Expensive International Schools

[Chunky1]

There is obviously a huge advantage to being from a household where English is spoken fluently and is spoken as a primary language... That is obviously not the case for a large percent of the students attending the >300,000/yr international schools... my question is, do these schools segregate the students based on their English ability or are the farang and luk krueng students forced to work at a slower pace so that the other students can keep up with them?

please don't take this as being racist as obvious coming from an english speaking household is going to make it much easier to learn in an english language classroom.

[Garry9999]

I think you should look at re wording that post. There is obviously a huge advantage to being from a household where English is spoken fluently.....

[yabaaaa]

If they can afford for them to go to International schools Im sure they can pay the "pass" fee for anything.

[mmushr00m]

Dont look down on them

Think about this, if the parents can afford 300k a kid, you know that the parents can afford english classes/tutors. You know that the kids are exposed to english language programs on television and the kids were probably taught english from a young age.

Probably in the begining the kids will have some problems but if its a real 300k internationbal school you can bet the schools will have english programs to get all the kids up to snuff in a very short time.

[TokyoT]

Most of the schools not only offer, but require children with low level English communication skills to take ESL - English as Second Language class - in addition to the standard workload, until the child has the English level necessary to keep-up with the rest of the class. Also if the child enters school at a very young age 2/3 yrs old English language preschool, or even a bit later 5/6 yrs old then they are usually very capable of being enveloped into the English language and will catch up with their peers rather quickly.

From what I have seen young children that are immersed in an all English environment for several hours per day will pick up the spoken languages very quickly - especially between the ages of 2-4.

[StreetCowboy]

Sometimes I think that the kids who need catching up in English miss out on some subjects like other foreign languages, which don't imapct on their ability to keep up in the core subjects (literacy, numeracy etc). At the school my children are at, the teaching programmes are quite tailored, so that children are working in same-ability or mixed-ability geroups according to a deliberate strategy.

What might be more of a problem is the quaintly parochial nature of the English National Curriculum - not sure, it might even be British - which addresses generic issues only through the focus of specific British examples; Fire of London, Scottish Islands, Ancient Greeks (OK, maybe that's got wider European implications than just Britain) whereas the same basic principles could be taught using a more varied set of examples to avoid disadvantagin students from other cultures

You could check the Bragging Stats in their brochures to get an impression of whether some races (nationalities? cultures?) enjoy an advantage through to graduation, but I think you'd find that was not the case.

Anyway, who cares? You send your kids to the best school that you can, and if other families enjoy benefits or advantages, that's good for them. School is not a competition, its an environment to grow and thrive to the best of your own potential.

SC

[Chunky1]

"School is not a competition, its an environment to grow and thrive to the best of your own potential."

It is also a business. The question is if your child is being taught a slower pace to make up for the children who are taking ESL classes.

[Heng]

IME it tends to even out. Not unlike 'back home' where you often have colleges where half of the top 10, with honors, etc. graduates are often foreigners who are far from fluent in English.

The language issue is just one of several factors. More likely to slow kids down... lack of proper study time/discipline/area at home, no tutorial support (as mentioned), too much financial freedom/partying/etc. It's really easy to send one's kids to the 'better schools' and have them come out drug addicts and otherwise useless adults. Language wise the ESL kids simply have to read through their texts 4 times instead of 2.

[equium]

theres an international school near us that seems to do very well its a thai christian school,hundreds of the kids walk past our place everyday thai and farang.

dont know the costs you might be able to google them.

sukhumvit 71 or its proper name pridi banomyong 41

lots of well to do thais seem send their kids there and loads of farang kids aswell

google thai christian school pridi banomyong 41 or sukhumvit 71

[SuperstarStatus]

I was going to ABAC for like 3 months then dropped out for another school I went to.

But from what I saw, most kids there didn't speak great English, alot of Indian/Bangladesh folks spoke very good Thai and English, but Thais not so well. The teachers did not speak English well at all, but I sat in the same classes

as all the other normal folks, nothing was slowed down, and there was no special class for Look Kuns or Farangs, just a big campus full of international students. I miss it though ... Sanook Dee, besides the uniforms

[Kilgore Trout]

To start, 300,000k per year would be the bottom of the barrell, cheapest international schools in the country. Schools such as NIST or Pattana exceed a million baht per year. So if parents are paying that kind of money it is expected that the teachers work their <deleted> off to individualize instruction as to meet student's needs.

And yes, it would be very difficult for a teacher to "fail" a student if that teacher wants to keep his/her job.

The younger the kids, the quicker and easier they pick up the language for the most part.

[MSingh]

So what would be the alternative to these, to me, expensive International School's in somewhere like BKK then ??

The Thai Goverment Schools only, or is the kind of a " middle bracket " bunch of decent enough Private Thai Schools or Bi/Multi Lingual Schools ??

[Ricardo]

Some schools insist upon a reasonable level of spoken-English, before admission to the regular classes, and offer full-time English-studies to non-speakers.

[PattayaParent]

"School is not a competition, its an environment to grow and thrive to the best of your own potential."

It is also a business. The question is if your child is being taught a slower pace to make up for the children who are taking ESL classes.

Yes.

[bonobo]

Just throwing this out as I am in no way an expert, but more than a few Thais I know would not send their kids to an international school regardless of cost.  Their reason is that they all believe that while an international school may be beneficial in a kid getting accepted to an oversea university, it is a detriment to getting into a Thai university.

One family I know sends their daughter to a good Thai school, then on the weekend, she takes Chinese and English classes.

[fiddlehead]

Just throwing this out as I am in no way an expert, but more than a few Thais I know would not send their kids to an international school regardless of cost.  Their reason is that they all believe that while an international school may be beneficial in a kid getting accepted to an oversea university, it is a detriment to getting into a Thai university.

One family I know sends their daughter to a good Thai school, then on the weekend, she takes Chinese and English classes.

I agree.

Smart Thais send their kids to the "mover and shaker" schools (Thai schools) unless they want their child to go to western universities.

My son goes to an international school here in Phuket and I see kids coming into his class that speak NO English (he is in kindergarden) and within 2 weeks, are speaking some and within a year, it's pretty good although of course not as well as native English speakers.

My child is half Thai and we are thinking of moving him to a good Thai school so he interacts with the higher class kids. (and learns to read and write Thai better)

These are tough decisions of course.

[Chunky1]

To start, 300,000k per year would be the bottom of the barrell, cheapest international schools in the country. Schools such as NIST or Pattana exceed a million baht per year. So if parents are paying that kind of money it is expected that the teachers work their <deleted> off to individualize instruction as to meet student's needs.

And yes, it would be very difficult for a teacher to "fail" a student if that teacher wants to keep his/her job.

The younger the kids, the quicker and easier they pick up the language for the most part.

lol at 300k/yr schools being the bottom of the barrel.

As for the post above mine, the price range for international schools is around 150k-1m/yr... the vast majority of these schools (from my research) fall between 250-450k/yr...this is for the CBD.

[Chunky1]

the obvious downside of sending your child to a Thai language school is you won't be able to take an active roll in their schooling if you aren't fluent in Thai yourself. For those farang fluent in Thai, I agree that this would be a good option. Although I am sure a couple of you out there like the idea of being able to shirk that responsibility :-)

[Kilgore Trout]

To start, 300,000k per year would be the bottom of the barrell, cheapest international schools in the country. Schools such as NIST or Pattana exceed a million baht per year. So if parents are paying that kind of money it is expected that the teachers work their <deleted> off to individualize instruction as to meet student's needs.

And yes, it would be very difficult for a teacher to "fail" a student if that teacher wants to keep his/her job.

The younger the kids, the quicker and easier they pick up the language for the most part.

lol at 300k/yr schools being the bottom of the barrel.

As for the post above mine, the price range for international schools is around 150k-1m/yr... the vast majority of these schools (from my research) fall between 250-450k/yr...this is for the CBD.

In my experience most of the schools in the lower price range you mentioned don't have proper accreditation; many are on temporary status with on org., if they don't get that then they apply to another one which takes a few years and buys time. They also don't meet the quota set by the ministry of ed.; only a small percentage of students can be Thai (maybe around 25% or something), ask any Thai who has attempted to get their child into NIST. Also, take a look at the qualifications of the teachers at these schools, how many have proper teaching credentials from their home country and are teaching what their endorsements state? I could go on and on....bottom line; there are only 3-5 "real" international schools in Thailand, the rest are sub-par, some being better than others of course.

[Chunky1]

Thx for the post. I am not really informed enough to comment but hope others do. I am sure your post won't be too popular.