Reasonable Expectations..

[MagnumForce]

Hi guys,

I am meant to be teaching conversational English to students from Prathom 1 to Mathayom 6 for one class a week each in a government school where I am the only farang teacher and a recent addition to boot. Over the last few weeks we've been doing mid-term speaking tests and, having survived this ordeal, I have realised that many students simply cannot answer basic conversational questions. In some cases, I felt like I was trying to draw blood from a stone. I couldn't count the mai khao jai's, arai-wah's, the blank looks, the desperate appeals to their friends for translation. Luckily, there were some outstanding students but they number about 1 in 5 at a push.

I desperately want to do something about this urgently so I'm asking here to get some good ideas and also to ascertain what are reasonable expectations of students in the grades mentioned with regards to conversational English Q+A's? What should my students be able to talk about easily in their respective grades? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a plan to go back to basics. I'm going to compile a list of of questions and answers (including variations or alternative ways of asking and answering the same type of question) which I feel all grades from at least P5 to M6 should be able to answer as a matter of course. My problem is that some of the questions which could not be answered by P5, for example, could also not be answered by M6!!! I plan to get the classes to make up posters with these Q+A's and put them up in each class where we will then practise them at the beginning of every lesson for the foreseeable future. What do you think of this?

I would like to be able to have conversational lessons suitable for certain age-groups but I find the basics are lacking so I feel that I need to conquer this problem before tackling anything more advanced.

I would really appreciate any feedback that you guys have on this.

Thanks.:jap:

MF

[Scott]

You will get a lot of differing opinions, but with a wide range of grades and levels of proficiency as well as limited amount of classroom time, I would stick to basics and rather usual questions and answers. Have the students use the same structure in answering. Numbers, counting, days of the week, months are all important. Depending on their grade, they should be able to say and spell their name, tell you where they live (older kids should know their address), phone number, birthdate etc. They should all know the current date. They should be able to answer about their 'favorite' things...food, fruit, class, sports team etc.

As a teacher, you should be able to ask the questions in normal speech and using different sentence structure and they should still be able to answer. If you have a book/curriculum follow it.

Best of luck and hopefully others will be along with their ideas and experience.

[Scottish Thailander]

. . . If you have a book/curriculum follow it . . .

I agree. If you do not cover the appropriate scheduled curriculum for that class then you may find you will end up out of your job. The school is mandated to teach the sceduled curruculum at each level, regardless of the student's standard. Make sure the better students get the scheduled curriculum and do not suffer due to the less advanced ones (lots more work and time spent planning by you to work in multi-level tasks;many teachers give up trying). Going back to basics can also be seen as causing either the students, or their former teachers, losing face; therefore another reason to work it into the scheduled curriculum. Before the comments come in; yes, teaching an M3 curriculum to a K1 level student is far from ideal, but in some schools it is your only choice so you have to fulfil the school's requirements and sneak in the basics within it or it will be you that suffers the consequences.

I wish you luck.

ST.

[otherstuff1957]

Good advice above, especially Scott's. I would add: try to get every student to speak to you one-on-one at least twice a term. Given your schedule, that means taking 5 minutes at the end or beginning of class to do a quick Q & A with 4 or 5 students every week.

It's important to establish a pattern with the students so that they know what to expect. Unless you speak Thai very well, your biggest problem will be getting them to understand how to do various activities. What I did, when I was in your situation, was to teach 'serious lessons' for 3 weeks out of the month and then play an English game for the 4th lesson: have the boys & girls compete with each other to conjugate a verb or answer questions or unscramble a sentence (sentence hangman), etc...

[MagnumForce]

Thanks so far guys. My 'back to basics' questions are exactly what Scott suggests.

Fortunately, I don't have to follow a set curriculum (at least not one set by the school or the government) for my classes which allows me to undertake this 'back to basics' project. I have already discussed my plan with the relevant Thai English teachers and they are on board. They realise there is a problem and it needs to be fixed so there's no face issue to contend with. This is being done for the benefit of the students. I realise that I have to somehow not exclude the better students and I have some ideas for that such as asking them more difficult questions, practising different tenses and looking for a wider range in the better students' answers.

I like otherstuff1957's suggestion. I already do something along those lines at the beginning of each class but it's a whole-class activity and one question per student. Also, I conduct formal speaking tests twice a term, so four times in total per school year. I want to bring them up to the relevant standard so that they can answer the questions without great difficulty in the actual speaking test, thereby giving them more confidence and saving me a/several massive pain/s in the ass .

Any more ideas on what I should reasonably expect from the different grades with regards to conversational English based on your experiences teaching here in Thailand, particularly in similar types of schools with similar levels as described?

Thanks again.

MF

Edited August 9, 2010 by MagnumForce