20 hours ago, EricTh said:

Do you have the video? We would like to judge ourselves.

https://assets.thaivisa.com/forum/uploads/monthly_2020_05/teacher.mp4.70826edb1d2a70b05073860077172df5.mp4

Edited 13 minutes ago by Tony125

Oh dear, The Sun.

How come there's no one with their tits out in the article, especially as it's to do swimming?

 

At least I see they did provide a link to the CDC and water:   https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/water.html  so I didn't waste my time entirely, looking for knockers. 

 

 

[n00dle]

14 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

Don't they?

Apparently not the native speakers.

[TigerandDog]

It's not just pronunciation that's incorrect, even making allowances for accent, but take a look at the written english on the board. We're is not pronounced as we are, class's is also incorrect it should be class'  .  I was getting my nephew to read some english from one of his school text books, and the spelling in the text book is far from perfect. All plurals had es added even for words like fish, deer, sheep etc where the singular and plural are spelt the same. So Thai kids are always going to struggle to learn english correctly when their english teachers who are Thai, and their text books are not accurate.

[jingjai9]

Seems to me the teacher has to model the language. There is a differnece between UK, Aussie, US, etc. in speaking and spelling. So we must not confuse incorrect English with style or accent. I know Thailand cannot afford to hire native speakers for all English courses in the country, but surely for such a far-reaching presentation a good model of the language is essential. 

 

What I have found is that most speakers of Thai are not advanced enough in English to know what is correct or incorrect in spoken English at an instructional pace.

 

Often, more competitive schools will hire only native English speakers (UK, Australia, USA, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa). 

However, there is another side to the coin. What does Thailand want from most of its graduates, a competent communicator or an academic with textbook grammar and pronunciation? I think the former is the more realistic choice. Also, if the university students work in tourism they will encounter a variety of accents. The Euro style of English is very common. So having non-native speakers of English is in a sense practical.

 

There is a term in Education/linguistics called fossilization.. It is used to describe how a person brings elements of language one into language two and it cannot be erased when speaking language two. For example, try to get Thai students to say, "I go, you go and he goes." It will always be in practice - "I go, you go and he go."

[raccos21]

It’s OK because English is not the first language in Thailand and she is Thai.

[n00dle]

3 hours ago, fredwiggy said:

Both are right. This is an excerpt from an Englishman who moved to the United States...................

My first focus would be spelling. In certain respects American English spelling is more consistent with the way that we say words. The classics would be color versus colour, center versus centre, words ending with “iz” versus “is” constructions, etc.

British English is much older than American English and these differences are mainly the fault of the French who invaded England in 1066. At the time the English were not impressed but the French did bring a little extra in the way of culture and cooking and a lot in the way of enriching the English language. The estimated number of new words added to English by the French is about 10,000. With these new words came the French spelling, the “re”, “ou”, “is”, etc. constructs.

English came to North America via the first British settlements that eventually, via George Washington, became the United States. During the 1700’s English was still an open language and even the British did not have formal standards for spelling. In the 1750’s Samuel Johnson established what was adopted as a standard British English dictionary and about 60 years later Noah Webster established what was adopted as the standard American English dictionary. As America was keen to distance itself from Britain and Webster wanted to rationalise certain forms of spelling, the Americans adopted what some Brits refer to as “wrong spelling”.

Both sides could claim the same.

Both languages have spelling standards so in this respect they are both consistent.

Pronunciation is not so obvious when it comes to consistency.
Here are a couple of examples:

Americans will pronounce the “ato” sound in tomato and potato the same way. Brits don’t

Brits will pronounce the “ine” sound in machine and iodine the same way. Americans don’t.

These are two simple examples but they both highlight pronunciation differences that are not consistent with spelling. However, all Americans/Brits will pronounce words within their flavour of English in a similar way. There will be regional differences but even with the regional accent, the sound produced will be understandable.

Vocabulary

Now we get into the fun area.

In the main, British English and American English are very similar, even with differences in spelling. In today’s world, American spelling is probably winning thanks to Microsoft’s spell checker.

There are vocabulary differences and some can cause embarrassing situations if you only know one flavour. Knickers, suspenders and fanny come to mind. In the US, men wear suspenders, in the UK women wear suspenders. There’s a whole world of fun in some of these differences. Brits can knock their friends up in the morning but this could be considered inappropriate in the USA. I’ll leave you to research knickers and fanny.

There are also more mundane differences as well like: lift (UK) vs. elevator (USA) / lorry (UK) vs. truck (USA) / solicitor (UK) vs. lawyer (USA) / petrol (UK) vs. gas or gasoline (USA) / trainers (UK) vs. sneakers (USA) / drawing pin (UK) vs. thumb tack (USA) and quite a few others.

Despite the fact that there are different meanings for the same word and that there are some genuine differences in vocabulary, again both languages are consistent within their own rules...................................

George Bernard Shaw probably got it right when he quipped:

“The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.”

So which one is best? From a partisan viewpoint the answer is a foregone conclusion. Brits will say that Americans don’t speak proper English and vice versa. There’s nothing worse than national pride when it comes to language.

Forgetting the fact that there are people in both countries who sometimes cannot understand what their fellow countrymen from other regions are saying, are there any pointers to indicate that one flavour is better than the other?.............I'm not near prejudiced, in fact the UK is on my bucket list as I'm 1/2 Irish and like the customs food and people I've met from there, and want to see it for myself.

I must say you are infinitely more coherent when you are pasting the words of others.

[Eibot]

This was pretty horrific...

 

From a the thousands of teachers, why her...? Why put her on TV...

 

This could be used as a skit. 

 

Class's....<deleted>

[Neeranam]

Strange to not show her face yet show her name. 

 

Her social media page says she studied in Oregon USA. Maybe that is the problem

[barney42bb]

Perfectly OK for Infant/Junior... But she is alittle Robotic in her style... "Na Ka"

[fredwiggy]

Just now, n00dle said:

I must say you are infinitely more coherent when you are pasting the words of others.

And to others who are intelligent enough to understand you don't judge someone by a few typed words. If you're not American, and i can see by what you say  aren't, then you should understand by what both I and others have said it's easy to misunderstand those that talk American and English English. If what I said is incoherent to you, it's you that needs to study harder, because most others here understand my gist.

[Gandtee]

20 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

No pombem.

You misspelled, probrem.???? This is a classic example of why the standard of English is so abysmal in Thailand.

[ChipButty]

39 minutes ago, SuwadeeS said:

All the foreign teachers are checked and double checked and bla, bla bla etc. 

Why not do the same with Thai English teachers????

If Thai teacher want to teach English they must obtain an international 

recognized English teacher degree or certificate issued by an English

native country institute.

Nobody of them would pass the English test.

 

 

Most wouldn't get a visa

[ChipButty]

2 minutes ago, Gandtee said:

You misspelled, probrem.???? This is a classic example of why the standard of English is so abysmal in Thailand.

It's ploblem

[Cake Monster]

16 hours ago, bluesofa said:

It not only Scottish.

I'm British (from the midlands) and I was working in Newcastle Upon Tyne once.

I was in a lift (elevator) with some locals. I was convinced they were German tourists to begin with, as the Geordie accent is very harsh/guttural.

(waiting for a Geordie response!)

A long time ago, I worked on a contract in South Shields.

I honestly thought I was on the Moon half the time. I could not understand these Folk at all, but still have a place in my Heart for their honesty and down to earth approach to life.

[watthong]

18 hours ago, MartinL said:

She returned to Thailand following the death of her husband but has been unable to find a permanent job as an English teacher in Thailand, maybe because of her age but also, she says (but I have no proof of this) because she speaks better English than those interviewing her. She's had temporary employment and private students which give her a reasonable income but no full-time job

 

Signs are that she'll go back to Canada when she can to be with her children, never to return to Thailand.

The typical symptom of "You can't go home again."  It doesn't take much to survive in Thailand. If she really wants to she could open a private school and teach "better" English to local kids. I've always wanted to do that, everytime I walk down my soi and hear kids repeat in unison "this is my penceel" from someone's living room. Unfortunately my retirement status closes that option.

Edited May 20, 2020 by watthong

[wazzupnow]

please stop teaching THINGLISH get some real english teachers on TV, and or the schools

u can not teach a thai english after the age of 5, thinglish is the best u get