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

[smtsetup]

If the skills in English even among Thai university students are such that

- they have difficulties telling left from right, mother from father 

- "home" = "my-home", "my home" = "my-home-me", "your home" = "my-home-you" and so on

what will they be like if the score is lowered?

[tryasimight]

I guess it depends on what the teachers are actually teaching.

The (possibly wrong) assumption is that the poll is about the teachers teaching the  English language.

If they are not teaching English then there is possibly no reason at all to require any English language skills at all.

I mean one plus one bag of rice is still two bags of rice in any language

I'm sure many other countries manage to educate their kids just fine without English proficiency... look at North America (Ebonics and Spanish seem to be the majority languages) for example....or my own country...Australia... the strayangument has a lot to answer for!! 

Don't even mention New Zuland...they can't even speak Australian.

 

 

[sandemara]

6 hours 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!

Happy to verify tomwct's comments. I taught for 4 years in an English Degree program at a large eastern uni. .

Most 1st-yr students required intense rehab. programs in holiday breaks to avoid  removal from their desired degree. courses.  I often wondered how students could find themselves in such a predicament so regularly. These kids are naturally bright and a pleasure to share a classroom with. 

I volunteer these days (to avoid boredom) at a local high school as an English teacher and now appreciate the problems and challenges typical students face. The HS does not provide ESL textbooks for students from Mat 1 right up to matric level (Mat 6).

Senior students (with very rare exceptions), can't read simple, basic English texts. Those who can had family relationships in which they were exposed to regular use of English language.  I learned my first day what I was up against - many could not even recite the alphabet yet, here they were preparing for tertiary studies. The last native English speaking teacher stopped working there a few years ago.

Like other areas of the education system most things (except the extra-curricular  military cadet program) suffers due to lack of funding.

Even the local  Thai staff (so hopeful and optimistic their first year at work) soon get the stuffing knocked out of any dreams they might have had about giving students a shot at improving their chances in life. Most staff seem demoralised and desperate and concentrate on reaching retirement age as easily and stress-free as possible.  

Today's kids have little hope of genuine development. The whole system endorses the unhealthy  principle that who you know is far more important than what you know.

There's no merit the kids can see in originality. curiosity for its own sake or singular academic achievement. Conformity, question nothing of your superiors, obey, get along and rely on social networks or your family's status. 

There's no fairness based on merit (a big first step to understanding, accepting and cherishing the merits and values of Rule of Law in broader society).  And people wonder at some of the distasteful aspects of the national psyche and social structure..

I might be wrong but I suspect it is a result of years of neglect - even contempt, possibly - by grossly irresponsible authorities regarding the needs of the Thai citizenry . Who can say with certainty?   I can see that most of Thailand's younger generations just  don't have a chance to compete fairly with the young of their nation's neighbours.  

Sooner or later, there'll be an accounting for the very vulnerable position Thailand will find itself in.  

Whether it's a result of sheer incompetence among decision-makers or greed, the true costs will make a mockery of the righteous grandstanding surrounding the hounding and harrassment over the former PM's rice industry policies. Their costs will seem piddly on comparison with the damage accumulated over many years to the nation

[PeCeDe]

18 minutes ago, sandemara said:

Happy to verify tomwct's comments. I taught for 4 years in an English Degree program at a large eastern uni. .

Most 1st-yr students required intense rehab. programs in holiday breaks to avoid  removal from their desired degree. courses.  I often wondered how students could find themselves in such a predicament so regularly. These kids are naturally bright and a pleasure to share a classroom with. 

I volunteer these days (to avoid boredom) at a local high school as an English teacher and now appreciate the problems and challenges typical students face. The HS does not provide ESL textbooks for students from Mat 1 right up to matric level (Mat 6).

Senior students (with very rare exceptions), can't read simple, basic English texts. Those who can had family relationships in which they were exposed to regular use of English language.  I learned my first day what I was up against - many could not even recite the alphabet yet, here they were preparing for tertiary studies. The last native English speaking teacher stopped working there a few years ago.

Like other areas of the education system most things (except the extra-curricular  military cadet program) suffers due to lack of funding.

Even the local  Thai staff (so hopeful and optimistic their first year at work) soon get the stuffing knocked out of any dreams they might have had about giving students a shot at improving their chances in life. Most staff seem demoralised and desperate and concentrate on reaching retirement age as easily and stress-free as possible.  

Today's kids have little hope of genuine development. The whole system endorses the unhealthy  principle that who you know is far more important than what you know.

There's no merit the kids can see in originality. curiosity for its own sake or singular academic achievement. Conformity, question nothing of your superiors, obey, get along and rely on social networks or your family's status. 

There's no fairness based on merit (a big first step to understanding, accepting and cherishing the merits and values of Rule of Law in broader society).  And people wonder at some of the distasteful aspects of the national psyche and social structure..

I might be wrong but I suspect it is a result of years of neglect - even contempt, possibly - by grossly irresponsible authorities regarding the needs of the Thai citizenry . Who can say with certainty?   I can see that most of Thailand's younger generations just  don't have a chance to compete fairly with the young of their nation's neighbours.  

Sooner or later, there'll be an accounting for the very vulnerable position Thailand will find itself in.  

Whether it's a result of sheer incompetence among decision-makers or greed, the true costs will make a mockery of the righteous grandstanding surrounding the hounding and harrassment over the former PM's rice industry policies. Their costs will seem piddly on comparison with the damage accumulated over many years to the nation

Thanks for that Sandemara, well said. Conversely and Perhaps like many English speaking transplants to Thailand, I have occasionally met Thai who speak impeccable English, and when I ask where they learned English, it's invariably, they had to for work, or they attended University / College in an English speaking country, never in a Thai School. I met one fellow who spoke naturally with a high class London accent, and was quite capable speaking with a "put on" Liverpool accent copying John Lennon, I didn't want to see him leave it was such a pleasure to talk with him.

[Tilacme]

I am amiable to teach the youth and any others in my local my community to speak the Queens fine English.   But I have no eye deer where a 250 score come into it. 

[JAG]

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. 

 

I was recently asked to help prepare and judge an inter school "English multi skills" competition at M3 level. There were four "skills": a short speech on the subject of local tourist attractions ( learnt parrot fashion), a listening comprehension test ( multiple choice questions), a reading comprehension exercise (again multiple choice) and a "picture dictation" - for which the students were given a short passage describing a scene in a park, and were required to draw a picture of it! For the latter I put forward a short comic strip - six pictures depicting a hike in the jungle, the idea being that the students composed and wrote or told verbally a story based on the pictures. It's an exercise I do quite often with P5 and P6. I also suggested that the students should be required to take part in a conversation on a prepared subject. Both ideas were rejected. When I met my fellow judges (Thai teachers) I realised why. They couldn't carry on a simple conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[scorecard]

28 minutes ago, JAG said:

I was recently asked to help prepare and judge an inter school "English multi skills" competition at M3 level. There were four "skills": a short speech on the subject of local tourist attractions ( learnt parrot fashion), a listening comprehension test ( multiple choice questions), a reading comprehension exercise (again multiple choice) and a "picture dictation" - for which the students were given a short passage describing a scene in a park, and were required to draw a picture of it! For the latter I put forward a short comic strip - six pictures depicting a hike in the jungle, the idea being that the students composed and wrote or told verbally a story based on the pictures. It's an exercise I do quite often with P5 and P6. I also suggested that the students should be required to take part in a conversation on a prepared subject. Both ideas were rejected. When I met my fellow judges (Thai teachers) I realised why. They couldn't carry on a simple conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another twist of your not surprising example; western multi-national on the eastern seaboard has 2 permanent professional English teachers on staff. This is about 15 years ago, but I doubt anything has changed.

 

Governor of the province approaches the Thai HR manager and asks for free long-term tuition for a group of 5 Thai English teachers, because they have entered a national competition for 'Best National Thai English Conversation Teacher'.

 

All organized but on day 1 the farang tutors discover that none of the 5 in the group can speak any English at all. First class quickly grinds to a halt.

 

Province governor quickly complains and asks how well the farang English teachers can speak Thai. He's informed that none of them can speak more than maybe 20 words of Thai.

 

Governor now makes noises that the farang should be dismissed on the basis 'how can they teach English if they cannot speak Thai'. 

 

Whole matter glossed over with an expensive gift to the governor plus the HR manager of the multi-national finds a couple of Thai professors from a local university who can speak good English and they take over the class, but progress is very slow because:

 

- Most of the class time is spent on teaching / learning English grammar, explained in Thai. (In reality all of the 5 in this 'program' can already teach English grammar very well, always using Thai language.)

 

- Only a very small amount of conversation because it makes the teachers embarrassed if they make a mistake. 

[George FmplesdaCosteedback]

10 hours 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.

Not from the BBC these days, it is all regional dialects: like "immigrant" speak innit! Done dis me bro...

As for Thiglish, well: Sooper-mar-Ket etc is the norm.

 

 

[TheLobster]

I have no idea what the scores mean. Pointless survey.

[DavidHouston]

A Modest Proposal:
 

I have a somewhat modest suggestion to improve English language capability in Thailand:

 

1. Halve the number of elementary schools teaching English throughout the country. Rural schools and those with low-competency teachers would be the first targets.
 

2. Test all English teachers for competence in all primary language skills and retain as English teachers only those with a high proficiency.

3. High proficiency teachers would be transferred to schools which retain English in their curriculum so that such schools would have sufficient resources to help their students learn English as a second language at a high level.

4. Parents of students attending schools losing their English curriculum would be given the opportunity of moving their children to a school which does teach English nearest to where they live.
 

5. Schools teaching English would be staffed as much as is fiscally possible with one or more native speakers.  These speakers would teach fewer student classes than normal, but would conduct teacher competency and proficiency classes to improve teacher skills.

6. When and if sufficiently capable Thai-native English teachers become available, English classes would return to the schools from which English was removed.

What do you think?

Edited July 18, 2017 by DavidHouston