SURVEY: Lowering the English Competency Score for Teachers -- Good or Bad?

[Scott]

Some time ago, there was a proposal to drop the minimum TOEIC score for teachers from 400 to 250.   Many potential teachers are having difficulty attaining the minimum score of 400.   In your opinion should the score be lowered to 250 for specific areas of teaching or for those teaching in rural or remote areas?

Please feel free to leave a comment

Here are some links to threads on the subject:

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/991301-teacher-candidates-demand-english-requirements-be-reduced/

https://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/991301-teacher-candidates-demand-english-requirements-be-reduced/?do=findComment&comment=12057874

[OmarZaid]

'some is better than none'  -- quality upgrades are always available for those who are motivated and qualify

[scorecard]

 

The overall current English conversation capabilities of Thai teachers and their capabilities to teach English conversation is obviously seriously unsatisfactory, and it must be improved by a big margin.

 

But suddenly making a minimum level 400 is currently un-achievable for most Thai teachers (and is a disgraceful situation and IMHO the blame should be put squarely on senior officers in the Ed. ministry).  

 

IMHO the minimum level needs to go up progressively, example:

 

- 250 for the next say 4 years, but at the same time if there is not an overall progressive increase across the board then there should be some form of punishment of the related senior Ed. officials.

 

(There is also a valid argument as to who should responsible for developing the English capabilities, should it be  a): the personal responsibility of teachers, as an extra curricular activity at their own expense, or should the development be b): built in to all levels of education (compulsory) for all students; kinder, primary, HS and all bachelor programs. IMHO it should be case b).

 

- 350 for the next say 4 years, but at the same time if there is not an overall progressive increase across the board then there should be some form of punishment of the related senior Ed. officials.

 

- 450 for the next say 4 years, but at the same time if there is not an overall progressive increase across the board then there should be some form of punishment of the related senior Ed. officials.

 

etc.

 

Aligned point - several professors at 3 Thai universities where I lecture are saying once the police reform seems to be making progress, then education will be next with major and serious actions to ensure the current Ed. seniors cannot block change. In fact there are already big changes in progress at the uni level. 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2017 by scorecard

[maewang99]

let's go 100% off topic.......

maybe it's the "students" the focus might wanna be on??? 

how about as ONE example.....

the student to teacher TALKING RATIO... in the CLASSROOM..... 

you know....

the STUDENTS..... asking questions, providing anecdotes to the lesson, answering questions, making comments of almost any kind as long as they are related to the class topic, discussions.... by the STUDENTS..... amoung the students.....

which means the STUDENTS need to think.... hellooooo???

and.... that numerator... that ratio itself.... as a MULTIPLE of the teacher's talking time .. unless it's a lecture in physics by Albert Einstein himself..... at the university level as well..... which means no exceptions for secondary and primary school teachers.... 

AND.. on top of that little didley... this one.... classroom discussions which include most of the student eligible children in the local school district (which here means.... well, that would REALLY be "off topic"... not).... and not a skewed classroom only of those families that can't afford to send their children off to an "international school".

 

Edited July 16, 2017 by maewang99

[Cadbury]

Heard this story just yesterday. I believe it to be true although I do not quite understand.

Was about a young lad studying English at a Northern University. He had a Thai English teacher. I have met and spoken with this lad before and as far as I was concerned he spoke excellent English. To help improve his pronunciation he would listen at night to the BBC.

The upshot was that he failed his verbal English exam as he did not speak English with the required Thai accent (whatever that might be).  Presumably he spoke better and more correct English than his teacher.

[YetAnother]

5 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

Heard this story just yesterday. I believe it to be true although I do not quite understand.

Was about a young lad studying English at a Northern University. He had a Thai English teacher. I have met and spoken with this lad before and as far as I was concerned he spoke excellent English. To help improve his pronunciation he would listen at night to the BBC.

The upshot was that he failed his verbal English exam as he did not speak English with the required Thai accent (whatever that might be).  Presumably he spoke better and more correct English than his teacher.

Sad if it is true however it does follow  their Conformity philosophy

Which seems deeply warped

[quadperfect]

What we have here is failure to communicate

[tomwct]

Thailand is so far behind Asia and the world in English. The fault belongs to the Government and incompetent Teachers. I am now retired from one of the large Government Universities and only 50% of the Teachers could speak English with competency. The rest should have been failed. No one knows what's going on in the K-12 Teachers because when we get freshman students, we begin

teaching them English. They have no clue! Now, I am located in Isan, so the quality of our students is not high, so we do the best we can with what we have.

Edited July 16, 2017 by tomwct

[scorecard]

33 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

Heard this story just yesterday. I believe it to be true although I do not quite understand.

Was about a young lad studying English at a Northern University. He had a Thai English teacher. I have met and spoken with this lad before and as far as I was concerned he spoke excellent English. To help improve his pronunciation he would listen at night to the BBC.

The upshot was that he failed his verbal English exam as he did not speak English with the required Thai accent (whatever that might be).  Presumably he spoke better and more correct English than his teacher.

 

I can share another example involving my Thai granddaughter, last year in P6 at a private school in Chiang Mai. She already speaks English at just under native speaker level from immersion all of her life and previous good western English teachers.

 

The silly catch - her class had two English teachers (farang and Thai). Thai teacher sits in the morning class with the western teacher (focus on comprehension and conversation) and Thai teacher then expected to repeat / reinforce the morning learning. Thai teacher can speak not much more then elementary level English and in every lesson tells the students their western teacher is wrong wrong wrong. Granddaughter has shown me many handouts prepared by the Thai English teacher with many grammar and spelling mistakes, all highlighted by my granddaughter.

 

Come exam time the students have two English exams (one prepared by the western teacher, one prepared by the Thai teacher). Always causes complaints.

 

Many overall complaints to the school, all met with - 'there's nothing wrong with the situation'.

 

Son moved his daughter to another school to start HS. New school uses western teachers only for English.  

[jobwolf]

2 hours ago, OmarZaid said:

'some is better than none'  -- quality upgrades are always available for those who are motivated and qualify

Sorry this system is B...S>>>  All of them have favors done at a score of 400 so they are much less really, what is going to happen if 250 is good enough, we get 150 max. If this is a Teachers attitude then the Teacher should work in a forestry school.

 

[DavidHouston]

I  am in favor of  increasing the standards, accompanied by classes and activities  for the Thai teachers to increase their competence to be able to pass the TOEIC exam.  Make the challenge greater, but provide the tools to achieve competence.

[billd766]

51 minutes ago, tomwct said:

Thailand is so far behind Asia and the world in English. The fault belongs to the Government and incompetent Teachers. I am now retired from one of the large Government Universities and only 50% of the Teachers could speak English with competency. The rest should have been failed. No one knows what's going on in the K-12 Teachers because when we get freshman students, we begin

teaching them English. They have no clue! Now, I am located in Isan, so the quality of our students is not high, so we do the best we can with what we have.

 

If you are just blaming this government then I have to disagree with you.

 

If you are blaming ALL the governments over the past 20 or 30 years I partly agree with you.

 

The blame should be put squarely where it belongs at the MofEd in their central office in BKK.

 

They have had the largest budget of ANY ministry and their failure to achieve any decent results in the last 3 decades is a result of their own inability to achieve any of their targets.

[reenatinnakor]

Probably they are more concerned about teaching and learning Chinese. Which will be more important than English for future generations.

I don't understand how all other Asian countries have a better education system than thailand. Hk, China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia all miles ahead of Thailand. Even Vietnam seem to be. Our kids go to a reputable 30k a term school, they learn less than the shittiest poorest inner city school in England at their age level. They get given a list of 10 English vocabulary words to learn every day and tested the next day... But the words are stupid random words that they won't ever use again and they will forget the meaning after 2 days!

It's the teaching methods that need to be addressed, not the quality of teachers.

[AsianAtHeart]

For those who study linguistics, it is well-known that language skills transfer from the native language to the additional language(s).  Testing Thai teachers in their own Thai language makes better sense.  If they demonstrate mastery in their first language, their aptitudes for learning English should be demonstrably higher.  

 

Meanwhile, forcing career teachers who have not had the opportunity to study English during teacher training to pass a test in English skill before renewing their teacher licensure makes no sense at all.  If they were to implement the new rules for new teachers after providing them appropriate training to meet the new requirements, the program should have good success.  Let the experienced teachers be--no new requirements should be raised for them apart from a practical teacher training program.  The problem is that making new requirements does not make new teachers.  Asking teachers to perform better without proper in-service programs to support them is like asking them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

[Jonmarleesco]

The conservative upper echelons do realise that lowering the bar is a socialist idea, do they? 

 

Teachers should be looking to raise the bar, not lower it, exactly as they should be aiming to do with the pupils/students under their pupillage. Otherwise, the next target will be 150, and falling. 

[janpharma]

If they go under 400 they are not worth to be called "teacher"...

[djayz]

33 minutes ago, jobwolf said:

Sorry this system is B...S>>>  All of them have favors done at a score of 400 so they are much less really, what is going to happen if 250 is good enough, we get 150 max. If this is a Teachers attitude then the Teacher should work in a forestry school.

 

If there is a teacher attitude, then the teacher shouldn't be allowed to teach at any school - forestry or otherwise. 

Strip them of their certificates, jobs, etc. and let them work in a factory.

[gandalf12]

The British Council run courses I am sure some arrangement could be made with them to provide courses for Thai teachers who are teaching English. 

[Jonmarleesco]

1 hour ago, scorecard said:

 

I can share another example involving my Thai granddaughter, last year in P6 at a private school in Chiang Mai. She already speaks English at just under native speaker level from immersion all of her life and previous good western English teachers.

 

The silly catch - her class had two English teachers (farang and Thai). Thai teacher sits in the morning class with the western teacher (focus on comprehension and conversation) and Thai teacher then expected to repeat / reinforce the morning learning. Thai teacher can speak not much more then elementary level English and in every lesson tells the students their western teacher is wrong wrong wrong. Granddaughter has shown me many handouts prepared by the Thai English teacher with many grammar and spelling mistakes, all highlighted by my granddaughter.

 

Come exam time the students have two English exams (one prepared by the western teacher, one prepared by the Thai teacher). Always causes complaints.

 

Many overall complaints to the school, all met with - 'there's nothing wrong with the situation'.

 

Son moved his daughter to another school to start HS. New school uses western teachers only for English.  

'Thai teacher can speak not much more then elementary level English and in every lesson tells the students their western teacher is wrong wrong wrong.'

 

Typically Thai. He/she, with their native-Thai background and minimal English skills, knows more than the native-English teacher. 

[Cadbury]

1 hour ago, YetAnother said:

Sad if it is true however it does follow  their Conformity philosophy

Which seems deeply warped

My ex gf was an English teacher at a vocational high school. She spoke good English but with what I would describe as a Thai accent. 

I used to watch curiously over her shoulder when she was at home marking students school tests. Being an English test I was surprised there was never any written answers on these tests. There were pages of questions with a series of numbered answers with a boxes. Only one answer to each of the questions was correct and the student had to tick the correct box. Without any writing it was easy for the student to complete and even more easy for the teacher to mark. Education the easy Thai way.

[connda]

What? Do teachers in the US or EU need to speak Thai in order to teach core subjects to their primary school students.  Nor do Thai teachers need English.  

[SheungWan]

8 minutes ago, connda said:

What? Do teachers in the US or EU need to speak Thai in order to teach core subjects to their primary school students.  Nor do Thai teachers need English.  

I am trying to make sense of the above comment in the context of this thread. Help!

[overherebc]

2 hours ago, maewang99 said:

let's go 100% off topic.......

maybe it's the "students" the focus might wanna be on??? 

how about as ONE example.....

the student to teacher TALKING RATIO... in the CLASSROOM..... 

you know....

the STUDENTS..... asking questions, providing anecdotes to the lesson, answering questions, making comments of almost any kind as long as they are related to the class topic, discussions.... by the STUDENTS..... amoung the students.....

which means the STUDENTS need to think.... hellooooo???

and.... that numerator... that ratio itself.... as a MULTIPLE of the teacher's talking time .. unless it's a lecture in physics by Albert Einstein himself..... at the university level as well..... which means no exceptions for secondary and primary school teachers.... 

AND.. on top of that little didley... this one.... classroom discussions which include most of the student eligible children in the local school district (which here means.... well, that would REALLY be "off topic"... not).... and not a skewed classroom only of those families that can't afford to send their children off to an "international school".

 

I am assuming you know that in many schools pupils are not allowed to ask the teacher a question.

It was explained to me that perhaps the teacher may not know the answer and would lose respect and 'face'?

[jippytum]

Lower the standard of tuition and the proficiency of the student is reduced likewise

[overherebc]

19 minutes ago, Cadbury said:

My ex gf was an English teacher at a vocational high school. She spoke good English but with what I would describe as a Thai accent. 

I used to watch curiously over her shoulder when she was at home marking students school tests. Being an English test I was surprised there was never any written answers on these tests. There were pages of questions with a series of numbered answers with a boxes. Only one answer to each of the questions was correct and the student had to tick the correct box. Without any writing it was easy for the student to complete and even more easy for the teacher to mark. Education the easy Thai way.

It would surprise you how many countries now use that system 'tick the box"

[PeCeDe]

Don't think incompetent Teaching belongs exclusively to Thailand, although it's certainly here. From my experience, excepting a very few Countries,  the overall standard of education is sliding badly. Of course there are many great Teachers who join the profession in a genuine effort to improve their kids lot and they do, but there are far too many who join to advance their position in society and to heck with the kids. In Europe, Canada and some parts of the US they join for plain old greed, in Ontario, Canada for example Teacher's can earn annually in excess of CAD $100,000, plus full medical benefits, a very comfortable lifelong pension, 12 weeks vacation annually, Teacher's Assistant when the going gets rough, avail themselves by lying of the maximum annual sick days granted, all with just a few years of experience.

 

Yes, of course English competency is important to any and everyone, it provides a massive leg up in all professions, which in my understanding is where the Thai want to be. Teachers need to fully understand the very high trust given to them, and work hard to earn it, including being as able in the English language as they can be.

 

Sorry for the diatribe, it's the OP's fault for hitting a sore point. 

[scorecard]

1 hour ago, Cadbury said:

My ex gf was an English teacher at a vocational high school. She spoke good English but with what I would describe as a Thai accent. 

I used to watch curiously over her shoulder when she was at home marking students school tests. Being an English test I was surprised there was never any written answers on these tests. There were pages of questions with a series of numbered answers with a boxes. Only one answer to each of the questions was correct and the student had to tick the correct box. Without any writing it was easy for the student to complete and even more easy for the teacher to mark. Education the easy Thai way.

 

This extends - I've had graduate students tell me it's unfair that mid-term exams and assignments are NOT just multiple choice. And they claim 'at least 50% of marks in the final exam should be from multiple choice'.

 

The reality, for both under grad and full grad programs I never use multiple choice or true/false. 

 

 

[seajae]

2 hours ago, scorecard said:

 

I can share another example involving my Thai granddaughter, last year in P6 at a private school in Chiang Mai. She already speaks English at just under native speaker level from immersion all of her life and previous good western English teachers.

 

The silly catch - her class had two English teachers (farang and Thai). Thai teacher sits in the morning class with the western teacher (focus on comprehension and conversation) and Thai teacher then expected to repeat / reinforce the morning learning. Thai teacher can speak not much more then elementary level English and in every lesson tells the students their western teacher is wrong wrong wrong. Granddaughter has shown me many handouts prepared by the Thai English teacher with many grammar and spelling mistakes, all highlighted by my granddaughter.

 

Come exam time the students have two English exams (one prepared by the western teacher, one prepared by the Thai teacher). Always causes complaints.

 

Many overall complaints to the school, all met with - 'there's nothing wrong with the situation'.

 

Son moved his daughter to another school to start HS. New school uses western teachers only for English.  

our daughter starts university in a few weeks, she used to have great pronunciation of english words and spoke to me often. When she started her final year in secondary school she stopped speaking english completely and would only converse in thai so I take it that her teachers had something to do with it as I would always correct her english and help her with her english homework before hand. Somehow I think thai english teachers do not like to look like idiots when they are corrected as her homework sent home often needed to be done

Edited July 16, 2017 by seajae

[Cadbury]

2 hours ago, billd766 said:

 

If you are just blaming this government then I have to disagree with you.

 

If you are blaming ALL the governments over the past 20 or 30 years I partly agree with you.

 

The blame should be put squarely where it belongs at the MofEd in their central office in BKK.

 

They have had the largest budget of ANY ministry and their failure to achieve any decent results in the last 3 decades is a result of their own inability to achieve any of their targets.

Perhaps it is because many of the people who work in the Ministry of Education central BKK office are poorly educated themselves. The self-perpetuating cycle of education failure. Not dissimilar to the self-perpetuation of corruption.

[MaxYakov]

1 hour ago, Cadbury said:

My ex gf was an English teacher at a vocational high school. She spoke good English but with what I would describe as a Thai accent. 

I used to watch curiously over her shoulder when she was at home marking students school tests. Being an English test I was surprised there was never any written answers on these tests. There were pages of questions with a series of numbered answers with a boxes. Only one answer to each of the questions was correct and the student had to tick the correct box. Without any writing it was easy for the student to complete and even more easy for the teacher to mark. Education the easy Thai way.

We called these "multiple guess" questions as opposed to "multiple choice".