Can you give a review on Udon Thani International School

[shinkansen999]

I could not find any helpful review on this school. There was some old thread about this school on other Udon local forum. Now the school is almost 1 year old, is there anyone who can provide up to date review on this school in term of the kids' English ability and also in math and science. Do all the kids speak fluent English and do they converse in English in school?

I am exploring the possibility of taking my 8 years old kid to stay in Udon for a few years for my work reasons, my kid can speak very fluent English because he has attended only English speaking international schools for a few years in several countries, and he has to continue to progress in English so once we leave Thailand in about 2-3 years he can follow up with next school in case it is a high standard school.

I am now in Udon Thani looking around the city's living environment. I find it quite nice and convenient compare to other Thai cities or Lao cities. So next problem would be the schooling issue.

By the way, yesterday I opened their school Facebook, I saw there was an writing assignment about Earth Day, how to save the earth. Almost all the kids could only write in Thai, only one kid wrote 2 sentences in English and it is enlarged on their Facebook while all other writing are in Thai. It seems like this school is more like one of the Thai/English bilingual schools rather than international school? Am I correct? They claimed to be an English medium international school, I have no idea why they let most of the kids write in Thai for their school work.


By just looking at their assignment on Facebook, if the kids cannot even write a few English sentences about how to protect our Earth, it would be very shocking about the school's English standard. If that's the case, I think my kid's English will be light years ahead of them. That is my real concern if I send my kid there.

I would like to hear direct experiences from other parents who have kids there if there are any on this board, or people who know other kids that go to this school or know other parents that send kids to this school. Please share information more specifically on the overall students' English speaking ability. Thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/udinterschool

[rct99q]

Hi, do not know the school. I worked for 5 years at PTK in nearby city. There are a couple things to be aware of. It is less about the school and more about the parents in what drives them to learn English. PTK is an international school as well yet English levels are very poor.

The website is updated by the Western Teachers so do not go by the content that they show as an indication of how well the students speak, read and write English. I would however try and contact one or two of the names via Facebook of the people who have written on the Facebook page as they will have a better idea of this school. People like David P. Is well respected contributor to a English teaching forum in Thailand and has taught in the area for many years.

I have two children one in m1 at the moment and without daily assistance from me in all subjects his education from a private school in English would be zero. Even though it professes to a MEP program.

I know of no school in the upper north east of Thailand that can honestly claim they have an excellent English learning program. Many of them are converting to programs such as sine and others which are total crap.

With the exception of Mukdhan area I have heard if a decent program there but it still comes down to you the parent having to spend a time with your child supplementing the programs.

Good luck I know how difficult it is.

[Issangeorge]

Mukdahan High School has a MEP program where from M1 to M3 they have two classes and then from M4 to M6 they have one class. The kids get at least 5 classes of English a week and in some cases 7. The English teachers are native English speaking, or at least we're when I taught there. However their math and science teachers are Filipino. For various reasons the native English speakers don't seem to last more than a year, sometimes two. The students get to vote them off the island, so if they try to have any discipline, they are usually voted off the island. The Filipino teachers don't seem to have this problem, maybe because they are mostly song and dance men, do everything the school tells them and arranged all the shows and contests. PS, although I did try to discipline my students and thus got voted off the island, I was also in over my head. I had to teach grammar and found it a difficult undertaking. My students all knew grammar better than me, or at least my M6 students. They are all in fourth year University now, and most are graduating and one is training as a pharmacist, one as a dentist, and one a doctor.