Thailand Set To Be Asian Education Hub

[chrislarsson]

There's only one "factual" input in this thread - the original article, and almost everyone in unison denies its validity without providing any facts to support their opposition.

What is wrong with you, guys?

Every now and then there are reports of Thai kids winning international competitions in all kinds of fields. Not long ago I think they won even some debating competition. Quick check found that there are 350 international programs offered here (university level), I don't know how many international students they have, but there are all sorts of partnerships with regional universitities. I don't know if inter students come here for one semester or a for full courses, but they obviously DO come.

Is it a money making scheme? Sure it is, among other things. Ddidn't local universities pushed for independence a few years ago? Will they lose their reputation by offering substandard courses, and the international students will stop coming? Possibly, but shouldn't it be part of govt "hub" policy to ensure quality?

What else do you suppose the govt should do about those international students?

I have absolutely no idea why people here oppose this policy.

Have you actually seen any thread with factual inputs in this forum? Rarely. If you didn't notice before, most people here like to ridicule anything that is Thai.

What people seem to forget is that things don't happen overnight.

India's success in outsourcing today, is to a large degree due to investments in quality education in science and technology dating back to the early 60's.

South Korea was mainly a rice producing country in the 60's. Look where early visions to become a high-tech leader, combined with strong support from the government have taken them today.

As Thailand is a pleasant country to live in, it does not have to go all the way by itself. Thailand should be able to attract plenty of good faculty from abroad (assuming good policies from the government), raising the standard of international programs quickly, benefiting both Thai students and the increase of revenues international students would bring.

[SHYTALK]

Thailand the Asean Educational hub......

Thats a laugh, they would do better giving their own subjects a decent education.

Then again they don't want to educate the masses, do they.

[Datsun240Z]

Edited August 25, 2009 by Datsun240Z

[Plus]

Furthermore, I don't see anyone here except you suggesting that any students who wish to come to Thailand should be turned away.

Yes, people continuously ridiculing Thai education system here have not made any on-topic suggestions. In any other, non-teaching thread, that would be against the rules - there's something about bad-mouthing Thailand, isn't there?

They are fortunately few enough that there is no capacity problem at the moment, especially at the university level (which is tuition-driven, anyway).

Are you saying that those mushrooming MBA courses all over Bangkok have capacity problems already????

Even if they do, isn't it a good time for the govt to step in and help with expansion?

Also, having some personal experience with the 'international expat student' crowd here, they're all going elsewhere for college, if that's any indication...

I bet those international courses for "regional" students cost less than international high school education here, so no surprise.

I said earlier in this thread - Thailand can provide educational services for those who can't afford genuine western education, or, probably, for those who want to learn "asian" way of managing.

[caf]

There's only one "factual" input in this thread - the original article, and almost everyone in unison denies its validity without providing any facts to support their opposition.

What is wrong with you, guys?

Every now and then there are reports of Thai kids winning international competitions in all kinds of fields. Not long ago I think they won even some debating competition. Quick check found that there are 350 international programs offered here (university level), I don't know how many international students they have, but there are all sorts of partnerships with regional universitities. I don't know if inter students come here for one semester or a for full courses, but they obviously DO come.

Is it a money making scheme? Sure it is, among other things. Ddidn't local universities pushed for independence a few years ago? Will they lose their reputation by offering substandard courses, and the international students will stop coming? Possibly, but shouldn't it be part of govt "hub" policy to ensure quality?

What else do you suppose the govt should do about those international students?

I have absolutely no idea why people here oppose this policy.

I don't always agree with your posts but you are right about the negativity of this thread.

There is a lot wrong with Thai education but that should not stop positive attempts to improve it. The creation of a hub of course is just Thai PR. Image is all important. But we can surely accept that for what it is.

There are some good Thai teachers and there are some poor farang teachers. I was talking a few months back with a retired education ministry inspector from Bangkok. He spoke of the positives and negatives and that it would be a slow process of improvement. He commented favourably on farang teachers but said they had a tendency to be very negative towards Thai teachers and methods

Teaching can be a frustrating experience in Thailand but it can be rewarding to see progress - however slow. Some farang teachers he said needed to be a little bit more jaiyen, less serious. I could see where he was coming from. A need to adapt a little to a different way of thinking.

[animatic]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

[Publicus]

To add to a previous post to this thread, I am pleased to say that Thailand has seized ingeniously on the bilingual school as a highly successful institutional approach to education. Bilingual schools have proliferated in Bangkok especiallly during the past ten or more years.

Students at such schools get 50% of instruction each day in Thai by Thai teachers and 50% in English from farang NS teachers, and also by those Europeans who are perfectly fluent in English. The 50-50 principle of bilingual education includes instruction in all subjects. I myself taught English per se, but also taught Social Subjects and History to include Thai History in English (a history I had to learn from scratch and 90% at my own expense).

In contrast to international schools, learners at Thai bilingual schools get a strong dose of Thai culture and traditions to include dance and music classes etc.

Still, it's difficult to get Thai students to speak freely in English when culturally the inertia of their own system of education causes them to be passive receivers of not very new and not very challenging information doled out by not very challenging and not very interesting Thai teachers educated and trained in their own systems.

I think a central part of being an international educator is to learn that nothing works in the ESL/EFL classroom as planned or in the ways one is trained, and that one has to focus on getting the learners to speak, speak, speak and secondly to keep up with their writing. Classroom learning games are usually effective in Prathom and to a certain extent lower, lower Mathayom but that would be it.

For the life of me, however, I still can't imagine which demographics from abroad and which categories of socio-economics would want to come to Thailand for an education. Must be the climate .

Referring to another thread, it might be the uni uniforms

[Datsun240Z]

Let them educate their own folks first.

[KhaoNiaw]

To add to a previous post to this thread, I am pleased to say that Thailand has seized ingeniously on the bilingual school as a highly successful institutional approach to education. Bilingual schools have proliferated in Bangkok especiallly during the past ten or more years.

Students at such schools get 50% of instruction each day in Thai by Thai teachers and 50% in English from farang NS teachers, and also by those Europeans who are perfectly fluent in English. The 50-50 principle of bilingual education includes instruction in all subjects. I myself taught English per se, but also taught Social Subjects and History to include Thai History in English (a history I had to learn from scratch and 90% at my own expense).

It would be interesting to see the rationale behind the bilingual approach as implemented in Thailand, and also the research and studies that would support it. Can anyone point me in the direction of some links or give a recommended reading list?

[Xangsamhua]

To add to a previous post to this thread, I am pleased to say that Thailand has seized ingeniously on the bilingual school as a highly successful institutional approach to education. Bilingual schools have proliferated in Bangkok especiallly during the past ten or more years.

Students at such schools get 50% of instruction each day in Thai by Thai teachers and 50% in English from farang NS teachers, and also by those Europeans who are perfectly fluent in English. The 50-50 principle of bilingual education includes instruction in all subjects. I myself taught English per se, but also taught Social Subjects and History to include Thai History in English (a history I had to learn from scratch and 90% at my own expense).

It would be interesting to see the rationale behind the bilingual approach as implemented in Thailand, and also the research and studies that would support it. Can anyone point me in the direction of some links or give a recommended reading list?

There's plenty of research that you can find reference to on the net or through publishers such as Multilingual Matters and Lawrence Earlbaum. Angel Lin and Evelyn Man have recently published Bilingual Education: Southeast Asian Perspectives, which is very good, but only has a couple of pages about Thailand (partly because Angel Lin couldn't get any detailed information from MoE when she sought it, despite Khunying Kasama's support). I have done some mainly school-based research that is available in the public domain and speaks of the Thai context. MoE and British Council tried to trial CLIL, a form of immersion education, in Thailand and that is referred to in an earlier post on this thread. There's nothing much by Thai researchers on the net in English. One problem also is that, for Thai academics, "bilingual education" refers to programs for minority language speakers in outlying areas and the term "English Program" has been misapplied by MoE to what are in fact either bilingual or immersion programs. If you are doing some formal study or have a professional reason for your interest I am happy to give you more information via PM.

[Thaddeus]

What people seem to forget is that things don't happen overnight.

How many Thai overnights equal one western one..... progress can be slow everywhere, but here it flows like treacle in a fridge.

[Yooyung]

'Let them educate their own folks first'........ well said! Surely they should fix things at home before trying to carry out this monty pythonesque scheme......and yet something tells me thats not really part of the overall plan.

[yumidesign]

But its not april 1 is it.

So the new world language is going to be Thai NA KRUB

Edited August 28, 2009 by yumidesign

[yumidesign]

But its not april 1 is it.

So the new world language is going to be Thai NA KRUB

oh they are going to teach in english. this gets better all the time

[bangon04]

'Let them educate their own folks first'........ well said! Surely they should fix things at home before trying to carry out this monty pythonesque scheme......and yet something tells me thats not really part of the overall plan.

The overall plan: we can see how much money these international schools get away with charging to rich people, so why can't we get our snouts into this trough without risking any private money?

[Publicus]

You present some excellent stuff Xangsamhua which is helpful to me too.

I participated in some bilingual school educational research in Thailand which compared and contrasted the learning styles of Thai bilingual learners at a particular bi school in Bangkok to research findings documented in a study in China of Chinese learning styles in straight-out English classes that did not have a bilingual component. (I'm unaware that PRChina has any such thing as bilingual education or bilingual schools per se.)

The Thai study was directed by a farang M.Ed. while the study in China was conducted by Chinese researchers. The farang however also included the Thai learner's reactions to and assessments of farang teachers and farang teaching styles.

I haven't been daily involved in bilingual education in Thailand since 2005 but after having had a six year immersion in it I continued to be attentive to it, at least until I left LOS in December 07. Thai bilingual schools are pretty much proprietary and offer a K-12 education (some include pre-school) and produce graduates that are wholely competent in English who typically get excellent jobs.

I'm on a university faculty in PRChina and have classes with only certain students such as majors in English, Business English, Trade and Economics. Many I teach are nervous concerning their English in contrast to the Thai K-12 bilingual school grads who themselves are comfortable in English interaction and don't miss a beat.

Anyone interested in the specific and particular Thai study is certainly welcome to PM me.

And I still for the life of me can't figure out why students from abroad would want or choose Thailand to further their education. To enroll in a bilingual school, perhaps, but it's otherwise clear the Thai education authorities are presenting a lot of hocus-pocus. And this thread is giving those authorities the deserved resonse.

[selftaopath]

Wow, there are so many people claiming to have worked in "top Thai unis" that you would think they would all be overflowing with foreign faculty members

Still, it doesn't change what this thread is really about, A bunch of people, mostly with no experience, evidence or facts, knocking things they know little about.

Perhaps some of the posts are because of the feeling that Thailand i.e. politicians/police/customs etc lack credibility. Here is an example of the definition of the word:

credible

adjective

able to be believed or trusted

Investigators found no credible evidence of a crime.

credibly

adverb

The show credibly portrays the black family experience.

credibility

noun

Once his lies were revealed, he lost all credibility as a leader.

We often hear WORDS but little action. Pity b/c Thai people really deserve better. Shame they have little/no representation.

[caf]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

I think you make some good points but you do not always write in a way that is easy to understand your argument. Many teachers here seem to feel they do not need to win over the Thais. And an attitude that farang teachers know best sometimes comes across.

I applaud your point about addressing what is wanting in the system.

I do not know who you are refering to as the commentator who has taught in several cultures and has valid reasons for critique. Like everyone else, he or she can hold personal views. Whether extensive teaching in other cultures means he or she is a good teacher in Thailand is neither here nor there.

As you say let's have realistic observations. But pontificating that farang are better teachers than Thais is at best not entirely helpful.

[bangon04]

To add to a previous post to this thread, I am pleased to say that Thailand has seized ingeniously on the bilingual school as a highly successful institutional approach to education. Bilingual schools have proliferated in Bangkok especiallly during the past ten or more years.

Students at such schools get 50% of instruction each day in Thai by Thai teachers and 50% in English from farang NS teachers, and also by those Europeans who are perfectly fluent in English. The 50-50 principle of bilingual education includes instruction in all subjects. I myself taught English per se, but also taught Social Subjects and History to include Thai History in English (a history I had to learn from scratch and 90% at my own expense).

It would be interesting to see the rationale behind the bilingual approach as implemented in Thailand, and also the research and studies that would support it. Can anyone point me in the direction of some links or give a recommended reading list?

My observation of the bilingual method in Thailand suggests that the strategy is - the students sit through the class in English, then wait for the class to be repeated in Thai so they can copy down lots of notes in Thai so they can take a test in Thai about the class and colour a picture in English.....

[Publicus]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

I think you make some good points but you do not always write in a way that is easy to understand your argument. Many teachers here seem to feel they do not need to win over the Thais. And an attitude that farang teachers know best sometimes comes across.

I applaud your point about addressing what is wanting in the system.

I do not know who you are refering to as the commentator who has taught in several cultures and has valid reasons for critique. Like everyone else, he or she can hold personal views. Whether extensive teaching in other cultures means he or she is a good teacher in Thailand is neither here nor there.

As you say let's have realistic observations. But pontificating that farang are better teachers than Thais is at best not entirely helpful.

Trying to compare foreign NS teachers to local NNS teachers is another case of trying to compare apples and oranges, chalk and cheese etc etc. There are several reasons but mentioning a few would do.

The foreign teacher is...well, foreign. He/she is an alien (a word even university students today find amusing as they know it as having only one distinct meaning). A resident alien besides.

As is often the case concerning proprietary schools in Thailand, when the school authorities have as a systimic and systematic policy of browbeating the farang teachers to change their style and approaches in the classroom to conform to the culture of Thai teaching, then the teaching in Thailand becomes homogenous. It conforms more to the demanded Thai way.

I don't teach well when I'm browbeaten to teach English in the Thai way. Neither do other farang international educators. However the local NNS teacher is relieved and pleased because the differences of teaching philosophies, styles and approaches have been blurred or substantially obscured.

Accordingly, I'd suggest you might need to work from a new premise, e.g., that farang international educators too often aren't allowed to be farang teachers in the classroom. In short, when one mashes together an apple and an orange one gets something more like a banana.

[animatic]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

I think you make some good points but you do not always write in a way that is easy to understand your argument. Many teachers here seem to feel they do not need to win over the Thais. And an attitude that farang teachers know best sometimes comes across.

I applaud your point about addressing what is wanting in the system.

I do not know who you are referring to as the commentator who has taught in several cultures and has valid reasons for critique. Like everyone else, he or she can hold personal views. Whether extensive teaching in other cultures means he or she is a good teacher in Thailand is neither here nor there.

As you say let's have realistic observations. But pontificating that farang are better teachers than Thais is at best not entirely helpful.

I just had to decide where to put the daughter 4 months back.

I have several friends with children in both international schools and Thai schools.

The later wish they had the money for the bilingual interna. schools.

Some have seen BOTH systems, and money available, will ALWAYS pick the bi-ling. Int School.

Because THEY as parents have seen the increased progress and inquisativeness in their children

at the latter institutions.

One friend is an administrator ( sequentially) at two Int. Schools, plus a child there,

and two others have taught in both programs. We at length discussed the two options.

I unreservedly sacrificed the cash to put her in a good Bilingual school.

Actually trilingual, because they get a bit of Chinese too. And Farang teachers are left

to teach in their most productive way. There are quite a few Thais who have put their children there also.

I am also friends with music professors in Bkk uni's and have met and discussed

and played with some of their students. As recently as last weekend.

I have a friend in Bangkok Symphony and Opera. I understand their programs.

Some are fine teachers, but have student 'attitude' issues in many cases.

As to the commenter who has taught in many venues, I will let him self-out.

But the point being not to slag Thai teachers, but to address the intrinsic problems of the system.

Why? Of course to help Thai people grow up happier and healthier.

And more capable to earn in the world economy. Not for MY benefit, nor ego gratification.

Those that have SEEN different success rates in different systems are better prepared to judge

than those who have not. If by logic and job history it is farhangs more that Thais that have this

external teaching experience, then they are the ones best place to make comparisons, aren't they?

Edited August 28, 2009 by animatic

[Plus]

>>>

Bilingual schools, however insteresting, are off topic here, but while we are at it - I doubt that there was any research into it - it all happened so fast, driven purely by market forces and private school management. I have never seen anything like that anywhere else - there are bilingual schools all over the world, but never to try and learn a foreign language.

So far I'm impressed with the results - observing two kids porgress at one of the demonstrations schools here. Can't afford a proper International school, and don't trust the cheap ones, but kids were practically fluent by grade 3. Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

[jayboy]

Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

A horribly long time ago when I was a Thai language student at the AUA there was an extraordinarily gifted linguist called J.Marvin Brown - one of those mysterious American Asia hands whom one presumed had a history in covert operations. I think he wrote the AUA Thai language course.He had perfect Thai,Khmer and Lao and perhaps other Asian languages under his belt.I remember one of his pieces of advice was to listen very carefully how educated Thais speak and copy their phrasing and intonation.In fact I think "mimic" was the word he used.Certainly he would have had no difficulty in a reasonably accomplished foreign student trying to sound like a Thai if learning Thai or a French man if learning French.In other words mimicry is part of being a good linguist.But where I agree with you is sharing the irritation if it's not done very well.My pet peeve are those Thai Inter stewardesses with imperfect English compounded by a travesty of an American accent.

[caf]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

I think you make some good points but you do not always write in a way that is easy to understand your argument. Many teachers here seem to feel they do not need to win over the Thais. And an attitude that farang teachers know best sometimes comes across.

I applaud your point about addressing what is wanting in the system.

I do not know who you are refering to as the commentator who has taught in several cultures and has valid reasons for critique. Like everyone else, he or she can hold personal views. Whether extensive teaching in other cultures means he or she is a good teacher in Thailand is neither here nor there.

As you say let's have realistic observations. But pontificating that farang are better teachers than Thais is at best not entirely helpful.

Trying to compare foreign NS teachers to local NNS teachers is another case of trying to compare apples and oranges, chalk and cheese etc etc. There are several reasons but mentioning a few would do.

The foreign teacher is...well, foreign. He/she is an alien (a word even university students today find amusing as they know it as having only one distinct meaning). A resident alien besides.

As is often the case concerning proprietary schools in Thailand, when the school authorities have as a systimic and systematic policy of browbeating the farang teachers to change their style and approaches in the classroom to conform to the culture of Thai teaching, then the teaching in Thailand becomes homogenous. It conforms more to the demanded Thai way.

I don't teach well when I'm browbeaten to teach English in the Thai way. Neither do other farang international educators. However the local NNS teacher is relieved and pleased because the differences of teaching philosophies, styles and approaches have been blurred or substantially obscured.

Accordingly, I'd suggest you might need to work from a new premise, e.g., that farang international educators too often aren't allowed to be farang teachers in the classroom. In short, when one mashes together an apple and an orange one gets something more like a banana.

"browbeating the farang taechers" ??? "are not allowed to be farang taechers" ??

As I said in my first post there are good and poor Thai teachers as well as farang. My comments referred to a school inspector's view. Somwe teachers do actually manage to reach well here and are not browbeaten.

Apples, oranges ( mashed or unmashed into bananas) chalk cheese. I like your teaching style

[caf]

Maybe we should separate realistic observations of deficiencies,

from purely negative comments. We DO have some actual teachers here,

at varying strata of the Thai teaching system. I observe that most seem

to find the local system wanting. The why's and wherefore's might be better

addressed than to 'just make nice and accomplish nothing'.

Which in itself IS a main issue in the

Thai schooling system. Nom Jai before learning.

Don't question teachers, just accept what they say.

One commenter here has taught on 3 continents in multiple cultures

including Thailand and was not pulling any punches,

and certainly had valid reasons for critique.

I think you make some good points but you do not always write in a way that is easy to understand your argument. Many teachers here seem to feel they do not need to win over the Thais. And an attitude that farang teachers know best sometimes comes across.

I applaud your point about addressing what is wanting in the system.

I do not know who you are referring to as the commentator who has taught in several cultures and has valid reasons for critique. Like everyone else, he or she can hold personal views. Whether extensive teaching in other cultures means he or she is a good teacher in Thailand is neither here nor there.

As you say let's have realistic observations. But pontificating that farang are better teachers than Thais is at best not entirely helpful.

I just had to decide where to put the daughter 4 months back.

I have several friends with children in both international schools and Thai schools.

The later wish they had the money for the bilingual interna. schools.

Some have seen BOTH systems, and money available, will ALWAYS pick the bi-ling. Int School.

Because THEY as parents have seen the increased progress and inquisativeness in their children

at the latter institutions.

One friend is an administrator ( sequentially) at two Int. Schools, plus a child there,

and two others have taught in both programs. We at length discussed the two options.

I unreservedly sacrificed the cash to put her in a good Bilingual school.

Actually trilingual, because they get a bit of Chinese too. And Farang teachers are left

to teach in their most productive way. There are quite a few Thais who have put their children there also.

I am also friends with music professors in Bkk uni's and have met and discussed

and played with some of their students. As recently as last weekend.

I have a friend in Bangkok Symphony and Opera. I understand their programs.

Some are fine teachers, but have student 'attitude' issues in many cases.

As to the commenter who has taught in many venues, I will let him self-out.

But the point being not to slag Thai teachers, but to address the intrinsic problems of the system.

Why? Of course to help Thai people grow up happier and healthier.

And more capable to earn in the world economy. Not for MY benefit, nor ego gratification.

Those that have SEEN different success rates in different systems are better prepared to judge

than those who have not. If by logic and job history it is farhangs more that Thais that have this

external teaching experience, then they are the ones best place to make comparisons, aren't they?

I would agree with your last paragraph. Experienced farang teachers are a great asset. But not all are, are they? In my first post I said there were good and bad Thai farang teachers.

I can not see the relevance of the rest of your post to my post

[BSJ]

Hi Plus, your looking at th exception, not the rule!

How can higher ed students in LOS compare to Western students doing the same course. The student are let down in Junior school by a system that considers passes to be acceptable at 45% (and probably less), employs barely qualified English (TEFL graduates) teachers who range from incompetent to good, and have an endemic culture that fails to encourage students to think for themselves. They are behind the 8 ball the day they walk into the university grounds.

Any Thai kid that can excel in any field is doing it against the odds.

[Plus]

Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

A horribly long time ago when I was a Thai language student at the AUA there was an extraordinarily gifted linguist called J.Marvin Brown - one of those mysterious American Asia hands whom one presumed had a history in covert operations. I think he wrote the AUA Thai language course.He had perfect Thai,Khmer and Lao and perhaps other Asian languages under his belt.I remember one of his pieces of advice was to listen very carefully how educated Thais speak and copy their phrasing and intonation.In fact I think "mimic" was the word he used.Certainly he would have had no difficulty in a reasonably accomplished foreign student trying to sound like a Thai if learning Thai or a French man if learning French.In other words mimicry is part of being a good linguist.But where I agree with you is sharing the irritation if it's not done very well.My pet peeve are those Thai Inter stewardesses with imperfect English compounded by a travesty of an American accent.

Hmm, maybe it's ok for that extraordinary gifted person to mimic others, because he can really pull it off and back it up, but for the vast majority of Thais mimicking British/American accents is just as annoying as trying to swear in a foreign language.

I also don't like personality disorder that comes with it - accent is just one part of an image, and you are supposed to carry yourself in a certain way if you want to sound like upper class Brit or Californian. I like Thais just the way they are, thank you very much.

[madjbs]

Hi Plus, your looking at th exception, not the rule!

How can higher ed students in LOS compare to Western students doing the same course. The student are let down in Junior school by a system that considers passes to be acceptable at 45% (and probably less), employs barely qualified English (TEFL graduates) teachers who range from incompetent to good, and have an endemic culture that fails to encourage students to think for themselves. They are behind the 8 ball the day they walk into the university grounds.

Any Thai kid that can excel in any field is doing it against the odds.

Rubbish. I have seen Western students and Thai students from good unis working together in the same room. There is little difference between them.

Edited August 28, 2009 by madjbs

[TAWP]

Certainly not as much vocabulary as native speakers and grammatically the speech is far from perfect, but they just don't shut up, and, a good thing, they don't pretend to sound like English or Americans - I find that extremely annoying.

A horribly long time ago when I was a Thai language student at the AUA there was an extraordinarily gifted linguist called J.Marvin Brown - one of those mysterious American Asia hands whom one presumed had a history in covert operations. I think he wrote the AUA Thai language course.He had perfect Thai,Khmer and Lao and perhaps other Asian languages under his belt.I remember one of his pieces of advice was to listen very carefully how educated Thais speak and copy their phrasing and intonation.In fact I think "mimic" was the word he used.Certainly he would have had no difficulty in a reasonably accomplished foreign student trying to sound like a Thai if learning Thai or a French man if learning French.In other words mimicry is part of being a good linguist.But where I agree with you is sharing the irritation if it's not done very well.My pet peeve are those Thai Inter stewardesses with imperfect English compounded by a travesty of an American accent.

Hmm, maybe it's ok for that extraordinary gifted person to mimic others, because he can really pull it off and back it up, but for the vast majority of Thais mimicking British/American accents is just as annoying as trying to swear in a foreign language.

I also don't like personality disorder that comes with it - accent is just one part of an image, and you are supposed to carry yourself in a certain way if you want to sound like upper class Brit or Californian. I like Thais just the way they are, thank you very much.

Nonsense, English spoken with an Thai accent is horrendous and I am thankful for any time I hear someone speak with a proper american or british accent. I myself got rid of my native accent as a young lad by copying phrases from movies for fun (see: Say Han Solo's lines from SW IV etc) and it helped me. (I have had australians ask me if I am american etc, so something stuck.)

A language spoken in a near native accent is the best, anything else is just confusing.

[Ijustwannateach]

Hi Plus, your looking at th exception, not the rule!

How can higher ed students in LOS compare to Western students doing the same course. The student are let down in Junior school by a system that considers passes to be acceptable at 45% (and probably less), employs barely qualified English (TEFL graduates) teachers who range from incompetent to good, and have an endemic culture that fails to encourage students to think for themselves. They are behind the 8 ball the day they walk into the university grounds.

Any Thai kid that can excel in any field is doing it against the odds.

Rubbish. I have seen Western students and Thai students from good unis working together in the same room. There is little difference between them.

I am impressed with many of the Thai students I have taught or observed. They are not really the subject here, though, as what we are discussing is Thailand's suitability for expanded English-language support of foreign students, to the point that the country would be described as a regional 'hub.' It is not the Thai students who are the problem with making Thailand an international student 'hub.'

At top universities and well-funded programmes at present, this is possible. However, I have serious reservations (which I have stated) about the capability of Thais to provide EP programme support to a much larger number of students. I have former Thai students studying in nearly all of these top 'international university programmes' (in English) and they have very mixed things to say about the English ability of their Thai professors. Where is the better talent going to come from, then? Furthermore, at the high school level, there are barely enough decent English-speaking subject teachers to go around now in the EP programmes that presently exist (and believe me, I know). Where are the new teachers going to come from, and how are they going to be paid?