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Posted

A new European (non-NES) teacher came to work at my school a few days ago. He has been teaching off/on in Thailand for about 10 years. After completing his first lesson with an M3 class, he came back to the staff room with a bewildered look in his eyes. 'It is as if they have absolutely no idea HOW to learn' was his only comment.

As the previous post, I certainly do not blame the kids for this situation. IMHO, it is due to a mixture of extreme nationalism (never looking outwards to take advice from non-Thais), corruption, incompetence, corruption, fear of asking questions/losing face, corruption..er....did I mention corruption and incompetence?

Anyway, the students have 3 days of 'holiday' this week whilst they march around the sports field and play oompah music. This gives me some peace and quiet to re-write the exam papers that every student in M3, M4 and M6 failed. The solution (if I want some students to pass), is to give M6 the M3 paper, M4 the M2 paper and M3 the M1 exam paper.....

Posted (edited)

I agree with posts that say you should go back to basics; no matter what age they are.

 

It looks like you are dedicated to your task, and I admire that. However, i think that using transliteration and translating everything in your classroom could be a mistake. It is good for the students to try to discern meaning sometimes, and they could become lazy about their learning. My Thai is not the best, but sometimes I use it to explain things, and I sometimes have students tell me the Thai for a word or phrase I am using as i am making them use their knowledge, but I try to limit this.

 

Times change and the use of L1 in the classroom is much more accepted now, and i sometimes wish i could explain my activities better (and faster) to students.

 

I hope this technique works for you, and I wish you good luck.

Edited by nellyp
Posted

I have attached an interesting article on L1 use in the classroom, but it is only about speech. It doesn't mention transliteration.

 

It does have some interesting ideas about the students perceptions about L1 use and obviously the lowering of the affective filter

361-593-1-PB.pdf

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