LoL, no-one seems to take school seriously here

[simon43]

Not the students, not the Thai teachers, not the school bosses

After spending a miserable extended break in hospital with Dengue (or was it Typhoid), I struggled into work today (Thursday), sweating like a pig from the fevers that haven't yet left me. I had some classes to teach.

'Teacher don't worry, all classes are cancelled today - we must practice for sports'

'Ah OK, good news, I'll go and quietly die in the staff room. See you tomorrow'

'No, not tomorrow, we all still practice sports'

'Er right, so how about next week?'

'No, no teacher, next week is sports week, now we practice!'

Seems like I just pop in now and again, say something with my impeccable English accent, and call it a day.....

[lostinisaan]

Sorry, dude that it caught you too. I also suffered a few days from something no doctor could tell me what it was. Dengue test was negativ, but they were not sure.

I had a rush on my forearms and DR. # 3 was a strange guy who spoke some English and stretched the conversation to 70 minutes. All I wanted was my skin checked and I finally left with an appointment to see a dermatologist a week later?

All in all, I wasn't at school for a whole week. Okay, the director made a check on me visit, as one of my colleagues had seen me at a restaurant the night before. The assistant didn't do anything n without me, but that was thew deal.

I came back to school, went to class, but there're no students. Kids from another class told me that they went to a temple. Okay, sitting and waiting 25 minutes, and I left to have a tea in the office.

The next day again, no teaching. All students from grade one to three had to make a spell test in Thai and in English.

The next day were no classes because visitors wanted to show up the next day, so it was a big cleaning day.

Yep, you're so right with your post, you can't be serious about anything at a Thai government school. Oh, next week we might go on a three day vacation for teachers, only 900 baht, rest will paid by the PO.

MY grade 3 EP students "study" Computer in Thai and in three years they're still on Microsoft paint, okay the monsters are getting bigger and bigger, but they still don't know much about computers. <deleted> cares? Nobody does.

[thequietman]

Just do the following......

[Colabamumbai]

And why should they, all the students pass anyway.

[mesterm]

They need to practice for sports because it's clearer who wins and loses.

[bamukloy]

Simon43, arent you the guy that runs guesthouses?

Where do you find the time to teach?

[simon43]

And why should anyone care, they all pass anyway.

As I mentioned in another post, many of my M3, M4, M5 students failed the midterm test..... miserably, scoring 15-20%. That creates a headache for my director, who needs the students to resit and pass.

'If they resit the same paper, they will fail again' I advised her.

'OK, do whatever you want, write a new paper, or don't have any paper, just chat with them and score them yourself...'

The kids are practicing their oompah, big band music right now - I wish their English skills were on a par with their musical skills

[IAMHERE]

And why should they, all the students pass anyway.

and the good jobs go to those that are connected. What is the use if their is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, that is the system. I am not so sure there is a real need for an educated populace, in fact they could be a concern.

[Doc46]

There are not to many things that Thai people take seriously,,,,Things what they suppose to take seriously,,,Can write a book what is suppose to be serious,,,,,But I won't,,,,,

[Thaidream]

I generally agree with what is being said- but, my Thai step daughter goes to a private Thai school in which the teachers care very much and you can fail and not move onto the next grade. The English teacher is a Canadian who can actually teach and her English skills have improved year after year. When she leaves this school, she will be groomed for future success or as much success one can find in Thailand. The school costs are high for Thailand but well worth it. The long term problem is getting a job that pays a living salary. Even with a College degree, the starting salary in Thailand is around 15,000 Baht. If you have no education it is around 8,000 Baht. Neither are what is a living wage. If you want to become a Government worker- you need connections or be wealthy. If you want to work at a good Thai company- connections are needed. The system is broken. Unless things change, my daughter will be working abroad.

[TKDfella]

My Thai Vocational school experience was very similar. Go in one day...no students. Ask a Thai teacher..'Probably out on work experience...'. Home I'd go. Next and following day, same thing. No one informed me, no head teacher available to give me the details. When the students did return, yes most of them were out 'in the field' as it were. The crunch for me came when the schedule was changed and I walked in at my appointed time expecting to continue the Play in English project only to see faces I didn't recognise, Whoops, wrong class, wrong time but no one informed me. I quit at year end and nobody understood why.

[Deli]

What do you expect from a bunch of Clowns ?

[whatproblem]

This is why I teach my son at home everyday for a hour ,I will not let my son do the intensive English class at school because the teachers are so bad

[lostinisaan]

This is why I teach my son at home everyday for a hour ,I will not let my son do the intensive English class at school because the teachers are so bad

I tutor a Canadian guy's daughter on weekends. She's almost 10, speaks a very good English and she always has to go through hell with her Thai English teacher, but also the Filipino teacher.

The Thai English teacher told her that it's not pronounced holiday", as a normal person would do.It's pronounced hou- lee- daey", because she's a Scorpions fan and often listens to Klaus Meine's ( Scorpions vocals) hou-lee daey.

They both don't understand her English, they say she's speaking too fast and her pronunciation is very bad......

Sad is when I see foreign/Thai couples speak pidgin English together like: Tomorrow go Bangkok, mai? You no go I no go too., etc..

The Asian teacher only smiles when he doesn't get it. It's the Land of Smiles, so nothing wrong with it, or?

If you don't teach your son proper English, he'll never be good at it. Sorry, but that's the truth. Keep smiling.

[Centrum]

So from Saturday to Wednesday the daughter was off for the Buddhist holiday. I pick her up from school today and she informs me that there is no school tomorrow(Friday) or Monday!!

Why?

Study for exams.

One day in ten

[Broeno]

So the rich man said to the monk: i keep them poor. You keep them stupid.

[ozyjon]

As in most countries, a univer-city degree will get you into

a restaurant or bar-job,, so who cares.

[overherebc]

This is why I teach my son at home everyday for a hour ,I will not let my son do the intensive English class at school because the teachers are so bad

I tutor a Canadian guy's daughter on weekends. She's almost 10, speaks a very good English and she always has to go through hell with her Thai English teacher, but also the Filipino teacher.

The Thai English teacher told her that it's not pronounced holiday", as a normal person would do.It's pronounced hou- lee- daey", because she's a Scorpions fan and often listens to Klaus Meine's ( Scorpions vocals) hou-lee daey.

They both don't understand her English, they say she's speaking too fast and her pronunciation is very bad......

Sad is when I see foreign/Thai couples speak pidgin English together like: Tomorrow go Bangkok, mai? You no go I no go too., etc..

The Asian teacher only smiles when he doesn't get it. It's the Land of Smiles, so nothing wrong with it, or?

If you don't teach your son proper English, he'll never be good at it. Sorry, but that's the truth. Keep smiling.

Thanks for reminding me, I have to pay the water and electric city bill today.

[simon43]

Simon43, arent you the guy that runs guesthouses?
Where do you find the time to teach?

With the previous guesthouses, I would build the GH, then get it running profitably as a business, then sell the business and go and teach for a year or so, usually in Myanmar or Laos.

With the most recent GH, I have leased it out, so need to stay reasonably near, in case the leasees screw everything up, (which BTW, they are doing quite successfully...). I'm teaching about 3.5 hours drive away from Phuket.

[SOTIRIOS]

...the scariest thing is....they all end up with degrees...

...just like the doctors that treated you.....

[DavisH]

And why should anyone care, they all pass anyway.

As I mentioned in another post, many of my M3, M4, M5 students failed the midterm test..... miserably, scoring 15-20%. That creates a headache for my director, who needs the students to resit and pass.

'If they resit the same paper, they will fail again' I advised her.

'OK, do whatever you want, write a new paper, or don't have any paper, just chat with them and score them yourself...'

The kids are practicing their oompah, big band music right now - I wish their English skills were on a par with their musical skills

I normally just put them into a group...they can use their books. Maybe they can scrape together a 50% among themselves. There's no point giving the same test as they will just fail it again...and again. Unless the school has serious repercussions for failing then the kids don't care. If I had to work my ass off for a 45%, or I can cruise for a 10%, why not take the latter? They will still get a 50%. A GPA of 1 in this country is for anyone scoring 0 - 50%. Then they just go to study at tutorial school anyway, so they don't care much about what they learn at school.

[Scott]

I've worked in a number of countries, but Thailand has one of the worst overall education systems I've run into. Much of my work in other countries was not teaching, but there was some direct and indirect relationship to education. One thing I have noticed is that most tropical countries have a much more laid back approach to everything including education. A lot of countries managed to speed up their game, in part due to colonization which imposed a bit more urgency into the workings of the countries and the education systems.

When you combine the more laid back attitude, which I attribute to the heat and the fact that food supplies are reasonably plentiful year around, with the deference to those above, they have ended up with a very unpalatable education system. Anybody further up the food chain can interrupt the education process for pretty much any reason.

[simon43]

I rewrote the test for my M6 group, and I included a short section about comparatives and superlatives, (big, bigger, the biggest etc).

To practice this in class, I drew a small blue house on the whiteboard, a larger red house in the middle and and a big black house on the right side.

Then I tried a few questions, such as 'Which is the smallest house?', 'Which house is in the middle?' 'Which house is bigger than the red house?', 'Which is the red house?' etc

Lots of blank stares all round, with me speaking anuban English, painfully slowly.

Finally, the brightest student asked (in Thai), "Teacher, what does 'which' mean?"

[thai3]

I've worked in a number of countries, but Thailand has one of the worst overall education systems I've run into. Much of my work in other countries was not teaching, but there was some direct and indirect relationship to education. One thing I have noticed is that most tropical countries have a much more laid back approach to everything including education. A lot of countries managed to speed up their game, in part due to colonization which imposed a bit more urgency into the workings of the countries and the education systems.

When you combine the more laid back attitude, which I attribute to the heat and the fact that food supplies are reasonably plentiful year around, with the deference to those above, they have ended up with a very unpalatable education system. Anybody further up the food chain can interrupt the education process for pretty much any reason.

They are certainly not laid back when it comes to indoctrinating mindless nationalism, flag waving and things we cannot mention though and it's nothing to do with the climate.

[zeichen]

I wonder if any of the teachers complaining actually even know the current role of a teacher or school. If you haven't done any professional development in education in the past 10 years, I doubt that you even have a clue what it is a teacher's role is.

We are no longer the center for knowledge transference. If all you do is try to fill heads with knowledge, then you aren't even doing your job. You are not preparing students for jobs today or even when you were in school. You are preparing them for a future which most of the hammer nail teachers will never know how to adjust to anyway.

Though I too hate the Thai system of no notice for events and then forced to crash 3 weeks of lessons in 1 week, what is so bad about students building social, physical and other skills?

[poohy]

I wonder if any of the teachers complaining actually even know the current role of a teacher or school. If you haven't done any professional development in education in the past 10 years, I doubt that you even have a clue what it is a teacher's role is.

We are no longer the center for knowledge transference. If all you do is try to fill heads with knowledge, then you aren't even doing your job. You are not preparing students for jobs today or even when you were in school. You are preparing them for a future which most of the hammer nail teachers will never know how to adjust to anyway.

Though I too hate the Thai system of no notice for events and then forced to crash 3 weeks of lessons in 1 week, what is so bad about students building social, physical and other skills?

UGH​!

I am relatively well educated but i have no idea what you are on about!

[SlyAnimal]

Though I too hate the Thai system of no notice for events and then forced to crash 3 weeks of lessons in 1 week, what is so bad about students building social, physical and other skills?

Western kids build just as many social, physical & other skills as Thai kids, yet also manage to learn something at school as well.

When students spend 12-15 years in an education system building towards the annual O-Net examinations in M6, yet the national median for maths/English shows that over 50% of the country guessed the answers (median is usually ~20% or less from 5 question multi choice), there's a major problem.

But yeah, knowledge transference shouldn't be the main focus of school, maybe the students should be graded on their candy crush scores instead

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[lostinisaan]

I wonder if any of the teachers complaining actually even know the current role of a teacher or school. If you haven't done any professional development in education in the past 10 years, I doubt that you even have a clue what it is a teacher's role is.

We are no longer the center for knowledge transference. If all you do is try to fill heads with knowledge, then you aren't even doing your job. You are not preparing students for jobs today or even when you were in school. You are preparing them for a future which most of the hammer nail teachers will never know how to adjust to anyway.

Though I too hate the Thai system of no notice for events and then forced to crash 3 weeks of lessons in 1 week, what is so bad about students building social, physical and other skills?

UGH​!

I am relatively well educated but i have no idea what you are on about!

I think I could "read between the lines".:The transference might include the redirection to a substitute, usually a therapist, of emotions that were originally felt in childhood and refer to analyses of a transference neurosis.

That doesn't really fill the heads with educational knowledge, but increases the population. Got it?

[muzmurray]

I wonder if any of the teachers complaining actually even know the current role of a teacher or school. If you haven't done any professional development in education in the past 10 years, I doubt that you even have a clue what it is a teacher's role is.

We are no longer the center for knowledge transference. If all you do is try to fill heads with knowledge, then you aren't even doing your job. You are not preparing students for jobs today or even when you were in school. You are preparing them for a future which most of the hammer nail teachers will never know how to adjust to anyway.

Though I too hate the Thai system of no notice for events and then forced to crash 3 weeks of lessons in 1 week, what is so bad about students building social, physical and other skills?

UGH​!

I am relatively well educated but i have no idea what you are on about!

I think I could "read between the lines".:The transference might include the redirection to a substitute, usually a therapist, of emotions that were originally felt in childhood and refer to analyses of a transference neurosis.

That doesn't really fill the heads with educational knowledge, but increases the population. Got it?

Yet again you have misquoted and not attributed the source!

https://quizlet.com/132948246/unit-1213-notecards-flash-cards/

[barry553]

I agree. Education is a joke in Thailand. It seems everyone is in on it it except the foolish "green" foreign teachers. What to me is the saddest thing is when you see young kids at the start of high school beginning to develop this truly cynical sickness they have.