Obec To Push English Via Maths, Science

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Obec to push English via maths, science

By SUPINDA NA MAHACHAI

THE NATION

The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) will push for all schools under its supervision to arrange a Thai-English bilingual programme focusing on mathematics and science, in a bid to increase Thai children's command of English.

After an executives' meeting yesterday, Obec secretary-general Dr Chinnapat Phumirat revealed that the existing programme had too few English-language classes - as few as one a week at the elementary level.

Obec would push for its elementary and secondary schools as well as educational opportunity expansion schools to arrange an English Bilingual Education (EBE) programme to improve English-language teaching.

Obec sent academics on educational trips to other countries and they proposed a model in which subjects such as mathematics, science and social studies were taught in English. This would increase the children's aptitude in listening, speaking and writing English, he said, combined with the fact that EBE was an effective way to improve children's English skills.

Obec assigned an English-language institution to study and develop a plan to push for Obec schools to teach the bilingual programme, Chinnapat said. Obec would start with the well-prepared schools and it was up to the schools to choose which subject would be taught in English, most preferably maths, science and social studies.

Obec's bilingual programme is different from the English Programme, in which EP classes - all subjects in English except the Thai-language class - are separated from normal programmes and the students have to pay a higher tuition fee, starting from Bt35,000 per semester, Chinnapat explained.

He said students would benefit from the EBE programme without having to pay extra, and schools could choose some subjects to be taught fully or partially in English. As well, there is no requirement for foreign teachers, as Thai teachers are developed to teach the subjects in English. Obec has already started teacher training for the schools under the "Education Hub" group and will extend it soon.

Chinnapat said Obec was also proceeding with the project to hire 350 foreign teachers in Obec schools, though he admitted that this figure was still too small compared with its 30,000 schools. It is necessary to develop in parallel Thai teachers' ability to teach in English, he said.

-- The Nation 2011-07-06

[Scott]

Probably not the two best subjects for the learning of English. Probably not the best idea for their knowledge of science or math.

[thunder30101]

With the coming of the 2015 asean agreement that will drop work permit requirements for member states thailand is way behind in its english language skills. This and many other programs and ideas have been popping up in the last two years to try and address the dismal education system here, they are basically grasping at straws. Last year at an admin meeting I was asked about teaching math and science in english, I asked them straight faced how you teach any subject in english when 98% of the students lacked basic english skills, end of subject. Unless thailand somehow opts-out of this agreement (with serious consequences) the travel industry (amongst many others) will be taken over by philipinos and singaporeans with good english skills.

[TEFLKrabi]

It's never a bad idea to teach any subject in English as it will always help, as long as it's taught properly and by proficient teachers. Any change where English is used more has to be an improvement.

[Xangsamhua]

I can't believe I'm reading this stuff as reported by the Nation.

I know people get really mixed up by terms like "bilingual", "immersion", "English program" and the like - not just in Thailand, but especially here - but it sounds like they're proposing an immersion approach to one or more of Maths, Science and Social Studies, starting in selected schools and employing Thai staff who will be given a course of training. In other words, they're setting up the very model that failed in Malaysia, where it was tried for several years, with staff who had better English than most Thai teachers, where they were given substantial professional development, where equipment and resources were provided, and English teachers were assigned to buddy the subject teachers. Even so, they could not sustain this as a national program after some six or seven years because the skills of the teachers did not extend beyond the urban areas with substantial middle class Chinese populations. Even then, I was told by the principal of a state secondary school in Penang, a prosperous city with some 60% Chinese, that he could not implement the national policy to teach Maths and Science in English because he didn't have teachers who could do it.

Even in Hong Kong, with an admittedly patchy history of English-medium education, I know from colleagues that, as soon as teachers can see that their students were not "getting it" in Maths or Science, they would switch to Cantonese.

What is the MoE doing? They say they've sent experts off to this and that country to check out what's happening. Have they not even visited their neighbour - Malaysia, a country with the =2nd highest IELTS mean scores in the world? (Thailand is =27th.) I don't believe they've done any research worth doing. I've been to six international conferences in the region (outside Thailand) since 2003 and the number of Thai delegates to these you could count on your fingers. Most times there's only 3 or 4, and most of them don't give papers (i.e haven't done any research). At the last one I went to there were four very nice ladies from the Northeast, but none of whom seemed to be able to speak English.

In 2005 Kunying Kassama organized a meeting at the MoE for a couple of senior officials to brief me and a researcher from Hong Kong. Once again, lovely ladies, but we had to conduct the meeting in Thai. All they knew about bilingual education was the Minister's policy at the time that Maths, Science and English should be taught where possible in English only. Now this is popping up its head again.

Thai education, beyond a few enterprising private schools and maybe a couple of elite government schools, will not be ready for ASEAN FTA in 2015. There's nothing surer.

Edited July 17, 2011 by Xangsamhua

[Scott]

Xangsamhua, thanks for the excellent and informative post on the subject. I supervise more than 1 school and a number of programs, so my experience is more practical than theoretical. One is a full bilingual program and one is a mini-bilingual program where Math, Science and Social Studies are taught in English.

There are some variables (the mini-program, for example has more students per class), but by and large, it appears to me that teaching a few select subjects in English is counter productive. The bilingual program is coordinated so that students first learn a concept in Thai, then in English. Essentially, the subject teacher is teaching English and reinforcing what is already learned. As they progress in the program, the programs diverge and over time, the students are capable of learning new concepts in English.

In the mini-program, they seem to neither learn the subject nor the language. A student needs either a very good foundation in the subject or a good foundation in the language to learn a new concept in a foreign language.