Thailand falls in global English Proficiency Index for fourth consecutive year

[tinca tinca]

On 11/25/2020 at 3:12 PM, J Town said:

Hasn't this poor dead horse been beaten enough?

 

You get what you pay for. Pay a competitive salary and you'll get quality teachers. I know a school where they are currently short 14 teachers. They are part of the the largest private school system in Southeast Asia, and the pay they offer is literally laughed at and it shows. Numbers don't lie. As a result you get lousy English proficiency. Again, numbers don't lie.

they get big money as far as i know

[Happy Howard]

AlfHuy

our 6 year old (Thai/Australian) already is being taught Mandarin at school as well as Thai & English.

[J Town]

26 minutes ago, tinca tinca said:

they get big money as far as i know

Not at all. Thailand is one of the worst countries for paying teachers' salaries. If you land a gig at an international school, that's a decent salary and an acceptable career path. Anywhere else, you start 30-35k for native speakers, NNES start around 14k, and NO pension ever. Sure, in a place where the average salary is ~9k/month, it's "better" money but certainly not "big" money.

[seajae]

our daughter was very proficient in english with very good pronounciation before starting her last year of secondary school before going to university to become a doctor, her english deteriorated very bady during this time and she stopped speaking english at home with me and started to answer me in thai. Its almost as if someone was telling them thai is superior and english should not be used, as a doctor I thought english would be a required subject but it does not appear to be and she still refuses to speak it, really have to wonder what is happening and if we are seeing the old school of english bad, thai is best starting up again, thing is it all seems to have happened since the coup  so it really does make you wonder seeing the pm/govt is definitely anti western

[ChrisKC]

12 hours ago, Neeranam said:

Ah, a fellow cruciverbalist! I started doing the Times crossword in the late 80's and only ever finished the cryptic clues

once! 

Finishing it only once, I can tell you is an achievement and rarely by 95% of all native English speakers could hardly answer a single clue, and even when you give the answer they don't know how you 'parsed' it.  I started (learning) the Telegraph cryptic crossword in 1965 and after a few years it was too easy and I completed without external help almost every day. I tried the Times and very difficult but I managed it a few times. I still like to test myself these days and with the Guardian, I go back to the Archives to before the year 2000 and can nearly always complete them in less than half an hour! Can't get the Times or Telegraph as they require subscription.

[OttoPollmann]

On 11/25/2020 at 5:30 PM, NeoDinosaw said:

   until the cows come home   !    I guess you are not a Brit

not really british. more like scottish

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/until_the_cows_come_home

 

Quote:

Etymology

Possibly from the fact that cattle let out to pasture may be only expected to return for milking the next morning; thus, for example, a party that goes on “until the cows come home” is a very long one.

Alternatively, the phrase may have a Scottish origin,^[1] and may derive from the fact that cattle in the Highlands are put out to graze on the common where grass is plentiful. They stay out for months before scarcity of food causes them to find their way home in the autumn for feeding.

[Neeranam]

31 minutes ago, seajae said:

our daughter was very proficient in english with very good pronounciation before starting her last year of secondary school before going to university to become a doctor, her english deteriorated very bady during this time and she stopped speaking english at home with me and started to answer me in thai.

I found an easy answer to that - tell them not to. I refuse to speak Thai to my children.

31 minutes ago, ChrisKC said:

Finishing it only once, I can tell you is an achievement and rarely by 95% of all native English speakers could hardly answer a single clue, and even when you give the answer they don't know how you 'parsed' it.  I started (learning) the Telegraph cryptic crossword in 1965 and after a few years it was too easy and I completed without external help almost every day. I tried the Times and very difficult but I managed it a few times. I still like to test myself these days and with the Guardian, I go back to the Archives to before the year 2000 and can nearly always complete them in less than half an hour! Can't get the Times or Telegraph as they require subscription.

I was rather chuffed! I miss the daily crossword, maybe I'll start doing one online. The Scotsman was a favourite of mine and a little easier than the Times, especially once you got 'into the brain' of the compiler.

[Kaoboi Bebobp]

On 11/25/2020 at 3:21 PM, Kaoboi Bebobp said:

 

Incorrect for Cambodia. It should be 84th, very LOW proficiency. But it did gain 10 places from the previous year's ranking.

 

Seeing the reactions to my very first post, I think I caused some confusion with my wording. The TV report said that Cambodia was ranked 84th and said, in error, Cambodians achieved "very HIGH proficiency." That's contradictory, of course. The EF rankings specifically rate Cambodia as having "very low proficiency." 

 

I do find that rating hard to believe, though, based on my experiences living there and visiting many times. I rate Cambodians considerably superior in English ability to the Thais.

[Stargeezr]

Being that Thailand is in Asia and the wages of most everyone is pretty low, I am not surprised 

that there are many people who do not speak great English, as at the school or in some

parts of the Thailand public, do any of their people have a chance to speak English. I have seen

good and bad speaking teachers who all said that they were English teachers. In Bangkok I

saw quite a few teachers and even Thai high school and University students who were very

good in speaking English. In the smaller places of course I seen fewer people who could

speak as well. In Canada the country is bilingual. English and French, but in the West and Central

part of the country you can find entire Cities, towns and villages where you will not hear much

French.  I will not knock Thailand or any other country that has to learn a second or third or

forth language. Not all people have the ability or skills to do this. I am just happy that my Thai family

does have enough English skills that I am able to communicate with a lot of them. When I visit I do

see an improvement in most of them and that makes me hopeful.  Some do have the Thai attitude that

some posters mention, but they are a small minority. A lot of my relatives speak THai and Chinese, and some English. some of them are also fluent in Japanese and even one speaks better

French than I can. Some of my country Thai relatives speak only in Thai, just as some of my

country relatives in Western Canada only speak English.  Just saying...

Geezer

[brewsterbudgen]

4 hours ago, J Town said:

Not at all. Thailand is one of the worst countries for paying teachers' salaries. If you land a gig at an international school, that's a decent salary and an acceptable career path. Anywhere else, you start 30-35k for native speakers, NNES start around 14k, and NO pension ever. Sure, in a place where the average salary is ~9k/month, it's "better" money but certainly not "big" money.

TEFL teachers the world over are rarely paid much.  Hourly rates doing TEFL in the UK are much the same as the average TEFL rate in Thailand.

[renz]

23 hours ago, CorpusChristie said:

 

  Why you not teach him English ?

Speak to them in English everyday and they will be fluent within a few years

tried for years but as he grew up in a village that is practically using thai everyday and media of all form are in thai he feels that there is no need to learn it. my wife and i had been encourage him but he just ain't doing it  

[ravip]

21 hours ago, ChrisKC said:

It doesn't need to be perfect! Ask many Scottish, Irish, deep south USA

It doesn't need to be perfect! - I agree 100%

But, if you read some posts here humiliating the mispronunciation...  I was referring to them ????

[ravip]

On 11/25/2020 at 4:14 PM, PatOngo said:

Wy dey say li dat? We welly goos, wun, tu tee, por, fi, sic, sewen, ek, ni, ten....see!

I guess you speak many languages like a native ????

ALL humans are not that gifted... enjoy your natures gifted exclusiveness while you can, as nature itself takes it back, unannounced.

 

There are poor and rich people - and there is a difference between them IMHO

[Huckenfell]

As a retiree with lots of spare time on my hands, i was prepared to help with the English language, conversational only of course. I was prepared to do it voluntary at a local school. However I was not allowed to help the kids because i did not have a work visa. How crazy can the government be ?  I have an English Grammar  School education.

[nong38]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:44 PM, teacherclaire said:

But it's only a tiny country, innit?

Area: 725.7 km²

Population: 5.639 million (2018) World Bank

         

But non the less the financial centre of the Asean Community.

[polpott]

On 11/25/2020 at 8:52 AM, AlfHuy said:

Soon, no more English spoken but at school, they will be obliged to learn Mandarine to better understand their brothers and sisters.

My stepson has been learning Mandarin at school for several years now. Many schools teach it.

[quake]

13 hours ago, Huckenfell said:

As a retiree with lots of spare time on my hands, i was prepared to help with the English language, conversational only of course. I was prepared to do it voluntary at a local school. However I was not allowed to help the kids because i did not have a work visa. How crazy can the government be ?  I have an English Grammar  School education.

Thailand   -4.1

[teacherclaire]

4 hours ago, nong38 said:

But non the less the financial centre of the Asean Community.

 

      

Only a few years ago, ASEAN was THE topic at every Thai school. 

 

My grade six students at this time had to sing the ASEAN Anthem in English, ASEAN camps, and more. Everything was ASEAN.   

 

Now you barely hear anything about it.

 

  What happened to the trade deals and and and? It's like anything else they announce.

 

 But well, it's easy to blame this government; they are soldiers, not politicians. 

 

 

 

[nong38]

11 hours ago, quake said:

Thailand   -4.1

I offered the same to have a conversation with the local pupils/students, offer not taken up as I suspect my command of the English would have shown how poor the incumbent English teacher's standard was and we must not lose face at all costs, even the country's future.

They do seem to be wedding themselves to the Chinese above all else, not sure that is right but then I would say that not being a Chinaperson.

[nong38]

12 hours ago, polpott said:

My stepson has been learning Mandarin at school for several years now. Many schools teach it.

A puppet state on the horizon for few subs, tanks etc perhaps?

[greeneking]

10 hours ago, teacherclaire said:

 

      

Only a few years ago, ASEAN was THE topic at every Thai school. 

 

My grade six students at this time had to sing the ASEAN Anthem in English, ASEAN camps, and more. Everything was ASEAN.   

 

Now you barely hear anything about it.

 

  What happened to the trade deals and and and? It's like anything else they announce.

 

 But well, it's easy to blame this government; they are soldiers, not politicians. 

 

 

 

The world’s newest and biggest regional trade deal formed 2 weeks ago with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (asean) and Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. 

Many think co-operation is the way to go. 

What's happening in the UK?

[polpott]

5 hours ago, nong38 said:

A puppet state on the horizon for few subs, tanks etc perhaps?

By far the largest group of tourists coming to Thailand and ethnically much closer to Thais than English speakers are.

[Fex Bluse]

4 hours ago, greeneking said:

The world’s newest and biggest regional trade deal formed 2 weeks ago with the Association of South-East Asian Nations (asean) and Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. 

Many think co-operation is the way to go. 

What's happening in the UK?

Lets see how it goes with China bullying everyone with economic retaliation and the global economy decoupling with China. China imposing arbitrary tarrifs on Australian goods. The western countries building an alliance with India, Japan and others specifically aimed at balancing China's bad behavior.

 

This TPP, just like the AEC (Asean Economic Community) will never work. Because too many Asian countries simply cannot compete fairly and will just look for ways to cheat each other. Especially China and its derivative Chinese-style countries in Southeast Asia. 

[Eddy Ozark]

On 11/25/2020 at 3:22 PM, RotBenz8888 said:

It all begins with interest of the world outside, which is lacking. The incentive is 0.

This is one of the causes, without doubt. 

[Eddy Ozark]

What about the people masquerading as teachers with fake degrees. Are they doing much to improve the quality of English among their students? Verification of degrees is not a high priority here, to say the least.

[Lunchbob]

On 11/25/2020 at 8:28 PM, spidermike007 said:

When no real effort is being made to improve the system, improve the proficiency of the teachers, or the methods, nor to use the outside world as any kind of gauge, comparison, or resource, then you fall backwards. On top of that the schools here seem to instill a lack of confidence, a feeling of inferiority on the part of the students, and a continuation of the tribal mentality of obedience, at all costs.

 

I was hanging out with a friend the other day. Her son is about 12. Good kid. Speaks some english. He is in a sailing club, and his mom is nearly fluent in english, so he picks up alot there too, and seems to take what he learns in school seriously. I told him he was a smart kid. He shook his head no. I asked him why do you say no? He did not have an answer. I asked him, have any of your teachers ever told you, that you were smart? He said never, ever. The teachers seem reluctant to praise the kids, and give them confidence, and this would appear to have an extremely corrosive effect on society. 

 

Is the educational system here deliberately inferior, one might ask?

 

This is it. The culture is creating failure. It appears in many ways- all mentioned in this thread. It can''t be easily solved because it requires a core change in the culture from small things like the wai to big things like the quality of unis....

[brewsterbudgen]

1 hour ago, Eddy Ozark said:

What about the people masquerading as teachers with fake degrees. Are they doing much to improve the quality of English among their students? Verification of degrees is not a high priority here, to say the least.

If they are native speakers of English (or equivalent) I'd say they're doing a lot.  A degree has very little to do with the ability to teach English as a foreign language.

[ravip]

30 minutes ago, Lunchbob said:

 

This is it. The culture is creating failure. It appears in many ways- all mentioned in this thread. It can''t be easily solved because it requires a core change in the culture from small things like the wai to big things like the quality of unis....

It appears in many ways- all mentioned in this thread...

TBH, this thread or the forum is not the best place to find information to change anything in any country, especially Thailand for obvious reasons.

[ravip]

4 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

If they are native speakers of English (or equivalent) I'd say they're doing a lot.  A degree has very little to do with the ability to teach English as a foreign language.

Is this an internationally accepted procedure?

 

[brewsterbudgen]

15 minutes ago, ravip said:

Is this an internationally accepted procedure?

 

 

I'm not sure what procedure you're talking about?  In the UK, a proper TEFL qualification, like a CELTA or Trinity is the main requirement for TEFL/TESOL work.  Some employers might require a degree as well, but as most TEFL work is seasonal (pre-Covid) there is a high turnover with many teachers just working in summer schools, relevant qualifications and experience is far more important.