Home Can Be The Best Place To Learn English

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Home can be the best place to learn English

Wannapa Khaopa

The Nation

Contest shows you don't need to go abroad to be fluent

BANGKOK: -- Many Thais believe that to be proficient in English, they must live abroad for a period of time in an environment that forces them to speak English to survive - like when they have to find places to go to and food to eat. But this is not always true. Two students have proved they can be proficient in English despite being born here and spending their lives studying in Thailand.

But, an English-speaking en-vironment is crucial. And the

parents of Nantanick Tantiva-sadakarn, 15, from Suan Kularb Wittayalai School, and Onrampha Souvannavong, 9, from Sriwit-tayapaknam School, created a valuable surrounding in which their children could flourist.

The pair were among four winners of the National Speech Contest 2012 held recently in Bangkok by the Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec).

So, how did the young students' parents create such an environment?

"My parents talked to me continuously in English since I was born," said Nantanick, answering this question from The Nation.

Onrampha's answer was the same.

But, it was not just English conversations spoken with their families that helped improve their skills. The media also contributed a lot to their development.

So, Thai parents who cannot speak English should not feel helpless; the English language media can help your children.

But to encourage this learning parents must choose English-language media based on their children's preferences and what they enjoy most, Nantanick's mother Patchara, and Onrampha's mother, Jantana urged.

Nantanick and Onramphasaid they both developed native English accents and learned vocabularies from the media.

Nantanick prefers watching movies and documentaries in English and Onrampha likes cartoons, songs, a TV programme that teaches English and books, picture dictionaries and everyday life conversation books.

Onrampha said: "Learning English is all about practice, practice and practice. So, for any of you who use English and sound like a native speaker, it's all about how you set the environment."

Nantanick said: "For myself, my parents have been speaking English with me so I'm able to practise it everyday. And also, sometimes, I go to watch movies or documentaries in English, and from doing that I start to get the accent so I sounded more like a native-speaker rather than a local.

"The most important thing is determination. We have to be determined when we practise English. Sometimes, we do it incorrectly, so be patient and keeping adjusting your practise. I myself have taken years to practise," he added.

Onrampha suggested other pupils try to learn more about English and do their homework.

One of the winners, Tevin Thiplueporn from Phuket Wit-tayalai School recommended: "Among tips of effective learning

for English, you have to focusless on memorising and more on listening, reading and getting yourself familiar with words. I have two ways. The first is listening to music, and second is to read some novels, maybe Harry Potter or Narnia."

Onrampha was the winner of Prathom 1-3 (Grade 1-3) category, while Maisy Vanmook from Saint Joseph Kalasin School was the winner of Prathom 4-6 (Grade 4-6). Nantanick won the Matthayom 1-3 (Grade 7-9) level and Tevin won the Matthayom 4-6 (Grade 10-12) category.

Each of the national winners had a speech to present. Onrampha delivered her talk on the topic "Mother's Day", Maisy on "My School", Nantanick on "How to Get Benefit from Social Media" and Tevin on "How to Encourage People to Enhance English Ability."

Being able to speak English naturally and fluently with pronunciation similar to English natives was important in the contest, but all also had to present well-organised speeches.

Many contestants, however, spoke from what they had memorised from their scripts, not from what was in their thinking, the contest's judges commented. They urged teachers to train students to think by themselves and express their opinions rather than have them memorise prepared scripts with topics that teachers thought could be good for impromptu speeches.

Watanaporn Ra-ngubtook, director of the English Language Institute at Obec, said 228 winners from 26 contest groups competed in the contest. Its theme was impromptu speech in which contestants have an opportunity to practise and develop their ability in English proficiency, thinking skills, public speaking and problem solving.

The standard of most Thai students' English communication is not very high. Thai students' ability in English communication has been ranked sixth among Asean countries, research has found, behind Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam. Also, a survey by the Education First Company has ranked Thai youths 42nd out of a total 44 countries surveyed in terms of English ability.

Obec's secretary-general Chinnapat Bhumirat urged teachers to play the role of facilitators and give students moral support and encourage them to speak. Nobody was wrong andno one should be made fun of when saying foreign words

incorrectly.

-- The Nation 2012-08-20

[anon467367354]

Interesting but I really can't see this as becoming commonplace in the average Thai home. As the TV is always on, game shows and poorly done rinse and repeat dramas of rich people exhibiting poor behavior take precedence, I can't imagine a TV with speakers blaring something totally incoherent being tolerated for very long by the majority in the room.

In many developed countries, the wealthy and others that can afford to do so, hire Chinese nannies so their children can become fluent in Mandarin. Most of us have grown up speaking English, not because we were schooled in it, but we grew up around it. If Thailand would drop it's elite status and racist way of thinking and allow those native speakers that consider quality of life takes precedence over money, and wish to live in the Kingdom, let them legally live here as nannies if they wish to do so. Money is not everything.

The work permit requirements are a farce and seem to pertain only to Caucasians. I went to restaurant the other night and only the owners spoke Thai, the workers were all from Burma.

Just a thought, something I've considered, but so far not even a concept.

[cup-O-coffee]

Congratulations to the three. All the best to them. Now, what about the other 74,699, 997 Thais living here?

[SouthernMan3]

Home is where my kids learn !

Certainly not in school......

[steveyinasia]

Whilst living in Tokyo, it was common for Japanese students to approach me in a coffee shop asking if I would not mind having an English conversation with them so they could practice. It was also a bit of a learning opportunity for me as well to help with my very basic Japanese.

[belg]

is that the contest where they denied luk kreung children to participate because they had 1 parent who is non thai ... ???

[Narratio]

Oddly enough that was the contest. Having a non-Thai parent is cheating, gives the child a totally unfair advantage you see.

As I'm waiting for my medication to really kick in I find myself wondering if Yingluck is going announce that she will ensure that every child in Thailand has access to a farang parent in order to improve thier English skills... Farang in a box so to speak... Hmmm, maybe the medication has already started working.

[lounger]

My girlfriend hasnt managed to learn English in our home after seven years. She cant be bothered.

however those Swedish guys in Thai prison awaiting trial for murder have learned Thai so that they can understand the proceedings. They have an incentive.

'incentive' not 'exposure to the English language' is what is required................

[SuneeTH]

Thai people should speak Thai at home.

This is a Thai culture.

Some people just don't respect their culture.

I am sure the English family would be proud if they speak French at home.

[ozzieovaseas]

Its obvious that most foriegn learners of language mostly learn English through TV. I know many Thais who learnt very well from TVs and movies.

My question is HOW are they going to learn from TV when nearly ALL Thai TV channels completely neglect any English content.

True visions is disgusting for this. On my package they once had many English channels and English content. Gradually they have gotten rid of all channels but 2 or 3.

Whats worse is any English movies or English content shown is dubbed over in Thai...so there again, total disregard for English.

I was horrified to see recently a common practice of not only dubbing the English soundtrack in Thai but also having subtitles written in Thai as well!!!...go figure that!!

If the government is serious about not wanting Thailand getting left behind in the coming ASEAN environment it better start encouraging Thai TV channels to add some English content..i really think channels like True vision are really letting the country and its children down.

Not only for Thais, but i would urge even farangs living in Thailand to write to Thai Newspapers and Thai media outlets on this issue. I don't think there is any other country in the world who totally disregards English like Thailand does!!

[thaicbr]

Thai people should speak Thai at home.

This is a Thai culture.

Some people just don't respect their culture.

I am sure the English family would be proud if they speak French at home.

Culture and language are two distinctly different things. You can be Thai and still speak any number of languages. Unfortunately the culture thing is always what Thai people spout. Thai culture this. Thai culture that. The funny thing is you actually have very little Thai culture. Many of your old buildings are Khymer. Your culture as you know it was devised in 1932 because some Thai dictator general decided Thailand needed it. Go figure

sent from my Wellcom A90+

[SuneeTH]

I wonder if Bill Heinecke children can join the contest.

After all Bill is Thai. He had given up his US citizenship (for tax purpose I am sure).

[tolstoy]

"which their children could flourist."

You think that the writer of this article might actually take some lessons from the people in the story.

[Scott]

Thai people should speak Thai at home.

This is a Thai culture.

Some people just don't respect their culture.

I am sure the English family would be proud if they speak French at home.

I knew a family in an English speaking country who had "French" night. They also only conversed in French at dinner time. No good reason, they wanted their children to learn French and the parents both had taken French in school.

I don't think it interfered with their culture or identity. It did help motivate their children to learn French and it instilled in them the idea that learning was important.

[happysanook]

Thailand spends untold billions on "teaching english".... it's too bad it does barely a lick of good. some of them learn a little bit, but half an hour once a week with a native born speaker isn't going to teach sh*t unless the student is learning it elsewhere as well. and not just learning it elsewhere, but working hard at it and immersing themselves in it.

[Konini]

Thailand spends untold billions on "teaching english".... it's too bad it does barely a lick of good. some of them learn a little bit, but half an hour once a week with a native born speaker isn't going to teach sh*t unless the student is learning it elsewhere as well. and not just learning it elsewhere, but working hard at it and immersing themselves in it.

I have to agree here. Don't know too much about how it works in Thialand, but in Indonesia young children have a very impressive vocabulary that they have learned from school, books and/or TV & radio - they always want to practice; to see how conversation flow works. We all know that most native English speakers have terrible spoken grammar (I include myself in this) but very correct grammar in writing. People learning a second language need the school to teach them the basics, then have real-time pratcice with a native or competant English speaker. Doesn't have to be a teacher, just anyone who can talk about fashion or football or any other thing which interests them. The more they speak English to a competant English speaker, the better their conversational skills an pronunciation will be. This is the reason why I don't understand that I can't go to the local school one morning a week and just talk to children. Work permits prohibit me from doing this, but I can and do speak to school children in several other countries in the area and they, their parents and their teachers are grateful for that. It costs me nothing but a lost morning or afternoon and maybe bus fare to the school and back.

[jcw]

I wonder if Bill Heinecke children can join the contest.

After all Bill is Thai. He had given up his US citizenship (for tax purpose I am sure).

I think they are to busy driving racing cars

[Trembly]

Thai people should speak Thai at home.

This is a Thai culture.

Some people just don't respect their culture.

I am sure the English family would be proud if they speak French at home.

Thai people should speak whatever language they want to at home without being so insecure about their own culture that the end up 'reversing into a klong' like they have been for so many years.

[puchooay]

Its obvious that most foriegn learners of language mostly learn English through TV. I know many Thais who learnt very well from TVs and movies.

My question is HOW are they going to learn from TV when nearly ALL Thai TV channels completely neglect any English content.

True visions is disgusting for this. On my package they once had many English channels and English content. Gradually they have gotten rid of all channels but 2 or 3.

Whats worse is any English movies or English content shown is dubbed over in Thai...so there again, total disregard for English.

I was horrified to see recently a common practice of not only dubbing the English soundtrack in Thai but also having subtitles written in Thai as well!!!...go figure that!!

If the government is serious about not wanting Thailand getting left behind in the coming ASEAN environment it better start encouraging Thai TV channels to add some English content..i really think channels like True vision are really letting the country and its children down.

Not only for Thais, but i would urge even farangs living in Thailand to write to Thai Newspapers and Thai media outlets on this issue. I don't think there is any other country in the world who totally disregards English like Thailand does!!

Alot of the time people just don't think. I was watching a Thai kids program on the telly last Saturday morning with my daughter. The series is based in a Thai school. The scene: A classroom where the teacher comes in to teach English. The usual "stand up please", "Good Morning, How are you?" stuff ensued. Then the teacher starts to rabbit on in Thai.

With all of this "teachers must speak English in the classroom" going on how do thay let this to been seen by kids on the telly. It would have been mush simpler to have the teacher cast as a maths teacher.

No thought process at all.

[thaicbr]

Its obvious that most foriegn learners of language mostly learn English through TV. I know many Thais who learnt very well from TVs and movies.

My question is HOW are they going to learn from TV when nearly ALL Thai TV channels completely neglect any English content.

True visions is disgusting for this. On my package they once had many English channels and English content. Gradually they have gotten rid of all channels but 2 or 3.

Whats worse is any English movies or English content shown is dubbed over in Thai...so there again, total disregard for English.

I was horrified to see recently a common practice of not only dubbing the English soundtrack in Thai but also having subtitles written in Thai as well!!!...go figure that!!

If the government is serious about not wanting Thailand getting left behind in the coming ASEAN environment it better start encouraging Thai TV channels to add some English content..i really think channels like True vision are really letting the country and its children down.

Not only for Thais, but i would urge even farangs living in Thailand to write to Thai Newspapers and Thai media outlets on this issue. I don't think there is any other country in the world who totally disregards English like Thailand does!!

Alot of the time people just don't think. I was watching a Thai kids program on the telly last Saturday morning with my daughter. The series is based in a Thai school. The scene: A classroom where the teacher comes in to teach English. The usual "stand up please", "Good Morning, How are you?" stuff ensued. Then the teacher starts to rabbit on in Thai.

With all of this "teachers must speak English in the classroom" going on how do thay let this to been seen by kids on the telly. It would have been mush simpler to have the teacher cast as a maths teacher.

No thought process at all.

They did think about it. That is reality. A lot of Thai English teachers very rarely actually speak English in class

sent from my Wellcom A90+

[ALFREDO]

I do not know, what they learn in Goverment rural schools in Isaan at all, sure not English, as far as I recognice.

Some hours English every week for years and cannot speak a word or understand something! Just crazy!

Some cannot even wright their name after years in school!

Yes, at home with me, my sons learn at least some English in our conversations, but their mother my spouse is to stupid and lazy to speak English with them to!

[Thaddeus]

I do not know, what they learn in Goverment rural schools in Isaan at all, sure not English, as far as I recognice.

Some hours English every week for years and cannot speak a word or understand something! Just crazy!

Some cannot even wright their name after years in school!

Yes, at home with me, my sons learn at least some English in our conversations, but their mother my spouse is to stupid and lazy to speak English with them to!

Permit me to just reword the first line a little. I think it would be better as "I don't know what they teach in Government schools"

If learning any subject is based purely in the classroom environment, the children cannot learn more than the teacher can teach. I have met some Thai English teachers who could be considered as competent, but they are few and far between, and even those struggle with correct pronunciation of words that a native English speaker just takes for granted i.e. anything that starts with th or st, or ends with ilk.

The teachers I know who are reasonably competent in English teach Pratom 4, 5 and 6. The ones below that are useless when it comes to language.

This creates a major stumbling block. The way the system works here, the teachers are obliged/compelled to teach the curriculum to the letter (pun) If you look at the books they hand out for P 4, 5 and 6, it is way beyond them, as in P 1, 2 and 3 they learn't almost nothing apart from how to say the alphabet. They then just learn how to say a few lines from the books, with no concept of what they are saying, and then copy it into their notebooks.

Add to that the no-fail policy, and you have achieved nothing.

They have a couple of ways to fix this, either double the number of competent English teachers in the Government schools, which would be costly, may have to spend more of the allocated budget on actual teachers. Or, just forget about learning a second language until the kids are at least 7 or 8 years old.

But as for the posted article, yes, you can learn a language at home, everybody does that anyway in their own native tongue, but you need to be saturated with it 24/7. Only a minuscule amount of Thai homes have an English speaker on tap that way.

[culicine]

I do not know, what they learn in Goverment rural schools in Isaan at all, sure not English, as far as I recognice.

Some hours English every week for years and cannot speak a word or understand something! Just crazy!

Some cannot even wright their name after years in school!

Yes, at home with me, my sons learn at least some English in our conversations, but their mother my spouse is to stupid and lazy to speak English with them to!

If they have learned so little of english language over twelve years, I wonder how much they have learned in their other subjects through poor teaching methods.

[Scott]

If they have learned so little of english language over twelve years, I wonder how much they have learned in their other subjects through poor teaching methods.

That is an astute observation and I think one that is overlooked. We tend to judge everything on the level of English being taught and overlook the importance of other subjects.

[Trembly]

I do not know, what they learn in Goverment rural schools in Isaan at all, sure not English, as far as I recognice.

Some hours English every week for years and cannot speak a word or understand something! Just crazy!

Some cannot even wright their name after years in school!

Yes, at home with me, my sons learn at least some English in our conversations, but their mother my spouse is to stupid and lazy to speak English with them to!

If they have learned so little of english language over twelve years, I wonder how much they have learned in their other subjects through poor teaching methods.

Much the same story as with English judging by the discrepancies that I can see between the curriculum and the actual material being taught. I've known whole chunks of the maths curriculum, for example, to be unceremoniously thrown out simply because the teacher has decided that it's too hard for them . . . Some might say that that's exactly what should be done if it's too hard for them but absolutely nothing is done about the root causes as to why the curriculum is too hard for them because we have the magic face-saving wand of No Fail.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Trembly

[Thaddeus]

I do not know, what they learn in Goverment rural schools in Isaan at all, sure not English, as far as I recognice.

Permit me to just reword the first line a little. I think it would be better as "I don't know what they teach in Government schools"

Permit me to, =after= you changed my sentence, I let run my German words,

-Ich weiss nicht, was sie hier in Thai Landschulen lernen.- threw Google translate and it appeared

Excuse me, I was in the first part being polite, in the second part trying to be helpful by not only backing up your claim, but also adding more substance to it.

But instead, it appears that you read what you wanted to read and not what was written and displayed a prime example of why the only people who can correctly teach any language are the native speakers of that language.

[ALFREDO]

So Google Translate is wrong? And you are right?

Its a difference to learn something or to teach something, yes?

You learn something in the school and they teach you something in school. Yes?

German is -lernen- und -lehren- and -unterrichten-

So, I wrote, how I wanted it to be!

When I write

-I do not know what they, (the pupils) learn here in Thai rural schools- I mean the pupils!

Kauw tschai!

For you again and more clear.

-I do not know what the Thai students learn in Thai schools in the province.-

displayed a prime example that some people, do not read and think exactly, before posting!

Edited August 21, 2012 by ALFREDO

[Scott]

A post has been deleted. English is the only language allowed in the forum, except for the Thai language sub-forum.

Please stay on the topic, and stay civil.