Cost of homeschool +private Thai teacher?

[Clive]

Hello.
I'm looking to homeschool my children in the provinces for 8 months a year and return to Falang land for a few months to pay for the Thai lifestyle.
I don't want to pay for thai state school as the only reason for considering Thai school would be for my Thai/Falang children to learn Thai.
I believe that the money would be better off spent hiring a Thai Language teacher 3-4 hours a week but Im not sure of the costs involved in doing this. Any thoughts on whether I would be allowed to home school for only 8 months a year and or the cost of hiring a thai teacher for a few hours a week.
Also considering the cost of hiring a thai teacher full time to teach all subjects apart from English which I will cover.
Thank you

[Clive]

I know that it sounds a lot of messing about but I want my children to grow up and be educated where free thinking is encouraged.

[Gulfsailor]

I assume you want a high quality education for your kids. Then just hiring a teacher won't cut it. A good analogy is building a house. Sure you can hire a handyman who can probably cobble something together and call it a house. A quality house however is first designed by an architect, then assesed by an engineer and subsequently many construction workers with differing skill sets build it. The same goes for any education. Designing your own curriculum can't be done unless you are an educational scientist with access to decades of research. That leaves you to pick an existing curriculum, so first do research what curriculum you'd like to follow. Then purchase that plan and teaching materials that go with it. Hire quality teachers for the different subjects to follow the chosen curriculum and you stand a chance of building that quality education you are looking for. Cost wise you'd be better of sending your kids to any international school though.

[Clive]

Thank you for your reply.
I do actually home school already in the uk and everything is working brilliantly...however it is the Thai language skills that I cant cover.
I cant afford the cost of an International school but the benefit of an international school is the English language which I'm already teaching through various student lead topics.
However, living in Thailand Thai needs to be learnt and Im trying to find the best way of delivering this to my children. I firmly believe initially they would learn Thai from the school playground but a Thai state school would soon remove any free thinking from their thought process hence the benefit of home ed.

[Gumballl]

Thank you for your reply.

I do actually home school already in the uk and everything is working brilliantly...however it is the Thai language skills that I cant cover.

I cant afford the cost of an International school but the benefit of an international school is the English language which I'm already teaching through various student lead topics.

However, living in Thailand Thai needs to be learnt and Im trying to find the best way of delivering this to my children. I firmly believe initially they would learn Thai from the school playground but a Thai state school would soon remove any free thinking from their thought process hence the benefit of home ed.

Where I live, some parents send their children to the local Thai temple (yes, there's one in the Wash DC area) to learn Thai.

I have not decided (after several years) whether I want my children to learn Thai or Latin. Any day now I'm sure I will make a decision.

[SlyAnimal]

For a Thai tutor you'd be looking at approximately 200 THB per hour. The standard rate might differ a little depending on the area you're in + requirements + quality of the teacher.

e.g. In the first school I was teaching at, in Maha Sarakham City, one of the Thai teachers who I knew well, and was quite experienced + had excellent English, would generally charge 200 THB per hour for tutoring English. But when I was in RoiEt, in the countryside, I asked another teacher how much they'd charge, and they said they usually charge 100 THB per hour, although their English was quite a bit lower than the first teacher's. These were obviously for teaching English, rather than teaching Thai, but I'd imagine it'd still be the same regardless (In both situations I was just asking teachers from the same department I was in, out of curiosity).

I'm not sure about what's involved to legally home school your kids in Thailand, although I know a lot of Westerners are in favour of the idea, so there's bound to be plenty of information out there.

[timmyp]

There is an network of Thai people homeschooling their kids. The kids I have met that are connected through this network seem to be well educated. Their English is great.

http://www.homeschoolnetwork.org/

I don't believe it is necessary for kids to go to a Thai school for them to be proficient in academic Thai. Even if you are homeschooling them in a language besides Thai, you can integrate reading and writing of Thai on an academic level into their other subjects. If they don't specifically study academic Thai, though, then their Thai will always be sub-par. I don't have experience with this in Thailand, but I have seen it several times in Japan with bilingual kids who didn't learn one of the languages academically. I have seen successful bilingual kids who had a proper master of both languages as well, and it was part of their education.

[Boatfreak]

I assume you want a high quality education for your kids. Then just hiring a teacher won't cut it. A good analogy is building a house. Sure you can hire a handyman who can probably cobble something together and call it a house. A quality house however is first designed by an architect, then assesed by an engineer and subsequently many construction workers with differing skill sets build it. The same goes for any education. Designing your own curriculum can't be done unless you are an educational scientist with access to decades of research. That leaves you to pick an existing curriculum, so first do research what curriculum you'd like to follow. Then purchase that plan and teaching materials that go with it. Hire quality teachers for the different subjects to follow the chosen curriculum and you stand a chance of building that quality education you are looking for. Cost wise you'd be better of sending your kids to any international school though.

An international school cost around 70 000 baht per month, I think that is quite a good salary for a private teacher no? If I could find another one or two pupils to share I would have quality, custom education for a lot less.

[zeichen]

"An international school cost around 70 000 baht per month,"

That is 840k baht a year. Sorry but most in Thailand are a lot less than that. 400k a year is average.

But yes, private tutors would be cheaper than any International school.

Joining the facebook page for homeschoolers here would be a good start. Having a private tutor might help a little but children will learn a lot more through interaction with other kids their own age. Art classes, Dance classes and the like taught in Thai with Thai kids will probably do a lot more.

[1900]

If you don't know enough about teaching to teach them yourself how will you ever know if your tutor is qualified or not? Apart from his/her being qualified, how does he click with the children? But, even if they like him it's no indication he's any good at what he does. Now if you want to teach them yourself but work long hours and haven't the time .. just forget you read this.

This is what I'd do in your place .. invite 4 or 5 tutors over to met the kids, have them spend some time together, either teaching or socializing, ask the teachers to bring some of their lesson plans with them. Lesson plans is where the boys are separated from the men. Don't forget there should be a 24-hour window for changes of plans, no show, etc, for both parties.