Crackdown On "farang" Teachers

[Ijustwannateach]

I agree with your last statements, Madi, and I don't think many teachers would argue against getting the fakes and criminals out. However, I think you have a misconception about TEFL. TEFL is not subject teaching. There are and should be different standards for TEFL teachers and subject teachers.

TEFL's kind of like Mrs. Villalobos, my Spanish teacher in the 5th grade of elementary school, who visited our class an hour every week (just like in a typical TEFL gig). She didn't have any teaching degree- but we learned some conversational Spanish and had a great time.

As far as subject teaching goes, I would far rather be taught by someone with a degree in the subject than an educational degree. My favourite teachers in high school were PhD's in their field, with not an educational degree to be seen. I've also mentioned elsewhere in this thread that I had some brilliant teachers with college degrees only distantly related to what they were teaching out of need. It's not always the best decision to choose teachers blindly by official educational qualifications, especially in Bush's "Every Child Left Behind" new world.

"Steven"

[PeaceBlondie]

madi, we all want the best for the students, whether or not we're parents or teachers or just residents. Nobody who's reasonable wants any paedos teaching, and we want the most appropriately qualified people whom the school chooses to afford and is savvy enough to hire.

Another parallel is driver training, where the instructor's qualifications didn't have to include a thousand hours of educational courses. Or vocational training. TEFL is not brain surgery, but neither is it septic tank cleaning.

Madi, I don't know California, but I doubt that most places require a four year degree plus 1.5 more years, etc. Usually, in four to 4.5 years, they can get their education courses and their courses to teach the subject material. My daughter got all that in 3 years and 9 months.

Yes, all responsible teachers would welcome the identification and explusion of all actual pedophiles, but unless they have a criminal record that Thais can acquire and interpret, even that very desirable result is not likely to occur, unfortunately.

The qualifications arguments would be beside the point, were it not for the title of the thread. You've really got several issues entangled here at once.

As usual, we foreigners would love to import or impose our Western-style methods on Thailand. It's unlikely that will happen.

[haltes]

I am starting to doubt things will ever change here but I am still stubbornly optimistic that things might improve. I see BCC are recruiting on Ajarn again.

A lot of ideas have been mooted on this and other forums, and the idea of a tiered system is a good one, however this is very unlikely to happen as Thailand just don't want to give westerners control of their own visas and work permits.

It would really empower teachers if we were all screened and checked and then given documentation to work that is not tied to any one school, that means we could come and go and work legally anywhere in the kingdom. This is never going to happen because it would mean that schools like BCC would have to start treating foreign teachers with respect or they would just walk to another job. These schools have no interest in empowering their foreign staff, most don't even pay for the visa runs that they think are necessary and most don't even consider any professional development for their foreign staff.

When schools like BCC start treating their foreign staff with respect, they will get respect back.

When schools know we are empowered, they will treat us better.

When the standard of teachers who are working here improves, then perhaps we will gain some respect.

[wilko]

Thailand should announce a new law

Pedophiles to be SHOT upon conviction.

That would change a lot of foriegn misconception

and keep them far from the children.

thank you for that constructive comment....idiot!

[Neeranam]

Let me ask you all a serious question.

Would you let your child be taught by someone without a teacher's credential back in your home nation?

Yes, I wouldn't give a toss about some Chinaman teaching Chinese for example. I'd be happy he had come all the way from China to teach my kid. I wouldn't care if he didn't have a degree from China.

I wouldn't care if he didn't have background checks - I'd trust the decision of the school head.

I think this is what Thai people think and also couldn't a toss about the 'farang'. It's not as if they have a serious job. Teaching little Somchai for 1 hour a week, does it really matter what his teaching credentials are. Thai people want a farang to look good - preferrably young,blonde, good-looking.

If I had a language school and had the choice of a young blonde native(or not) teacher with no degree and a 50 year old guy with a MA in Education, I would pick the former.

Language teaching in Thailand is not serious. In my experience teaching(10 years in Thailand), and some ex-colleagues are in jail now, the guy to look out for is usually middle-aged+, American, well-qualified and gay.

Edited August 25, 2006 by Neeranam

[Neeranam]

QUOTE(Canadianvisitor @ 2006-08-24 22:17:00) *

Thailand should announce a new law

Pedophiles to be SHOT upon conviction.

That would change a lot of foriegn misconception

and keep them far from the children.

thank you for that constructive comment....idiot! annoyed.gif

Why not? What's worse pedos or junkies?

[katnip]

I think you have a misconception about TEFL. TEFL is not subject teaching. There are and should be different standards for TEFL teachers and subject teachers.

TEFL's kind of like Mrs. Villalobos, my Spanish teacher in the 5th grade of elementary school, who visited our class an hour every week (just like in a typical TEFL gig). She didn't have any teaching degree- but we learned some conversational Spanish and had a great time.

I don't think this portrayal is quite right, either.

TEFL is *sometimes* as you describe, but sometimes it is very different - for example, teaching a regular English class in a school in a non-English speaking country, or helping a group of EFL students prepare for their final secondary school external examinations in Oral or Written English, or helping a group of local English teachers prepare for the proficiency tests that will decide whether they are eligible to continue in the profession, or acting as an examiner for tests such as IELTS, BULATS et al ... those are just a few examples. For these you need solid subject knowledge and the skills to impart it. Being a native speaker is not sufficient.

Its sister, TESL, also requires thorough subject knowledge and a range skills, for tasks such as bringing a group of migrants of a variety of different language and cultural backgrounds from zero to functional proficiency, or preparing a similarly mixed group at a higher level to enter tertiary studies amongst native speakers, or teaching students from non-literate cultures to function in their new cultures, to name just a few.

A good TESOL/TEFL teacher will usually have a solid background in English/foreign languages/linguistics/inter-cultural studies as well as teacher training (at least one year) and TEFL/TESL training (at least one year), not to mention experience and on-going workplace training and other professional development.

Not to say that there's no place for people like your Mrs. Villalobos; I had a similar experience with a French native speaker at school. She was not a trained teacher but supplemented our regular classes and certainly served as a great model for oral language and also contributed much to our interest in the language and culture.

However, that is by no means all that TEFL is.

Edited August 25, 2006 by katnip

[Oleg_Rus]

Let me ask you all a serious question.

Would you let your child be taught by someone without a teacher's credential back in your home nation?

No way I'd send my child to school crowded by junlies, pedos, perverts and wannabees. Teacher is the techer. there's no such a thing as pedo-teacher, alco-techer or sexual explorer.

[Ijustwannateach]

I think you have a misconception about TEFL. TEFL is not subject teaching. There are and should be different standards for TEFL teachers and subject teachers.

TEFL's kind of like Mrs. Villalobos, my Spanish teacher in the 5th grade of elementary school, who visited our class an hour every week (just like in a typical TEFL gig). She didn't have any teaching degree- but we learned some conversational Spanish and had a great time.

I don't think this portrayal is quite right, either.

TEFL is *sometimes* as you describe, but sometimes it is very different - for example, teaching a regular English class in a school in a non-English speaking country, or helping a group of EFL students prepare for their final secondary school external examinations in Oral or Written English, or helping a group of local English teachers prepare for the proficiency tests that will decide whether they are eligible to continue in the profession, or acting as an examiner for tests such as IELTS, BULATS et al ... those are just a few examples. For these you need solid subject knowledge and the skills to impart it. Being a native speaker is not sufficient.

Thanks. You make an important distinction, and I should clarify. Most TEFL at poorly funded Thai public schools, which is where most foreign TEFL teachers in Thailand wind up teaching, is as I described.

There are a few more advanced schools in which TEFL becomes more involved, and closer to subject teaching as you describe. For those schools, I would think a degree would be a natural additional expectation for hiring (to be matched by higher salaries).

"Steven"

[Pakboong]

I can't help but think that this has more to do with equal pay for Thais who are educated and credentialed and less to do with Mr Karr.

[maxfromoz]

Criminal checks should be enforced, however this whole qualified and unqualified business is going round in circles. If Mr Carr was caught in a bar or had not applied for the Teaching job would this whole crackdown business be going on. At the end of the day he was a high profile case and the government needed to save face both in Thailand and internationally. That's what this is really all about.

[maxfromoz]

Mr Karr

[kozi]

Nice one,

It is certainly a positive step in the right direction.

[Douggie Style]

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere.

This just came over the TV:

Karr is not going to be charged as the DNA does not match that on JonBenet.

[Douggie Style]

JonBenet murder charges dropped after DNA test

By North America correspondent Michael Rowland

In the United States, authorities have dropped all charges against the man accused of murdering child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.

John Mark Karr was arrested in Thailand nearly a fortnight ago over the brutal 1996 murder of six-year-old JonBenet in Boulder, Colorado.

Mr Karr told authorities he was with the girl at the time but that her death was an accident.

Now Mr Karr's lawyer says Boulder authorities will not be filing any charges against the former schoolteacher.

His DNA apparently does not match the DNA found on JonBenet's body.

The announcement came just two hours before Mr Karr was scheduled to make his first court appearance in Colorado.

REF#: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1726491.htm

[AmeriThai]

California will have a warm welcome for Mr. Karr. He still faces charges there, so he's likely to get a nice cozy prison cell not to mention a host of friendly prisoners eager to greet him.

[ilyushin]

Mr Karr sure caused a mess in the LOS.

[wilko]

A fiasco from the start.....it's difficult to work out who is looking more stupid...the Thai authorities or the American authorities, certainly not Mr Karr; he was out to lunch long before this all started.

[ilyushin]

A fiasco from the start.....it's difficult to work out who is looking more stupid...the Thai authorities or the American authorities, certainly not Mr Karr; he was out to lunch long before this all started.

American authorities get the gold

Thai authorities get the silver

Mark Karr the bronze

Expats

[Lop]

Prosecutors abandoned their case against schoolteacher John Mark Karr on Monday, saying that DNA tests failed to link Karr to the slaying of child beauty contestant JonBenet Ramsey.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/28/ramsey.arrest/index.html

//Lopburi

[Laulen]

Mr Karr sure caused a mess in the LOS.

ilyushin you highlight the problem just spot on! What a mess for LOS.

Life as we know it, may not be the same again!

This will create a few new jobs for the Education Ministry, checking out all us 'dodgy' teachers!

[PeaceBlondie]

Since there's at least one more thread on ThaiVisa about the Karr episode itself, shall we keep this to the effect the episode has on teaching by farangs in Thailand?

The whole episode is embarrassing for Thailand, but as it's been pointed out, the Thai authorities didn't screw up their part of it too badly. The better schools, even the ones below "international rank" where Karr worked briefly and failingly, probably do a better job of checking (usually) than the smaller schools.

Checking police records, like verifying degrees and academic transcripts from unis, is just too difficult for most Thai schools to do well, and as it's been pointed out repeatedly, they're not likely to bother doing it.

Those of us who have real degrees, real visas, real TEFL certificates, real TEFL experience in Thailand, etc., would like to have less competition, but this is not a job market that behaves normally. Having less competition from our white farang brothers won't raise wages much. If the Thais think Thailand wants better Thai laws enforced by Thais, the Thais will do it.

I suggested that the leading TEFL folks try to speak to the high officials at the MoE. I think it fell on deaf ears. Even if the officials actually held such a meeting, it's doubtful it would make a difference.

[Ijustwannateach]

Very good points, PB!