Students without a reading ability

[recom273]

I'm a bit of a loss.

I have just started my second year of teaching in a technical / vocation college. Last year, on the first day, the agency threw me in to the deep end and just told me to teach, i soon realised I had very low ability students which I could handle, and later into the term I worked out I had students that couldn't read.

This year, my first lesson entailed a multi-choice paper of easy questions that after M.3 schooling they should have picked up, a short paragraph to read and a brief oral test.

Putting the results aside, I really wanted to know who could read and who couldn't read. It was an improvement with a only few non-readers, who were aware they do have a problem.

Has anyone any advice ? obviously the college isn't interested, the parents probably aren't. I'm maxed out with 24 hours + and classes of 45 students in a sweaty fan room with 40 desks.

The course is graded on coursework and oral presentation, in addition to the final & mid-terms which only count for 40% and with all the smoke and mirrors in the Thai education system these exam points fall into insignificance ( when calculated over a year ) when we also grade for appearance ( wearing their correct shoes and tucking their shirt in ) and "morals".

However, I would like to do something for these - of course I can spare some time out of class, but perhaps the kids can't.

Any ideas ?

[recom273]

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I teach the MEP - English program for gifted students ( gifts of brown envelopes to the director )

[lostinisaan]

So older your students are, so more difficult it will be to "teach them" how to read. The biggest problem might be that a lot of them already "gave up" trying.

At this age, they don't want to lose face in front of their classmates. And your teaching load is way too high.........

I'd use programs to introduce short and long vowel sounds. I've got a very good one, but you'll need a projector to use it. One of them is called phonics interactive and really easy to use. It comes with a game, where the students have to decide if the letter makes a short, or a long vowel sound.

Can't send you the program via message, or e-mail, as it's 46 MB big. But I could send you a CD, if you want, not a big deal.

[gerryBScot]

Sounds as if you are also becoming a good teacher as well because I think the test at the start of the term was a very good move - you have some sense of what your students can and can't do and obviously this now leaves you in a position to teach to their needs.

I would agree with LostinIsaan that some sort of phonics content would be appropriate but most of the materials I know are designed for small kids and older students might be offended if you produced this sort of stuff. I am sure there is phonics stuff available for older learners and I suggest you try and source it. I recommend phonics for reading because it equips learners with the skills to try to read a word they cannot recognise. I would also suggest that you need to source a list of 'irregular' words that don't follow normal phonic rules and teach them alongside your phonics - a lot of these are common words such as 'I', 'me', 'have', 'the', 'she', 'go', 'do' etc so they are worth including.

Perhaps you could try some group work with them. Carve your class up into 4 person small groups, allocate at least one more able student to each group and thereafter try to mix abilities; in your allocation you can separate students that you feel should be kept apart. Give them a group task: everyone in this class to be able to read three simple sentences. (You'll need to prepare some simple sentences) Make them responsible to each other for ensuring everyone in the group can read the sentences. Test them individually and record an individual score for each student but average the four individual scores to make a group score. Don't give them an individual score but give each group the averaged score...... You could adapt something along these lines.... might be fun and you might be surprised how effective it can be in helping people learn.

Let me wish you good luck and hope you have some success.

[recom273]

Cheers guys.

This year, its a max of 2 students per class who are totally illiterate.

The rest can read to a degree. I always have taught pronounciation, phonics in action.

lostinissan .. Thanks dude, but you know how it is .. there isn't even enough rooms in the college, there isn't enough desks in the room, a lot of the whiteboards are unusable - a projector ? I think the academic dept has one for showing the parents dubious PP presentations with fasical result graphs.

I do have the kids respect, and to a certain extent I can get them through it, by working in groups and using assignments and conversation assessments - which instill confidence. There are plenty of TV members here that can speak passable Thai without being able to read it.

The next time some head of English says, "well we want to make it fun for the kids, blah, blah, can you jump up and down, sing a song and shout a lot" I will just batter them with a chair leg.

This country is so messed up.

[lostinisaan]

Cheers guys.

This year, its a max of 2 students per class who are totally illiterate.

The rest can read to a degree. I always have taught pronounciation, phonics in action.

lostinissan .. Thanks dude, but you know how it is .. there isn't even enough rooms in the college, there isn't enough desks in the room, a lot of the whiteboards are unusable - a projector ? I think the academic dept has one for showing the parents dubious PP presentations with fasical result graphs.

I do have the kids respect, and to a certain extent I can get them through it, by working in groups and using assignments and conversation assessments - which instill confidence. There are plenty of TV members here that can speak passable Thai without being able to read it.

The next time some head of English says, "well we want to make it fun for the kids, blah, blah, can you jump up and down, sing a song and shout a lot" I will just batter them with a chair leg.

This country is so messed up.

I totally understand where you're coming from. We have a 16 year old son who's in his second year at the local technical college.

I also agree with your last sentence, but you can't change the system. Best of luck !!

[SlyAnimal]

I did something similar this year with maths, where I gave my M1-M6 students a "pre-test", which covered basic English math vocab + some simple equations which should have been taught between P1 to M1.

Most of the students who were good students & had been in the bilingual program for M1 & M2 got great results. The others scored about what I expected for vocab (I.e. only plus, minus & "time" out of about 15), but what surprised me was how many (more than 50%) didn't know how to do some of the basic equations (e.g. Order of operations/negatives/square root).

As a result I've decided to go back to basics with them all for 2-3 weeks and then give them a followup test. I'm thinking about enforcing special lunchtime tutoring or retests until they can pass for kids who fail, but will see how many fail first lol.

As I think that a lot of the students must have simply found maths too difficult during primary school and given up, or perhaps their teachers didn't have time to cover the curriculum . Most can't even recite their basic times tables from memory & need paper or fingers for things like 4x7. This must be a significant barrier to them progressing in subjects like maths & physics, whether in Thai or English, as both require a solid foundation in basic maths.

I don't know how this will assist your situation, as its maths and more than just a few students in each class (So I can justify setting aside time in class for it). But either way, remember you're not the only one, it's not the students, it's the system which allows students everywhere to fall through the cracks like this without it being picked up or corrected.

[recycler]

So older your students are, so more difficult it will be to "teach them" how to read. The biggest problem might be that a lot of them already "gave up" trying.

At this age, they don't want to lose face in front of their classmates. And your teaching load is way too high.........

I'd use programs to introduce short and long vowel sounds. I've got a very good one, but you'll need a projector to use it. One of them is called phonics interactive and really easy to use. It comes with a game, where the students have to decide if the letter makes a short, or a long vowel sound.

Can't send you the program via message, or e-mail, as it's 46 MB big. But I could send you a CD, if you want, not a big deal.

I'm very interested in this program too, we have a problem with our son who is left behind at school with reading.

The easy way to transfer it is by DropBox or Google Drive.

[gwynt]

So older your students are, so more difficult it will be to "teach them" how to read. The biggest problem might be that a lot of them already "gave up" trying.

At this age, they don't want to lose face in front of their classmates. And your teaching load is way too high.........

I'd use programs to introduce short and long vowel sounds. I've got a very good one, but you'll need a projector to use it. One of them is called phonics interactive and really easy to use. It comes with a game, where the students have to decide if the letter makes a short, or a long vowel sound.

Can't send you the program via message, or e-mail, as it's 46 MB big. But I could send you a CD, if you want, not a big deal.

I'm very interested in this program too, we have a problem with our son who is left behind at school with reading.

The easy way to transfer it is by DropBox or Google Drive.

I would really be interested in the file, I will explain why. I am about to complete a project here in Thailand where there is office equipment computers etc., which are basically a cost write off, which I am hoping by cajoling the senior management, to donate to underprivileged kids.

Load the machines with software which will help with learning both in Thai and basic English.

If you would be happy to share on Dropbox it would be greatly appreciated.

[aledale]

Hello, I'm, not english, as you can understand by my poor english and I was very bad student. I understand that thai students can't read english and they suggest you about phonetic problems, but I don't really agree that it is the most important problem.

When I studied for few months in England with other foreign students, teachers suggested us to speak english more as possible, without thinking about pronunciation, but mainly to win the shyness, to improve the confidence and not to be afraid. Yes it's true that after it is not easy to learn the right pronunciation, but, what is important, is to comunicate.

So my teachers split us in a little group, as gerryBscot already suggested you: inside the group you will choose someone with a good grammar, an other one with a good pronunciation.....

My teachers also gave us some books, with different levels of difficulty, to read and to make a little summary.... Maybe you can take newspaper articles about sports for boy and, i don't know for girls, rewrite these in a easy english (short sentences) and make every group speak about it , and after, the group togheter tell about it to all the classroom.

I also made my personal dictionary in a exercise book, but surely everything depends on the students.

Surely what i wrote is something that you just know.... but I want to suggest you something very obvious: if you have some foreign friends, try to ask them to come and speak with students... Surely some students can get this chance to learn something... and speak about something easy and interesting: sports, gossip, ghosts, movie... like to speak with a young friends...

Good luck

[kerrysum]

So older your students are, so more difficult it will be to "teach them" how to read. The biggest problem might be that a lot of them already "gave up" trying.

At this age, they don't want to lose face in front of their classmates. And your teaching load is way too high.........

I'd use programs to introduce short and long vowel sounds. I've got a very good one, but you'll need a projector to use it. One of them is called phonics interactive and really easy to use. It comes with a game, where the students have to decide if the letter makes a short, or a long vowel sound.

Can't send you the program via message, or e-mail, as it's 46 MB big. But I could send you a CD, if you want, not a big deal.

I would call that? Spot on......

[gandalf12]

Like everything in teaching someone something new you have to make it interesting and not dull. I have helped my daughter with maths. I made it easy and now she breezes through it. There are hard ways to teach, as I am sure you know, and easy ways. Make something fun and people will learn without realising it.

[Rhys]

Like everything in teaching someone something new you have to make it interesting and not dull. I have helped my daughter with maths. I made it easy and now she breezes through it. There are hard ways to teach, as I am sure you know, and easy ways. Make something fun and people will learn without realising it.

Do agree... yet many students have given up and have the Thrill me attitude, dare to teach me, oh too difficult better to be bored than learn persona.. Some you can help some you cannot.

Good luck.. Group work.... at that level.. comics have them fill in the bubble captions.. a start..

[SlyAnimal]

Like everything in teaching someone something new you have to make it interesting and not dull. I have helped my daughter with maths. I made it easy and now she breezes through it. There are hard ways to teach, as I am sure you know, and easy ways. Make something fun and people will learn without realising it.

I agree, a good teacher can make even a boring subject, or even a boring teaching methodology, interesting. Either via their personality or by being well prepared and by using exciting/innovative ideas in order to dish up old lessons in new ways. It's not always easy though.

[gandalf12]

Like everything in teaching someone something new you have to make it interesting and not dull. I have helped my daughter with maths. I made it easy and now she breezes through it. There are hard ways to teach, as I am sure you know, and easy ways. Make something fun and people will learn without realising it.

Do agree... yet many students have given up and have the Thrill me attitude, dare to teach me, oh too difficult better to be bored than learn persona.. Some you can help some you cannot.

Good luck.. Group work.... at that level.. comics have them fill in the bubble captions.. a start..

I dont teach but when I was an under graduate the maths lecturer I had was brilliant. He made the ost difficult subjects seem so easy.

[NickJ]

Wow. Thats a sad story. The education here stinks. My GF was telling me her sisters kids , 10 and 11 have to test into new schools and if they fail the test the teachers charge 20 k to pass them.....

[fred Kubasa]

You have taken on an impossible task as few "students" have any interest in learning anything at all !

They, and everyone, knows that it is literally impossible to fail any grade so, do as the other's all do, just pass them on, pass them on & pass

them on. They are scheduled for a low level domestic position anyway so they don't need to know anything to sweep/mop/stock shelves

and neither they, their parents or school officials give a damn.