Boost Education, English Language Skills To Survive, Thai Forum Told

[webfact]

Boost education, language skills to survive once AEC implemented, Forum told

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation

Thailand will not prompt to embrace changes following the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in the next three years if it does not start serious preparation for its citizens, a discussion was told yesterday.

Languages, especially English - a typical problem challenging Thai people - have to be solved in practical way. The idea was agreed by Education Ministry's executives, academics and private sector's representative.

Also, industrial agriculture and culture-based innovations as the country's strong points should be promoted to improve its competitiveness among ASEAN countries, they urged.

"Our students should learn and absorb English from natural methods, similar to the way we learn Thai language. The way Thai teachers have taught for a long time is impractical as pupils are forced to start learning English from writing then reading, speaking and listening skills while children naturally learn a language, like Thai, from listening first then speaking, reading and writing."

"We don't learn to use English automatically unlike Thai. We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.

He urged the ministry to seriously change the way methods of teaching English, starting teaching English to children when they were infants and using natural methods and arouse they to communicate automatically not from translation.

Kasama Varavarn Na Ayuddhaya, former secretary general of Office of Basic Education Commission (Obec), urged the government to have students absorb valuable Thai culture and resources and create culture-based innovations, while teachers did not use their experience to limit students' creative ideas and imagination.

Since, industrial agriculture is among Thailand's strong points, Thavorn said he wanted the government to push forward it to reach its goal of becoming kitchen of the world and produce personnel to drive the country's different industries.

Education Minister Woravat Auapinyakul said he had assigned local education executives to survey resources and prominent things in their own areas. Then, he would have universities in different areas of the country pass on their research-based knowledge to local people, including students. They would utilise the knowledge to add value to what they had.

Sompong Jitradab, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education and member of the education reform policy committee said "The education minister has had many meetings with relevant agencies over the past two months after he took the position to shape the education. He should take only one more month to discuss and then start implementing his educational plans. Also, in preparation for the coming AEC, the ministry should act as soon as possible otherwise Thai people will lose opportunities."

Chinnapat Bhumirat, Obec's secretary general, suggested Obec to create ASEAN literacy curriculum with help from universities to educate students in ASEAN and encourage them to learn how they could enjoy benefits from ASEAN.

They were speaking at a discussion on Thailand's education development and preparation for the AEC held yesterday at Kasetsart University.

-- The Nation 2011-09-29

[lannarebirth]

That article makes a compelling case for boosting English language skills, but probably not in the way intended.

[caribbeanman]

Is this a joke???????

[BigRick]

Natural ways? What go down and eat a couple of berries off the English tree?

[Soutpeel]

"Thavorn said he wanted the government to push forward it to reach its goal of becoming kitchen of the world"

Another hub for the week...

Think the sentiment of the article is good but, of course now we will get some goverment loonie playing the nationalism card suggesting forcing people to learn English will imply a colonial past....

[RedNIvar]

I wonder how many of these executives from the Education Ministry can actually speak English.

[bushwacker]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

[petedk]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

Does anyone expect the students to speak English? I teach English majors and most of them speak reasonably well but some cannot put a simple sentence together. Here is an example of a conversation I had with a fourth year English major student who will graduate next semester. She missed a small test because she overslept.

"Teacher I....I .... I....... Teacher I want test. I......."

"Ok see me at half past two"

"ok teacher thank you"

At 8.30 she calls me on the phone

"teacher where?"

"I am in a meeting"

"Teacher I office you. You meet me two thirty."

"Yes but it's now 8.30" (I suddenly realise she's translating the Thai "song mong khreung".) So I replied in Thai "Bai song mong khreung"

"oh teacher cannot. Have class"

"Ok. What time do you finish"

" Four ... four.... er four and a half."

I'm not allowed to fail them. She'll go out with a degree in a few months stating that she can speak English.

[scorecard]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

Does anyone expect the students to speak English? I teach English majors and most of them speak reasonably well but some cannot put a simple sentence together. Here is an example of a conversation I had with a fourth year English major student who will graduate next semester. She missed a small test because she overslept.

"Teacher I....I .... I....... Teacher I want test. I......."

"Ok see me at half past two"

"ok teacher thank you"

At 8.30 she calls me on the phone

"teacher where?"

"I am in a meeting"

"Teacher I office you. You meet me two thirty."

"Yes but it's now 8.30" (I suddenly realise she's translating the Thai "song mong khreung".) So I replied in Thai "Bai song mong khreung"

"oh teacher cannot. Have class"

"Ok. What time do you finish"

" Four ... four.... er four and a half."

I'm not allowed to fail them. She'll go out with a degree in a few months stating that she can speak English.

My Thai son (speaks perfect Thai and perfect English) had to attend the compulsory English classes at his Thai uni.

The teacher was a 19 yr old Thai girl who has no qualifications, and no training in teaching English and she cannot speak English. Son says the young lady was not pleasant and spoke to the students very severely.

The teacher turned up very late for every class (supposed to be 2 hrs X 2 times per week), with about 5 or 6 sentences, all hand written all in block letters with no pronunciation marks, on a page ripped out of a note book. One of the students was then sent to another building to buy a photocopy for each student.

A typical example: 'YESTERDAY I WAS WENT GO TO THE SHOPPING'

The teacher gave no explanation of vocabulary, or contruction or anything.

The students had to, as a whole group, recite each sentence 5 or 6 times. End of lesson.

The other students all know my son speaks advanced English and they told the teacher so. Result, the teacher criticized my son's western surname (western surnames are ugly, etc.)

[robsamui]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

Does anyone expect the students to speak English? I teach English majors and most of them speak reasonably well but some cannot put a simple sentence together. Here is an example of a conversation I had with a fourth year English major student who will graduate next semester. She missed a small test because she overslept.

"Teacher I....I .... I....... Teacher I want test. I......."

"Ok see me at half past two"

"ok teacher thank you"

At 8.30 she calls me on the phone

"teacher where?"

"I am in a meeting"

"Teacher I office you. You meet me two thirty."

"Yes but it's now 8.30" (I suddenly realise she's translating the Thai "song mong khreung".) So I replied in Thai "Bai song mong khreung"

"oh teacher cannot. Have class"

"Ok. What time do you finish"

" Four ... four.... er four and a half."

I'm not allowed to fail them. She'll go out with a degree in a few months stating that she can speak English.

My Thai son (speaks perfect Thai and perfect English) had to attend the compulsory English classes at his Thai uni.

The teacher was a 19 yr old Thai girl who has no qualifications, and no training in teaching English and she cannot speak English. Son says the young lady was not pleasant and spoke to the students very severely.

The teacher turned up very late for every class (supposed to be 2 hrs X 2 times per week), with about 5 or 6 sentences, all hand written all in block letters with no pronunciation marks, on a page ripped out of a note book. One of the students was then sent to another building to buy a photocopy for each student.

A typical example: 'YESTERDAY I WAS WENT GO TO THE SHOPPING'

The teacher gave no explanation of vocabulary, or contruction or anything.

The students had to, as a whole group, recite each sentence 5 or 6 times. End of lesson.

The other students all know my son speaks advanced English and they told the teacher so. Result, the teacher criticized my son's western surname (western surnames are ugly, etc.)

SOLUTION TO THAILAND IN GENERAL:

Cryogenically freeze the entire nation for 20 years and seal it with shrink-film . . . with the exception of 10,000 small babies who are removed to England (to learn proper English) to grow up on special farms away from big cities. When they are all 20 years old, re-open Thailand again, remove the hugely-useless teachers and replace them with these 10,000 new teachers who can not only speak perfect English but are additionally aware of world history and events and the (minuscule) role that Thailand plays in them.

Oh - that won't work - the new teachers won't be able to speak Thai. Bugg*r. Back to the drawing board.

R

[Derifo]

<br />I wonder how many of these executives from the Education Ministry can actually speak English.<br />

<br /><br /><br />

That's a good one.

The head of the full English program where I work can't express herself in English.

[robsamui]

QUOTE"

My Thai son (speaks perfect Thai and perfect English) had to attend the compulsory English classes at his Thai uni.

The teacher was a 19 yr old Thai girl who has no qualifications, and no training in teaching English and she cannot speak English. Son says the young lady was not pleasant and spoke to the students very severely.

The teacher turned up very late for every class (supposed to be 2 hrs X 2 times per week), with about 5 or 6 sentences, all hand written all in block letters with no pronunciation marks, on a page ripped out of a note book. One of the students was then sent to another building to buy a photocopy for each student.

A typical example: 'YESTERDAY I WAS WENT GO TO THE SHOPPING'

The teacher gave no explanation of vocabulary, or contruction or anything.

The students had to, as a whole group, recite each sentence 5 or 6 times. End of lesson.

The other students all know my son speaks advanced English and they told the teacher so. Result, the teacher criticized my son's western surname (western surnames are ugly, etc.)

A few years back I was in regular correspondence with the Head of English - not just a professor - at a big BKK uni. Her English was really poor! And it turned out that she had never lived or studied outside Thailand. But a one-eyed teacher in the land of the blind . . .

R

[nong38]

This at least sounds encouraging. Someone is admitting there is a problem, thats good, now then who has been listening to this? We know what we think we want to achieve now how can we do that?

I do hope this a change of direction but it will need everyone involved in education to take one step back and re learn what they are supposed to be doing. Its also a time for being honest with the pupils/students, "Fail to prepare.....prepare to fail." Standards will only improve when you meet a new higher standard, if you dont ,you fail, as they love to say here...."up to you."

Edited September 29, 2011 by nong38

[daiwill60]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

Does anyone expect the students to speak English? I teach English majors and most of them speak reasonably well but some cannot put a simple sentence together. Here is an example of a conversation I had with a fourth year English major student who will graduate next semester. She missed a small test because she overslept.

"Teacher I....I .... I....... Teacher I want test. I......."

"Ok see me at half past two"

"ok teacher thank you"

At 8.30 she calls me on the phone

"teacher where?"

"I am in a meeting"

"Teacher I office you. You meet me two thirty."

"Yes but it's now 8.30" (I suddenly realise she's translating the Thai "song mong khreung".) So I replied in Thai "Bai song mong khreung"

"oh teacher cannot. Have class"

"Ok. What time do you finish"

" Four ... four.... er four and a half."

I'm not allowed to fail them. She'll go out with a degree in a few months stating that she can speak English.

My Thai son (speaks perfect Thai and perfect English) had to attend the compulsory English classes at his Thai uni.

The teacher was a 19 yr old Thai girl who has no qualifications, and no training in teaching English and she cannot speak English. Son says the young lady was not pleasant and spoke to the students very severely.

The teacher turned up very late for every class (supposed to be 2 hrs X 2 times per week), with about 5 or 6 sentences, all hand written all in block letters with no pronunciation marks, on a page ripped out of a note book. One of the students was then sent to another building to buy a photocopy for each student.

A typical example: 'YESTERDAY I WAS WENT GO TO THE SHOPPING'

The teacher gave no explanation of vocabulary, or contruction or anything.

The students had to, as a whole group, recite each sentence 5 or 6 times. End of lesson.

The other students all know my son speaks advanced English and they told the teacher so. Result, the teacher criticized my son's western surname (western surnames are ugly, etc.)

SOLUTION TO THAILAND IN GENERAL:

Cryogenically freeze the entire nation for 20 years and seal it with shrink-film . . . with the exception of 10,000 small babies who are removed to England (to learn proper English) to grow up on special farms away from big cities. When they are all 20 years old, re-open Thailand again, remove the hugely-useless teachers and replace them with these 10,000 new teachers who can not only speak perfect English but are additionally aware of world history and events and the (minuscule) role that Thailand plays in them.

Oh - that won't work - the new teachers won't be able to speak Thai. Bugg*r. Back to the drawing board.

R

Actually you are not far off the mark with your idea.

I have many Friends in the UK with Thai wives and susequently Thai or Thai/english kids being educated in the UK and being bought up speaking Thai, english and in some cases Welsh. Kids like these are the ones who will fit the bill you are describing above. In fact one of the aforementioned kids who came over to the UK when she was about 6 yrs old, with not a word of english on her lips, except the word DAD as i recall, was talking to me on skyoe the other day and her english was word perfect and was in fact very surprisingly English accented, to the point that i had to comment that she sounded like a real Toff.

Kids soak up Languages and at least this minister is acknowledging the problems in the education system here, as well as giong someway to point out the way to rectifying them to some degree. However the problem is deep rooted and the biggest stumbling block will be in getting the current teachers to adopt to the new concept of not using rote teaching methods, as they were probably trained to do , and were brought up with in school themselves.

Yes a lot of the Thai teachers have bad English skills themselves , but this is because most of the were bought up with old teaching methods in school themselves. Personally I think this Minister needs to be applauded by all for recognising the problem at least , not derided, as most of us who post on here usually do ( myself included) everytime the Government tries to show a willingness to do something good, as so often seems to be the case for many of the commentators on posts here.

Maybe we have become to used to just knocking everything that happens over here, rather than trying to encourage the good things we see, as and when they appear.

[blazes]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

"both of which" should be "both of whom" (please).

[sprq]

QUOTE"

My Thai son (speaks perfect Thai and perfect English) had to attend the compulsory English classes at his Thai uni.

The teacher was a 19 yr old Thai girl who has no qualifications, and no training in teaching English and she cannot speak English. Son says the young lady was not pleasant and spoke to the students very severely.

The teacher turned up very late for every class (supposed to be 2 hrs X 2 times per week), with about 5 or 6 sentences, all hand written all in block letters with no pronunciation marks, on a page ripped out of a note book. One of the students was then sent to another building to buy a photocopy for each student.

A typical example: 'YESTERDAY I WAS WENT GO TO THE SHOPPING'

The teacher gave no explanation of vocabulary, or contruction or anything.

The students had to, as a whole group, recite each sentence 5 or 6 times. End of lesson.

The other students all know my son speaks advanced English and they told the teacher so. Result, the teacher criticized my son's western surname (western surnames are ugly, etc.)

A few years back I was in regular correspondence with the Head of English - not just a professor - at a big BKK uni. Her English was really poor! And it turned out that she had never lived or studied outside Thailand. But a one-eyed teacher in the land of the blind . . .

R

It's enormously useful to live and study in an English-speaking country in order to speak English well, but it's not essential. I have an Egyptian friend who learnt her excellent English wholly in Cairo. She studied at the American University, which has excellent English teachers, but more importantly she comes from a culture, Arab culture, which deeply respects language, above all Arabic, primarily because of the Koran. But this respect for language transfers to other languages when learning them. It is very easy to find Arabs who are good speakers of English, and difficult to find Thais who are good at English.

Why? Why are the teachers so poor in Thailand? Because Thais do not have respect for language, even their own. They do not read, and they do not care about good language. This is the real root of the problem. How else could such appalling teachers of English exist here?

How could they continue to do their jobs whilst knowing -- most of them anyway -- how incompetent they are at the job? How can they have the nerve to pass on such garbage to their students? Because they don't really care about language.

Edited September 29, 2011 by spr&q

[cxxis]

I think we all (who have been here more then 2 days) know the problem of speaking English/American/Australian in Thailand.

What I think would help is to make it fashionable to speak English (or any variety of it).

Notice how in KL (Malaysia) all "upper class" Malay's speak English in bars, terraces, over the phone and such, it has become natural to them.

Another thing that might help is Thai sports reporters actually starting to pronounce at least the names of the sports people correctly in stead of for example "Alonsoooooooo" if referring to the F1 driver.

This is a funny one I would like to share:

As a shop manager for a scuba diving company I hired a new shop staff member as we run out on "English" speaking staff.

She was (and most likely still is) a Uni graduated (Thai) English teacher.

To train them a bit (in manners accustomed to foreigners) I started of with "when a potential diver walks through our shop door you will address them with {good morning/afternoon would you like to dive today?}

Not long after I had to cancel this sentence after hearing my Thai staff say "good m/a would you like to die today"

[lannarebirth]

I think we all (who have been here more then 2 days) know the problem of speaking English/American/Australian in Thailand.

What I think would help is to make it fashionable to speak English (or any variety of it).

Notice how in KL (Malaysia) all "upper class" Malay's speak English in bars, terraces, over the phone and such, it has become natural to them.

Another thing that might help is Thai sports reporters actually starting to pronounce at least the names of the sports people correctly in stead of for example "Alonsoooooooo" if referring to the F1 driver.

This is a funny one I would like to share:

As a shop manager for a scuba diving company I hired a new shop staff member as we run out on "English" speaking staff.

She was (and most likely still is) a Uni graduated (Thai) English teacher.

To train them a bit (in manners accustomed to foreigners) I started of with "when a potential diver walks through our shop door you will address them with {good morning/afternoon would you like to dive today?}

Not long after I had to cancel this sentence after hearing my Thai staff say "good m/a would you like to die today"

Thais have a bit of a problem with their V's. Read " Di-Wa".

[cloudhopper]

Because Thais do not have respect for language, even their own.

I am afraid I concur with this assessment.

[Bagwan]

I'm still trying to understand what the first sentence of the OP means.

[swerver]

I'm still trying to understand what the first sentence of the OP means.

Why don’t Thais just give up on English language, all the above has some value in one way or another and has been going on now for the past fifty years I have been associated with Thailand.

First of all Thais in one leading function or another aren’t interested to hear/apply what people who have spend their time researching learning of languages.

In my working life in Asia, Asia Minor and the Middle East for one reason or another always got me involved in training I found the Thais to be on English comprehension lowest level.

The main problem with Thais is, they think in Thai translate it in English in their head and then speak. This will not work. YOU MUST THINK IN THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE CONVERSING IN. How well I know my mother tongue is Dutch, English is my second language at a mother tongue proficiency. The majority of Thais steadfastly refuse to do it this way because to Thais there is only one way, and that is their way. Come hell or high water. I deal now for the past 16-year with the secretary on a daily basis and her English is still piss poor, she admits she thinks in Thai, translate, then speak, and in reverse she hears in English, translate in Thai. You should see the balls-up she creates when corresponding with foreign customers. The only good part, she knows she’s made a balls-up and get a hold of me to correct it for her. After all these years I’m getting pretty tired of it especially when I discovered she was using me, which turned out English language assignments of her teenage daughters which amounted to laziness because her kids have a full size PC with all programs still on it I used when I had that machine. Encarta, Encyclopedia Britannica, Office, Windows XP professional, just to name the main programs and then in a round about way she conned me into doing research for her daughter, which her daughter was too lazy to do on the computer at her home. I have put an abrupt halt to being used. Of course now they are perturbed with me.

[robsamui]

"< We learn from writing so we have to translate it when we use the language. That's the reason why most of Thais are not successful in English, including me although we have to study it for about ten years at school," said Thavorn Chalassathien, deputy secretary general of the Federation of Thai Industries.>"

Yesterday, I was introduced to 2 university English teachers both of which were Thai. We had a short conversation because I could not understand what they were saying. They could not put a simple sentence together to answer a general question or make an intelligent understandable comment. Makes one wonder, if the professors cannot speak english then why would we expect the students to speak english? :jap:

"both of which" should be "both of whom" (please).

(I almost said that myself but didn't want to appear like a nit-picking and supercilious git.)

R

[robsamui]

I think we all (who have been here more then 2 days) know the problem of speaking English/American/Australian in Thailand.

What I think would help is to make it fashionable to speak English (or any variety of it).

Notice how in KL (Malaysia) all "upper class" Malay's speak English in bars, terraces, over the phone and such, it has become natural to them.

Another thing that might help is Thai sports reporters actually starting to pronounce at least the names of the sports people correctly in stead of for example "Alonsoooooooo" if referring to the F1 driver.

This is a funny one I would like to share:

As a shop manager for a scuba diving company I hired a new shop staff member as we run out on "English" speaking staff.

She was (and most likely still is) a Uni graduated (Thai) English teacher.

To train them a bit (in manners accustomed to foreigners) I started of with "when a potential diver walks through our shop door you will address them with {good morning/afternoon would you like to dive today?}

Not long after I had to cancel this sentence after hearing my Thai staff say "good m/a would you like to die today"

Sounds like she's university Head of English department to me. Lucky you to get such a good one at the first go.

R

[robsamui]

I'm still trying to understand what the first sentence of the OP means.

Why don’t Thais just give up on English language, all the above has some value in one way or another and has been going on now for the past fifty years I have been associated with Thailand.

First of all Thais in one leading function or another aren’t interested to hear/apply what people who have spend their time researching learning of languages.

In my working life in Asia, Asia Minor and the Middle East for one reason or another always got me involved in training I found the Thais to be on English comprehension lowest level.

The main problem with Thais is, they think in Thai translate it in English in their head and then speak. This will not work. YOU MUST THINK IN THE LANGUAGE YOU ARE CONVERSING IN. How well I know my mother tongue is Dutch, English is my second language at a mother tongue proficiency. The majority of Thais steadfastly refuse to do it this way because to Thais there is only one way, and that is their way. Come hell or high water. I deal now for the past 16-year with the secretary on a daily basis and her English is still piss poor, she admits she thinks in Thai, translate, then speak, and in reverse she hears in English, translate in Thai. You should see the balls-up she creates when corresponding with foreign customers. The only good part, she knows she’s made a balls-up and get a hold of me to correct it for her. After all these years I’m getting pretty tired of it especially when I discovered she was using me, which turned out English language assignments of her teenage daughters which amounted to laziness because her kids have a full size PC with all programs still on it I used when I had that machine. Encarta, Encyclopedia Britannica, Office, Windows XP professional, just to name the main programs and then in a round about way she conned me into doing research for her daughter, which her daughter was too lazy to do on the computer at her home. I have put an abrupt halt to being used. Of course now they are perturbed with me.

Perturbed?

That sounds like the beginnings of some kind of significant awareness to me . . . got there in the end.

R

[cardholder]

Try a visit to, say, Siem Reap, Cambodia.

There are children selling postcards with a better grasp and use of English than many adult Thais.

I believe that English is compulsory from an early stage of education - and I also sense that they have grasped the commercial benefits of being able to speak English.

I accept that Siem Reap is a tourist town but virtually all service staff in restaurants, shops and bars can hold a conversation in English.

[a99az]

Hi teachers,

I’m teaching English at a Thai government school to 985 M1 and M2 students. I am the only English speaking teacher, the other three are made up of two from the Philippines and one French man.

The school is what I would call a typical rural Thai high school. The teachers on the whole are from the local farming community.

In the first few weeks of teaching at the school I was told that I would be reading out questions for a school English competition. I arrived at the class room where the competition was to be held, picked up the questions and was in shock at what I was supposed to read out. I had to rewrite almost every question, I was unable to understand some of the questions at all, and they had to be dumped.

This was just the beginning, I would often walk into a class and see the white board full of pidgin English. By the end of term I thought I had seen it all, but to my horror while invigilating an end of term test, I managed to get a look at an English paper that my students were taking. They where multiple choice questions, some of the questions had four correct answers some had two some three, some of the questions where ambiguous at best. I would not mind but to mark a students test paper as wrong when it is correct is sad at best.

I decided to get tough and went to my boss and showed her the test paper, she replied that she had too much work to do to check each English test paper, I offered my help.

This term the same problem again, I guess it’s not going to change any time soon.

To push this any further would I feel leave me out in the cold. I have already been told that I take my teaching too seriously I think this is because I have 19 students coming back for the first three days of the holiday to do extra English so that they can get a pass grade. I had one teacher tell me that all I had to do, is give them a simple test and then a grade one.

I think that until the Thai government take a firm stand and start demanding real results then things will not improve.

[cloudhopper]

I have already been told that I take my teaching too seriously I think this is because I have 19 students coming back for the first three days of the holiday to do extra English so that they can get a pass grade. I had one teacher tell me that all I had to do, is give them a simple test and then a grade one.

Unbelievable I'm left textless...

[nong38]

Of all the EU nations, Britain does more trade than the rest in this part of the world, so, it would seem to make sense that you might make an effort to learn a little more English if there is business to be done. On the other hand maybe Thailand can afford to let Burma, Malaysia and Singapore make their knowledge count, as they say here " up to you."

Edited October 2, 2011 by nong38

[hellodolly]

Is this a joke???????

No Joke

Speaking good English is very vital to be able to properly plant rice and harvest sugar cane.

Why don't they concentrate their English studies on people who will need it.

Perhaps as high as ten percent of the population will need it and of that ten percent probably only half will need to be proficient in it.

So why do they keep trying to push it onto every one.

By all means make it available but stop this insane drive to put it ahead of every thing else.

Maybe a little history would be more in order.

Particularly what the Nazi's stood for and did.

And how about mathematics?

Have you ever met a Thai who can add two and three without a calculator.

Get there priorities in order.

I can see it all now.

Just a second sir I will have that information for you in a second. The cost was 95 baht and you gave me a 100 baht bill I will have my calculator in a second sir and we will be able to deduce how much change there is.

[cloudhopper]

And how about mathematics?

It really grates every time I see someone needing a calculator to multiply or divide by ten.