Thailand To Hire 300 Native English-Speaking Teachers

[mark45y]

If you speak English like the Queen of England or my grandmother that is perfect. My English is American/Canadian and is close if I make a speech.

The best English teachers I have ever met in Thailand were a Swiss brother and sister who were raised in an American school high school and later went to University in Thailand. They spoke English like American natives and German and French and Thai all fluently. But almost as importantly they could dance and sing.

Singing and dancing is very important in teaching English in Thailand. If you can't sing and dance forget about it.

To those people who think one can be an effective teacher in a government school without speaking Thai I wish you good luck.

You also have to have your own printer and source of lesson plans in colour. The kids don't like black and white. You will pay the costs of ink and paper yourself.

Then you have to decide on how many words you will teach them to say per year. Currently the average is two. I think the two words come more from TV commercials than school but be that as it may you should have a target. As a first year goal I would suggest going out on a limb and try and teaching the whole class to say, "I want to go to the toilet." Year number two I would suggest trying something more complicated like, "What time is it?" I will write some more tips in the morning.

Are you an English teacher in Thailand ?

Why do you ask?

[Khun Jean]

Instead of hiring 30 English teacher it is much better to fire the 4-5 people who are dubbing English spoken movies to Thai. Just use subtitles and Thai people will be educated three things at the same time.

1 ) Learning how English should sound, 2 ) Be able to do three things at the same time (watching movie, listening to what is said and reading the subtitle). This will prepare people for other tasks that require more than one thing to focus on, like driving.

3 ) Learn that in the English language there are more words for crazy instead of only 'Ba'

Another advantage is that foreigners finally can watch some movies shown on TV together with Thais .

Edited March 31, 2011 by Khun Jean

[Throatwobbler]

I got the impression that the new teachers being hired will be certified teachers in their home country, not TEFL teachers. And those teachers generally make more than 83k in Thailand. So if that is the case, it's really not a salary increase. It's bringing in a different type of teacher.

So they will ne bringing in qualified teachers who are used to teaching native speaker students and expect them to be able to teach second language students. Kids with maybe little of no English. I can't see this helping the problem. Some of the worst language teachers I've seen here have been fully qualified teachers in their home country.

Just because you are certified teacher in your home country doesn't mean you don't have experience teaching 2nd language learners. I don't know what your frame of reference is, but when I worked in the States, over 50% of my students were NOT native English speakers. One school consisted of 85% ELLs. Some were brand new refugees and immigrants. I can't speak for other western countries, but the US is rapidly becoming more culturally and linguistically diverse, forcing teachers to acquire the skills necessary to teach these students. Some areas have been very diverse for a long time, and those teachers already possess a level of expertise in 2nd language acquisition and development. Add that to the skills that most teachers already have in differentiation & making modifications for students of varying abilities.

My frame of refence is that even though there are a substantial number of teachers in the West who have to deal with second language learners there are also a great deal who have no experience with it. You say where you taught there was 50% second language kids. It would take little effort to find large areas of the States with less than 5% second language kids.

What I find annoying is the automatic assumption that teachers trained to teach in their native language will be automatically better teachers than people who are trained to teach in a second language. By this I don't mean your one year tourists but you dedicated serious Tefl teachers. How many teachers from,say rural Kansas will know about first language inteference, how to scaffold language properly, how tograde the language to the class they are teaching? I have observed many qualified teachers from home trying to teach here and quite franky most are pathetic.

Edited March 31, 2011 by Throatwobbler

[Throatwobbler]

the Op seems clear enough to me, states native english speakers, dont understand about philipines, india etc they are not native speakers. americanised version of English is not true English by name it comes from England.

the Queens English is the only true English.

Heres the Queens English from Lincolnshire,

Git cat owt at kitchen relse ittle fraton budgie to de ad. Translation==

Please remove the cat from the kitchen or it will frighten the budgerigar to death.---gor it av ya ???

I think you need to look up what the Queen's English means.

[Kilgore Trout]

With Thailand, you have the added complication of a script rather than the alphabet, which is very difficult to 'translate' and a language which is structured a lot differently to english,

What on earth are you talking about....script...."the" alphabet....

Thai "script" is surely different from English "script," however they are both phonetic "alphabets."

[kpmsprtd]

For an alternative view on language learning, allow me to recommend. Dr. J. Marvin Brown's From the Outside In: The Secret to Automatic Language Growth. This is the paper that shattered the foundations of what I once believed to be the "proper" way to teach and learn languages.

Disclaimer: Read this paper at your own risk. It could cause you to doubt nearly everything you do in the classroom. Worse--it could cause you to question whether there should even be a "classroom". Or a "teacher"...

[dant]

The article just says that OBEC will 'seek a Bt350million budget to hire 300 native English-speaking teachers.' That doesn't mean they will get what they want. I find it hard to believe they would be willing to offer foreign teachers a salary this high when they are already hiring them for around 30k a month and this is causing jealously already from qualified Thai teachers who make about half that much. And I'd be shocked if they considered paying Filipinos a salary of 83k a month when they are lucky to get around 20k as it stands.

That's what the goverment will give the school for a foreign teacher, not what the foreign teacher will pocket.

[dant]

When you are teaching a language you are not teaching an accent. The accent of the teacher is of less importance than using proper diction. I have taught from British texts and American texts. I use the text (spelling, sentence structure of the text). The CD's do not have a strong accent from either the US or the UK.

As far as the qualifications are concerned, I am not sure, but the Ministry of Education has been moving in the direction of hiring teachers who have a Bachelor's degree in education. I am reasonably sure they will be hiring people who are qualified/licensed teachers in their home country.

The salary is not all that high for people with an education degree.

You are not teaching an accent, maybe, but the children are going to copy it-and will speak with that. I can tell usually what nationality has taught a person to speak English. IT IS important especially if your accent is strong-Indian for example.

The salary is very good for the cost of living here--not so if your in England-or try to compare-

How many 1st year teachers in England do you know that take home just over 20000 pound a year?

[Slip]

I've seen numerous posts now, claiming things like 'the mid-west US accent is the preferred accent in Asia' or 'American English is now the preferred English' , or 'the English spoken by the original Naghol Tribe in the Pacific island of Vanuatu is by far the easiest to understand'.

Do these posters have any evidence of their (frankly ridiculous) claims, or are they really just their own sad prejudices coming out to play?

Accent should not be relevant anyway. It's a teacher's responsibility to make him/herself heard and understood. Those with strong accents must control them; those who gabble at 100 miles an hour should slow down and those who mumble speak up- that's part of being useful in your role.

I guess we should listen to our American cousins though. I mean, if proper English was too hard for them and their forbearers to learn, imagine the difficulty that Thai school kids are going to have.

Just for the record (and this is the correct way to present your opinion based on your observations chaps), I have a 'standard' English accent with clear diction. In my school, both students and teachers say that my accent is the easiest to understand of all the foreign teachers, (native and non-natives included). That of course does not mean that neutral English English is the best, the easiest to understand or preferred in Asia- just in my school, or so they tell me. Of course they also tell me I speak and write excellent Thai, which I know for a fact to be a lie.

Finally a plea- Can we stop being so pedantic about typos and errors. Everyone makes mistakes; as long as the post is understandable can't we rise above that pettiness?

[mark45y]

For an alternative view on language learning, allow me to recommend. Dr. J. Marvin Brown's From the Outside In: The Secret to Automatic Language Growth. This is the paper that shattered the foundations of what I once believed to be the "proper" way to teach and learn languages.

Disclaimer: Read this paper at your own risk. It could cause you to doubt nearly everything you do in the classroom. Worse--it could cause you to question whether there should even be a "classroom". Or a "teacher"...

I read the whole thing. The guy taught at AUA. I went to school at AUA and they use absolutely none of the techniques he writes about. The article is like a big shaggy dog story that could have been told in one page. At first I was interested but after reading the whole thing I think he is a nut.

Don't speak Thai. Don't think about speaking Thai. Don't speak Thai. Listen only and tag along with people having life experiences. Servants who don't speak English speak better English than Bar girls who speak English all day long. When a girl fell off her bicycle and her skirt went up above her head and she said in Chinese, "Don't look at me." This was his breakthrough moment in linguistics. His prescription for teaching Thai to grade school kids would be to have two English speaking people do a play in the front of the class for three terms not having the kids speak any English. Ya RIGHT.

Somebody else read this thing and tell me I am not crazy.

[patjem]

No problem with a Filipino English dialect, usually clear and easy to understand...... But Indian: they mist be kidding. would be better to hire Glaswegians, who I also as a Brit find it difficult to understand, but bless 'em, at least English is actually kinda their native tongue.

[PhoenixRising]

America invented the computer ? I never knew that. Neither does Google. Think most of us would start with Babbage, Turing undoubtedly the Father of modern computing, (but you wouldn't have wanted to claim him anyway, unfortunate proclivities). And English has only achieved global status because of Hollywood and American culture ? You might be in Thailand but not sure about your planet.....

When I said 'the computer,' I should have been more specific (the Personal Computer). Sorry, I thought it would go without saying. And the PC is most definately an American invention (or maybe Apple might want some of the credit). But then it was Microsoft that went ahead and created the famous software (in English) which caught on and captured the world's attention by storm. Now, add the internet (mostly an American invention) to that and you have a world which needs English just to function and keep up. If you think that computers have had no part to play in why people learn English (including American movies, music,, fashion, sports, politics, money, power and so forth), you are just not about to face reality on this planet.

If for one second you believe the American people has the least bit of power, be it directly or through their politicians, you better wake up from the dream before it becomes a nightmare. And your feeling of superiority, hmmm, where have we seen that before...??

America is a product of European and African descendants. It's Europeans who started shaping this world into what it is today. Sure, today the US has some very good universities. Looking at the average however, per country, I'm not so sure you should be so proud. And the US is king when it comes to misleading mass media, something that's at the root of terrible election outcomes, an enormous gap between the rich and poor, a complete and utter lack of knowledge of the rest of the planet, a false sense of danger AND safety, and the list goes on. What about all that religious fanaticism? It scares me more than most islamic societies. You empower people that have such dark hidden agendas that a true critical thinker MUST wonder what the term axis of evil truly means. No, the US is built on a dream but turned into something completely different.

All the great empires in the past tried to take over the world through conquest. The US is trying the same but through consent. Very smart but very dangerous.

Well, if this isn't America bashing, I don't know what is. I'm actually surprised that it hasn't been edited by the moderation team (as other post have been) for bashing others' countries. But since it is permitted to stand, I'll go ahead and deal with some of this nonsense.

First of all, you are inconsistent when you claim that the American people don't have the least little bit of power (directly or indirectly) over their politicians and then you turn around and say, 'You empower people that have such dark hidden agendas...' So make up your mind! We either empower people or we don't, but it can't be both ways!

Second of all, I have no idea where you came up with this load of ... "Sure, today the US has some very good universities. Looking at the average however, per country, I'm not so sure you should be so proud. " You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

Take a good hard look at these rankings and tell me how you can support your er ... opinion:

http://www.4icu.org/top200/

http://www.webometri..._by_Country.asp

http://www.universit...st.net/rank.htm

Now, after looking at those rankings, start reading a few scholarly books about how English has become an International Language. There is a very popular push by millions of people all over the globe who want ESL (English as a Second Language) to be replace with the new PC term "English as an International Language." It's hard to believe that we are still in the age of using ESL and EFL in this field, which doesn't even apply in most cases.

Lastly, I fail to understand how you've come up with the idea that America is trying to take over the whole world by consent when our government has been using the military and bombing as a strategy of 'defense' for decades. If the United States were at all interested in taking over the world, they would have had a grand opportunity to do so right after WW2. They wouldn't have transfered power back to the Japanese, Germans, French, Polish and so on. I think it's pretty obvious that Americans are not interested in colonizing the rest of the world as their European counterparts and based on their atrocious records in India, the Carribean, S. America Africa etc., I think that's something to be proud of. The British colonization is nothing to be boastful or proud about anymore than America should be boasting about defeating the Native Ameircans or using slaves from Africa to build the country.

Edited April 3, 2011 by PhoenixRising

[PhoenixRising]

No problem with a Filipino English dialect, usually clear and easy to understand...... But Indian: they mist be kidding. would be better to hire Glaswegians, who I also as a Brit find it difficult to understand, but bless 'em, at least English is actually kinda their native tongue.

By the way, Filipino English is a product of American English and it has nothing to do with British colonization (I'm not trying to imply that you made the claim, however). On the other hand, Indian English is, in fact, a by-product of British colonization.

[Scott]

One off-topic, negative comment does not deserve another. Further off-topic, nonsensical posts will be deleted and posters will be issued with a suspension of posting ability.

[oshoshitzu]

To be fair, Filipino's speak very good, clear English with American accent. Also having to learn English as a second language in my opinion gives teacher better perspective on things, because unlike native speakers, the ones who had to learn it may know some ins and outs as what is crystal clear to a native speaker is not so for others.

However India, i am having trouble understanding the thinking there.

All and i mean All Indian, English speaking people i ever come across (not born in English speaking country) have a really bad accent which makes it very hard to understand. The speech is not clear and very often very confusing.

It may not sound different to a non English speaking Thai, but i am sure will make a huge different for students trying to learn the language and pronunciation.

Try asking a Filipino to pronounce sheet or fresh

[oshoshitzu]

the Op seems clear enough to me, states native english speakers, dont understand about philipines, india etc they are not native speakers. americanised version of English is not true English by name it comes from England.

the Queens English is the only true English.

Heres the Queens English from Lincolnshire,

Git cat owt at kitchen relse ittle fraton budgie to de ad. Translation==

Please remove the cat from the kitchen or it will frighten the budgerigar to death.---gor it av ya ???

A Wiganer (person from Wigan in North West England) takes his ill cat to the vet. The vet asks: "Is it a tom?" The wiganer replies: "Ney, I browt it wimme".

[NaiGreg]

It's amazing how many of you go on about pronunciations but don't realise your grammar is up the pole. Take a chill pill you guys, most Indians living here would snigger at the 83,000 baht. It's what they give their kids as pocket money. So if any of the "native" English speakers/backpackers/sex tourists/geriatrics want the job, you are more than welcome to have them. Peace out!

Amen! I wonder if any of them is even literate enough to spell "hypocritical tool," what with one of them being a rather polysyllabic word.

Forgive me, but I think you might mean "I wonder if any of them ARE even literate..."

BUGGER 61 ...................you beat me to it

Actually the amateur grammar police are wrong, here.

Consider these two sentences:

"I wonder if any [one] of them IS even literate..."

"I wonder if SOME of them ARE even literate..."

No need to go back to school. We understood what you meant.

[aussiebebe]

I can't be bothered to read through 11 pages - would anyone be kind enough to enlighten me? Who is hiring, when and how do teachers apply?

Edited April 3, 2011 by aussiebebe

[Scott]

The jobs are for qualified teachers, which means that many of the local foreign population will not be eligible. In short, it will for people who have a teaching license in his/her country of origin.

[JoshuaCaleb]

*I think my question was answered in some form. ^^"

Edited April 4, 2011 by JoshuaCaleb

[stepenwolf1958]

If Thailand wishes to have an English-competent population to drive up its economy, everyone should embrace the Obec initiative. The only thing is that Obec should make sure it spends the budget efficiently and finds a way to improve its Thai teachers and facilities too. Don't forget that the limited English knowledge of most Thai students is not only due to the lack of native speakers in the educational sector alone.

http://www.ef.co.th/epi/ef-epi-ranking/

The key word here is IF(Thailand wishes...) and i am not sure about it at all.

Next in this quota is very true. It is not ONLY due(to the lack...). Not only but it is the MAIN reason. Good teachers are LEAVING Thailand, permanently last 3 years and it is about obstacles in procedures to get working permits and Visas.

So, IF MoE and Cabinet member in charge for education, would proceed this as an OBLIGATION for Immigration Office and Labour Office to make ease for teachers in Thailand, would be much of help.

Only if those 2 Ministries work TOGETHER and synchronized about this-this might give some good result. I deeply doubt that will happen at all.

This way of thinking in MoE is very good.

But that will be just a letter on paper if MoE don't find the way to stop school establishments, administrations and principals (or Head of departments) in having too much freedom in deciding which foreigner they will hire.

Why so?

Because, as it is now, all of this 3 bodies are making decisions about the employment NOT based on resumes of applicants, their professional backgrounds or life experiences but by their PERSONAL opinions and appearance of applicants.

So, as happened few times already, applicant will be accepted and hired as a teacher but found later as a pedophile or even convicted murderer of a child in his country.

Obviously, schools seize TOO much of power(and incompetence) in judging about qualities of applicants.

[Tatsujin]

If Thailand wishes to have an English-competent population to drive up its economy

They don't . . . the ruling 'elite' who all get their education privately because their families can afford to do so prefer to keep the 'masses' uneducated and illiterate so they can keep their own costs down and make even more money. Or am I being far too cynical (I mean realistic)?

[patjem]

No problem with a Filipino English dialect, usually clear and easy to understand...... But Indian: they mist be kidding. would be better to hire Glaswegians, who I also as a Brit find it difficult to understand, but bless 'em, at least English is actually kinda their native tongue.

By the way, Filipino English is a product of American English and it has nothing to do with British colonization (I'm not trying to imply that you made the claim, however). On the other hand, Indian English is, in fact, a by-product of British colonization.

Indeed, I was not implying so. Merely pointing out a comparison in terms of oral legibility. There is a hint of irony in the Glaswegian comment, since the Gentry sent into India as administrators of the colony, so I have read, were in many cases apparently Scottish. That aside, noting that Filipinos do tend to speak in a clear and understandable manner, one should look into why that may have been the case compared to India, which may indicate a reasonable educational model to consider pursuing for Thais. Just a thought, and nothing more.

[phetaroi]

Let me relate two true stories -- one about Taiwan, the other about France -- but they may relate since they are both about teaching language.

I was the principal of a middle school outside Washington, D.C. Because of our location and our test scores, we were sometimes called upon to host guests of senators or congressmen who wanted to learn about the American education system. One day I got a call from a federal government office saying they had an immediate problem and needed our help. Part of a tour of American schools had fallen through for some Taiwanese teachers. Could we host them for 3 hours? What day? Like, in one hour! "Don't worry they all speak English...." Okay, I thought, when they get here we can have teachers who are on their planning periods come down and do small group discussions/questions and answers. Easy. So, I ran around rounding up teachers to join the group. Then the Taiwanese teachers arrived. Not one could carry on even the most modest conversation...and I mean not one phrase...it turned out the most common Chinese language in the group was Mandarin. It was an awkward situation, to say the least. But, our school had quite a few Asian students, so I quickly ran around our GT classrooms (where the greatest concentration of Asian students were), asking if there were any students who spoke Mandarin. About a dozen did, so I brought them down to the library and included one student at each table, and the discussions worked quite well, with out guests getting to meet both students and American teachers. But here's the payoff -- they weren't just Taiwanese teachers who supposedly spoke English...they were Taiwanese teachers who taught English!!!!!

My other true story was about the time I hired a teacher to teacher French (our middle school offered French I, among other foreign languages). The pool of applicants was tiny...just 3 people. The only one who seemed qualified was from France...a native speaker with a degree in teaching. So I hired her...and ultimately fired her. She could speak French wonderfully. But she couldn't teach. She was a disaster.

I never taught in a school in Thailand, so I don't have that expertise in my background. However, I've visited a number of Thai schools and met many Thai teachers because while living in Thailand my significant other was an official in the Thai Education Ministry. I've also chatted with many Western educators who teach in Thailand. One side (the Westerners teaching here) see ineffective teaching styles in Thai schools. The other side (the Thais) see Western teachers who can't (or won't even try) to understand Thai culture and Thai school culture. And it seems that never the twain shall meet.

Whatever the solution to the issue, it's not going to happen quickly...will probably take years to fix. Personally, putting American or Brit teachers into elementary and secondary schools will create a lot of problems, probably resulting in a failure to such a program. In my view, better to have intense instruction in English OF Thai teachers by Western teachers. And I do mean Western TEACHERS...people who actually have a degree in Education.

[joorakee]

I've seen Italian English teachers (who couldn't even speak proper English) teaching in one of those language schools in BKK. It was so ridiculous. Hiring just about anyone off the streets just because they are 'farang'.

Well, maybe they failed to find employment as teachers of the Italian language? The same could be said about all non-native English speakers (f.e. Poles - BTW I'm Polish) who haven't been given an opportunity to teach their mother tongues and are forced (?) to teach English instead.

Wouldn't it be unfair and discriminating to ban someone from working in Thailand just because of his or her nationality (we all know that it's often the easiest - if not the only possible - way to get a job in the LOS, I mean becoming an English teacher or "teacher")?