Insulted By Student In Thai

[keo]

วันนี้ตอนเช้าไม่น่าเชื่อว่านักเรียนเรียกผมว่า "ชั่ว" เพราะผมให้เธอตอบคำถาม

ผมก็เลยเขี่ยเธอออกจากห้องเรียนแต่ไม่แน่ใจว่าควรบอกให้แม่ของนักเรียนด้วยหรือเปล่า

ป.ล. เป็นเด็กผู้หญิงอายุ10-11ปี ช่วยตอบหน่อยซิครับ

I work at a relatively expensive language school in Chiang Mai, most of the kids are from well off families.

Possibly she thought I wouldn't understand what she said. Sure I hear kids swearing at each other now and

again, especially teenagers, but I've never been directly sworn at. She also refused to leave the class room

when I asked her to, until I put her book and bag outside and she followed. What would you do?

[mikenyork]

I would get the Thai teaching/administrative professional with responsibility for discipline (I think there almost has to be such a person) involved before I did anything else. Even though my command of conversational Thai is (after many decades of struggle) more than adequate, in high stress situations, the unread body language, facial language and the double and triple entendres are beyond me a lot of times.

Good luck! And you have my sympathy. I taught in a govt school for two years. Hardest job I ever had (and that includes digging ditches by hand for 75 cents an hour--a breeze by comparison) and many, many other things.

[neverdie]

You should get a moderator to move this over to the teaching forum. Theres heaps of teachers in there and I am sure at one stage or another one of them might have dealt with a little charmer like this one.

[Murf]

I hear Thai kids saying this word quite often as a joke, and other students laugh at it. Because of the resemblance to the word "sure" in English.

You asked her to answer the question and she said "Sure"

I wouldn't worry about it, the word in itself obviously doesn't describe you, and I think you might have over reacted a little.

Edited August 29, 2010 by Murf

[bhoydy]

Wouldn't worry about it. I've had a lot worse. A few years ago a student told me to f*** my mother in Thai. He had already been expelled from a school in Bangkok and was back in his hometown causing more trouble. I think he thought i wouldn't understand, my Thai at that time was snake snake fish fish, but i knew that word cos i had heard it so often in various company. There was a big sigh that went round the class when they realised i had understood what he had said. I just told him to get out the classroom which he did on the 2nd time of asking. I told the teachers in the staff room and he was disciplined. The next time i had his class he was waiting outside the staff room to carry my books to class and we got on well after that.

At my current school the teachers give the cane to the naughty kids. I have spoken to one of the directors who has told me that it's okay to hit the kids but to not let it bother you as in, give them their punishment and then back to normal. Don't stay angry with them. I don't usually hit the kids but i'll have a bit of a mess about with the naughty ones and give them a dead arm/leg but it's nothing, quite playful. I quite often get sworn at but when i question them about it they always say they were talking to their friend. Which they were, but they were talking about me to there friend. I teach upper Mattayom level so it's not unusual to have bad kids taller and bigger than me which makes life difficult when they refuse to leave the room on asking

I'm at a government school in the sticks. You're at a private school in Bangkok so discipline should really be dealt with by the appropriate office at your school. Or you could give the kid a tediously long punishment exercise.