English For Thailand

[Ladphrao]

IJWT

Ok, ignore me if you want, and since you don't have a low post count all other posters must obey your orders and ignore me.

I take it you are unwilling to reevaluate your basic assumption about teaching in Thailand.

Fine, keep your mind closed, Thailand has a big problem and only Farang teachers can fix it.

Stick your fingers in your ears and sing lalalalalalalalallalalalal when others are attempting to discuss these issues in a way that makes you uncomfortable

For those with more open minds, who are willing to think about this situation in more than a simplistic manner, I offer you some questions.

What exactly is the "problem"?

Is it that Thais don't speak English as well as those from English speaking countries?

No argument there, they don't

Is it that Thais don't learn foreign languages as well as Native English speakers do?

I don't think a good case could be made for this statement. In the US I have heard that only about 9% of all University Students study a foreign language, in Thailand I believe it is 100% (Feel free to correct me if I am wrong). Other English speaking countries probably do a little better than the US in this area, but I doubt substantially better. (I am only speculating here from personal experience, if any one has studied this please share)

What is the benchmark English teaching in Thailand is being compared to? Developed countries? Other developing countries? Asian countries? Other Asian Developing countries? Thailand 5, 10 or 20 years ago?

What was the percentage of the population that could speak basic English in Thailand 20 years ago? What is it now? (I don't know since it is not my area of research)

How does the structure of the Thai language make it different for a Thai to study English as opposed to someone whose native tongue is also Latin based, such as French or Italian?

How does Thailand compare to other developing Asian nations in learning English? (Not I spent three days in Vietnam and both people I talked spoke good English type of thing, I mean what does the empirical evidence say?)

Before coming up with solutions, one must think about what questions need to be asked?

Before one can plan for the future, one needs to understand the current situation.

From what I have seen, the discussion in Thailand by foreign teachers almost always begins with a certain set of assumptions, and usually ends in nothing more constructive than a btching session. Why?

Maybe it because one is beginning with loaded questions.

The thread started off, assuming Thailand has an English problem, but is that the correct starting point for this discussion?

If this forum is about intelligent discussion on teaching in Thailand, I will be glad to add my two satang from time to time since it is a topic I am interested in, but am far from an expert about the details. I enjoy a little mental stimulation from time to time

If it is going to be yet another outlet for IJWT and those of his persuasion to rant and rave about how bad Thailand is and how the Thai people owe the farangs who choose to come and live here at certain standard of living and whatnot, I have better things to do with my time.

[Ijustwannateach]

I don't see you doing anything else here but trolling, Ladprao. You started with a discussion of the problems of school directors- saying that "we teachers" don't know anything about it. However, unfortunately for you, you are not a school director- why should you know anything more about it if that's the case? You've handily cancelled your own argument.

However, what puts you into troll class is your bringing up Ajarn, your reference to "whining teachers," and so forth. This is a classic teaching troll.

The questions you pose are valid ones, but I somehow doubt we'll see you discussing the answers. But feel free to shock me- what are *YOUR* answers to your own questions? Put up your ideas in that regard, and I'll take you seriously enough to reply in kind.

Your last paragraph seems to indicate that you are aware of some OTHER forum which is an "outlet for IJWT and those of his persuasion to rant and rave about how bad Thailand is and how the Thai people owe the farangs who choose to come and live here at certain standard of living and whatnot." Do I know you? What handles do you use on these other forums, and are you a troll in those as well?

You may be assured that I am very much the same IJWT here as everywhere. Enjoy!

"Steven"

[Ladphrao]

IJWT

Please take my advice and ignore me if I upset you so.

I said nothing directed at you (except asking you to ignore me), but you have decided to attack me because I have a low post count.

Funny critera for judging other.

I have no intention of getting into a insult contest with someone I don't know and obviously don't want to know.

"You started with a discussion of the problems of school directors"

Wrong

I started by questioning the basic assumptions of the thread and question posed, one of these assumptions is that foreign teachers know all the answers to the problems. I never said school directors have all of the answers either.

All I said was that there already is a forum dedicated entirely to whining teachers, if someone wants to make simplistic whining comments, there is a place to do so, is there a need for another forum to cater to the same narrow band of teachers?

[Ijustwannateach]

Ok, you didn't take my invitation to answer the interesting and valid questions you raised in your previous post, but only seem interested in arguing and putting down teachers and teaching forums. I guess you have some kind of problem with them, and so I *will* ignore you. I would guess that I won't have to ignore you for very long.

[mijan24]

Fellow posters I confess my initial post may be a little hazy, my intent was to promote discussion on ways to improve the English Education System here in Thailand.

For those who say the current system OK I ask you to consider the end product. (For the 5 years that I was in Townsville Australia we had an average of 10 Thai students attending James Cook Uni at any one time - There understanding of the often mumbled mutterings of some lecturers left a lot to be desired which put them under a lot of unecessary pressure.

I replied to Peace Blondie with the following:

PB - the question is not what do i want - but what does Thailand want to make the English education system workable?

My thoughts go along the line of:

Do the Thai teachers in English department need more training? or do they just need more or better assistance?

Do we need more formally qualified "Native" speakers?(BEdn)

What level of qualification do these "Native"speakers require to teach English in Thailand?

Then of course we could move on to the training aids needed etc

If I am beating a dead horse lets close the thread and move on.

Edited November 2, 2005 by mijan24

[richard10365]

Uhhh...<-----Did I spell that right??? I still think reading is the key. Solid reading skills with no grammer or conversation thrown in to confuse them.

You could spend the entire hour discussing the various sounds of the letter "a". Quiz them at the end of the hour. The next day work on the letter "e". Then work through the consonants.

Forget grammer and conversation until you can write something on the board and they rattle it off to you.

Then make sentences with various words. Don't tell them what it means. Just have them read it to you.

Then read sentences to them and see if they can write the sentence based on how it sounds. Then to grade it, have them read back what you told them to write.

You can spend the entire month doing this.

I really think reading is critical to them learning English.

[Ladphrao]

Richard,

To play devil's advocate, in Japan, there is a lot of emphasis placed on reading English, since it makes up an important portion of the university entrance exams, but a common complaint is that Japanese students never learn to speak English enough to carry on a simple conversation after years of study (seemed like this complaint had some merit to me when I lived in Japan for three years).

Like I said previously, I'm not an expert in this field, but I have no doubt there have been a number of studies by experts in the field to look into these things. Apparently ESL teachers in Thailand (at least the ones who respond to these forums) don’t read any of the current literature on the state of language learning research. It's a shame. I wouldn't expect too many average ESL teachers to be that academically inclined (which has little to do with actual classroom teaching), but one would think that there would be some of the teacher trainers, course designers and other professionals in the field who keep up on what is going on in their profession. Maybe this lack of expertise in the top of the teaching profession itself in Thailand would be a good starting place to look for the “answer.” Too simple for sure, but probably a contributing factor.

Anecdotal evidence has its place, but I wouldn't want to design a national educational system without some hard empirical data backing up the decisions.

From the little I have read academically on the subject, it appears that foreign language learning is a very complex process that works differently in individuals as well as cultures. This results in no easy answers on how to learn and teach a foreign language.

I have also read that there are significant differences in how one learns a first language, a second language and a foreign language, but I will defer to the experts who have done detailed studies in this field to contradict me if I am wrong.

“I think” is fine for barroom conversations and is often the first step in searching for answers, but it has its limitations.

To get good answers, one must know what questions to ask. I don’t think you have begun the discussion with a good question.

[kenkannif]

^ Spot on!

Problem is a lot of kids can already read and write Richard, we're generally here for the speaking and listening bit.

[mijan24]

#I don’t think you have begun the discussion with a good question.

#Spot on!

Yes 100% correct - I posted on the run lets close it down & move on.

Mijan24

[richard10365]

^ Spot on!

Problem is a lot of kids can already read and write Richard, we're generally here for the speaking and listening bit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm sure you can tell I'm not an English teacher but an English speaking volunteer. I don't have the expierence the regular teachers have and my comments are based on expierence in areas where native speaking English teachers have never been.

Maybe things are different in Bangkok than out in the countryside. From what I can see, the older kids can't read that well. They have little text books in the classroom, full of conversation and grammer. They just can't read it.

Seems like the Thai teachers just pass the kids on to the next grade without checking their skills.

In the village I live in, none of the kids can speak English. I have seen the books in prathom and matayom. They study for years and all they can say is "My name is___", Where you come from", and thats pretty much it.

Perhaps the teaching is not the problem but the standard at which the kids are tested and allowed to progress to the next level.

[Ijustwannateach]

So, LP to summarise your post:

"You're not an expert, but there are experts. It's a shame ESL teachers are not experts. There is academic material out there, but you don't know what it is and ESL teachers don't know what it is and the government doesn't know what it is. If we want an educational system to work we have to start with the stuff that can be proven to work rather than educated guesses."

An apt enough post. I *have* actually read a good bit of ESL literature, and, sad to say, though it IS complex and mixed up, as you say, it hardly shows that language learning or education is really well-understood. Most ESL papers test for very general trends or a few very specific phenomena, which can be used to point the field in the right general direction- but which generally are not at all suitable YET to formulating solutions to complex problems, such as "considering its culture and the culture of those who will be teaching the children, what kind of ESL teaching system should be implemented in the public schools of Thailand?" The conclusions of most ESL papers recognise how much work is left to do, and call for much, much more research- they are very tentative about concluding almost anything else.

So in the meantime, what's a government to do? Wait until the academics have enough money, time, and research to sort it out? No. We have to proceed in realtime, as limited as we all are. So we make educated guesses, informed where possible by more academic research, and get on with things. Even "regular" teachers of other subjects (math, science, etc.) have this quandary: what is the "best" way to teach their subjects? There's no scientifically proven answer any more than there is to the ESL teaching question.

So while your desire to have ESL teaching in Thailand more informed by academia is ideal, it is hardly practical given that the research itself is in its infancy.

"Steven"

Edited November 3, 2005 by Ijustwannateach