Mandarin Taught In All Schools By ’08

[nokia]

Will TEFL lose its value to TCFL?

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Mandarin taught in all schools by ’08

Published on October 06, 2005

The Nation

Programme to be phased in from next school year if proposal met with approval from Chaturon. The Education Ministry has announced that all high schools across the nation will have to introduce Mandarin classes by 2008, if a proposed plan is approved.

Khunying Kasama Varawarn na Ayutthaya, permanent secretary for education, yesterday said a new strategy to promote Mandarin and improve the teaching of the language would soon be submitted to Education Minister Chaturon Chaisang for approval.

“With his approval, the strategy will be implemented from the next academic year,” she said.

By 2007, each educational district will be required to have at least one high school with a Mandarin class.

By the 2008 academic year, the proposal requires that all high schools across the country offer classes in Mandarin.

Kasama said the government would help the schools in regards to Mandarin teachers and teaching materials during the first three years. After that, she said they would have to start running the Mandarin classes on their own.

“By then, we also plan to select an outstanding school from each province and appoint it as the centre to promote the teaching of Mandarin in its respective province,” she said, adding that the model school would coach others on how best to teach Mandarin.

Kasama said a Mandarin Teaching Fair would be held in December when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Thailand.

At the fair, experts from China will offer advice on how best to provide Mandarin classes, Kasama said. Representatives

of big companies that invest in China will also give talks on the importance of being versed in Mandarin to the future economy, while instructors from Asian schools with outstanding Mandarin classes will give lectures on how best to teach the language.

Cultural activities including Chinese brush painting, a singing contest and a speech contest will also be offered for children to show their talent. The fair aims to show that Mandarin is a language that is relevant to people’s lives and about which there are many good examples to learn from, Kasama said.

“Schools with existing Mandarin classes can come and learn more techniques, while those that have no such classes can seek advice,” she added.

[ilyushin]

Guess that Mandarin is important now that the gov just sold out to China.

[wolf5370]

Yeah just what the rich Thai-Chinese want, the rabble speaking Mandarin. Another in a long line of pointless off-the-cuff-promises that go nowhere. China is hiring English teachers because they want their people to take on the world of industry - what possible benefit would Thais speaking Mandarine have to the country.

[MyNameIsFarang]

Considering that China is a rising economic power which is loosening travel restrictions on its citizens and which has a marked male surplus, you can expect the number of out-bound sex tourists from the PRC to grow substantially in the next decade.

This initiative should prove very beneficial to the next generation of bargirls.

[Spit the Dog]

Well, at least in years to come, travelling Thais will be able to go to Chinese restauraunts throughout Europe and North America and be able order their food with out any difficulties.

Another magnificent decision from the Education Ministry

[bkkmei]

Considering that China is a rising economic power which is loosening travel restrictions on its citizens and which has a marked male surplus, you can expect the number of out-bound sex tourists from the PRC to grow substantially in the next decade.

This initiative should prove very beneficial to the next generation of bargirls.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

hi

i was just thinking about this today. The other month I had to do a v. touristy thing and go to the crocodile show. The commentary which would previously have been in English or perhaps Cantonese, was in Mandarin! A big group of mainlanders was watching the action.

So if they are manage to free themselves from the confines of a tour group then sure, tourist industry and bargirl industry should be targetting them. After all, in HK everyone is learning mandarin like crazy and the Louis Vuiton, Prada, Gucci etc are full of not locals but mainlanders.

but my other thought was the rather large imbalance between males and females ratios in China due to the draconian one child policy and ideal of having a son. If they find it hard to find a girl in China, then the next logical step would be to get a bride from elsewhere.... maybe SE asia?

[MyNameIsFarang]

but my other thought was the rather large imbalance between males and females ratios in China due to the draconian one child policy and ideal of having a son.  If they find it hard to find a girl in China, then the next logical step would be to get a bride from elsewhere.... maybe SE asia?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The greater concern is in the historical tendencies for nations with an excess male population to suffer from violent revolution and/or engage in external aggression. We may someday find the clever social(-ist) planners of the PRC tacitly encouraging sex tourism as a safety valve. That would probably be better than many of the alternatives.

But the biggest impact of China's gender crisis will likely be on those classes without the means to travel nor import wives either now or in the forseeable future.

According to The CIA Factbook China has a shortfall of 17 million females in the 0-14 age range. Even considering the higher male mortality rate this means approximately 15 million Chinese men in the next 5 to 20 years will have no chance of finding a Chinese wife.

[bkkmei]

hi

absolutely - already there are many kidnappings of young girls being taken to some outback village to be a wife in the middle of nowhere. hmm and what about rapes... Chinese people are quite demonstrative in their aggression in any case. I wonder if China will engage in more wars in order to keep the young men busy?

[richard10365]

I wonder if they will have a Volunteer Chinese Teacher program similar to their Volunteer English Teacher program? How many schools are there in Thailand? With the big push for English teachers and now Chinese teachers, I wonder how much this will cost. I wonder how they will fit the English language program and the Chinese language program into their curriculum. Perhaps one language will get cancelled. What if it's English?

[Plus]

Don't bother with questions. Nothing will come out of it - it's an idea just for the sake of it, just a piece of news to claim the salary and appear to be doing something.

Will they force all students in muslim Narathiwat study Chinese? Over their dead bodies, literally.

[nokia]

Although English is a world language, and a working language in its native countries, USA, UK, NZ, AUS, it is only restricted to a perfunctory role in most big Asian countries, eg India (Hindi),Indonesia, Malaysia(Malay), Japan, Thailand etc.

Wouldnt it make more sense to learn the language of its closest neighbour, the next leading economic power instead, since most Thai are strongly nationalistic, and seldom travel far beyond their national borders? Furthermore, with the low wages(180baht /day), it will take many months of average wage to travel to English-speaking countries, but only a month's wage to travel to China by plane.

It's unlikely that the English program will be cancelled, but a downgrade of the English program in some institutions is more likely as a third language . Perhaps i should equip myself with a chinese teaching qualification in additional to TEFL.

Any comments from ajarns/teachers/professors?

[PeaceBlondie]

Propaganda alert: this is an announcement from the gubmint of Thailand. Therefore, nobody should take it seriously, think there's any truth to it, or pay attention to it, except for making jokes. It will never happen.

[brianbrain]

I don't know any native English speaker who would willingly work for less than 30,000 baht per month. On the other hand, I have met two teachers coming from the PRC working at Thai government schools for less than 10,000 baht per month. Not only do they work for substantially less, they appear to get on well with the other staff, bowing and wai-ing and generally taking all the crap so readily dished out by Thai teaching staff (I think they call it "respect"). Also, there is no chance of Westernizing the students and thus corrupting the Thai students. I can see lots of reasons why offering a second Asian language as a replacement (or part replacement) to English would be very attractive to the Thai mind.

[otherstuff1957]

There are equal numbers of English and Chinese Teachers at my school. I don't know what the Chinese teachers are paid, but I expect that they are considerably cheaper than English teachers!

I was chatting with my opposite number - the head Chinese teacher - a while ago and asked her how long it took her to learn to speak Thai. She said "one year" . I've been living in Thailand for almost two years and I read like a P1 student and can only speak "restaurant & taxi Thai". Thai and Chinese are both tonal languages and are distantly related (like German and English), so it will always be easier for Chinese to learn Thai and to fit into Thai society than it will ever be for a Farang.

That being said, I spoke to this young Chinese woman in a mixture of Thai and English because SHE IS TAKING English lessons .

P.S.: We spoke in a mixture of Thai and English because my Manderin is limited to a few useful phrases like Hello (Ni hao), How are you (Ni hao ma), Fine thank you and you? (Hen hoa, xi xi, ni ne?) and how much does a massage cost (which I have forgotten how to say )

[Ijustwannateach]

As I mentioned before, Chinese writing is hellishly inefficient from a "world-language" point of view- 10,000 characters for true literacy??? That includes memorizing the stroke order and pronunciation along with the meaning. Even the Chinese have trouble with it (consider that one of the main dialects doesn't even have a written language).

I remember back in the day when I was wandering around Kyoto and groups of *Chinese* tourists would come up to me with their guidebook written in Mandarin- so that I could pronounce the ENGLISH transliterations of Japanese words that they needed to use!!!

English, though it has its spelling and pronunication irregularities, at least shares vocabulary roots and more importantly an alphabet with a number of widespread languages. While for status reasons Chinese may promote their own language in countries where their populations are sufficient to make it worthwhile, I would forsee them learning English as a business/travel language, rather than trying to promote Chinese to a mass market abroad.

"Steven"

[PeaceBlondie]

Thai teachers of English told me that too many Thai students can't even write Thai legibly. I also wonder how 'literate' they are in Thai by the end of Matayom 3. We know how slowly they learn English. What are the chances of Thai students become fluent in Mandarin?

[bkkmei]

I think it'll be very easy for students to learn how to speak Mandarin. Beside the tonal language similarity, there is also some grammatical similarities e.g. v. simple tenses, that actually makes it v. easy to string sentences together.

The major problem though would be the reading & writing.

[sugarbaker]

When the teaching of Mandarin in schools is concerned, Thailand is far far behind.

In Malaysia, and Singapore, Mandarin and English are being taught in private and government

schools for more than a century. Even in Malaysia, the Chinese population is less than 30%,

yet Mandarin is being taught in schools, private as well as government.

The reason is this. We in this region are in constant touch with China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in

terms of business, trade, industry, tourism, and so on. The China market is to big to ignore.

As an example, when I visit these Asian countries, the first language I speak is English.......

and if they can't speak English, they would answer me in Mandarin. This also happened

in the Land Of Smiles.