Well there you are. Glad you could slash
your way through the cyber jungle out there and descend on my virtual café none the worse for wear.
Always a treat to see you. Just read a ‘got my hackles up’ article that I want
to share with you...as soon as you pour yourself a mugful of coffee, gather a
virtual muffin or doughnut and wander over here to the VIP table. Here goes...
BANGKOK: -- Although Thailand ranked at
the very bottom of the English Proficiency Index by EF, the government's next
move is to cut back on hiring foreign English teachers and have Thais teach
English to Thais. ( Wonderful news...one step forward and three steps
backwards!)
The Education Ministry wants to cut back on foreign teacher recruitment to slash costs and focus on giving intensive language training to the Thai teachers.
Under the "train-the-trainer" program, a group of 500 Thai teachers who teach English in government schools nationwide will take part in an intensive six-week training course taught by English specialists from the British Council.
The selected teachers, whose English must be among the best in their schools, will receive advanced instruction on teaching written and spoken English as they will be expected to be role models for other teachers in their communities, said Teerakiat Jareonsettasin, Deputy Education Minister.
The Education Ministry wants to cut back on foreign teacher recruitment to slash costs and focus on giving intensive language training to the Thai teachers.
Under the "train-the-trainer" program, a group of 500 Thai teachers who teach English in government schools nationwide will take part in an intensive six-week training course taught by English specialists from the British Council.
The selected teachers, whose English must be among the best in their schools, will receive advanced instruction on teaching written and spoken English as they will be expected to be role models for other teachers in their communities, said Teerakiat Jareonsettasin, Deputy Education Minister.
There they go again...rearranging deckchairs on
the Titanic. Thai teachers who teach English need to learn how to pronounce
English words. They also need a change in attitude. A Thai fellow I know just
returned from Thailand. He has a Thai friend there who is an English teacher but after watching her teach, he told her “You
are teaching English all wrong!” She said, “No, that is the way we teach.”
Unfortunately many Thai teachers of English are pig-headed when it comes to
changing their instruction method. They believe they are right and no one... especially a
native speaker... can tell them otherwise. Unless that stubborn resistance and
proper training is given to ALL Thai teachers of English, the national ranking
will fall even lower than third from the bottom in Asia...and, as a teacher, I
have to say that that is very detrimental to making any progress in ESL proficiency. The children deserve much better than they
are getting in Thai schools. 50 + students in a class does not help matters either.
Being 'among the best Thai teacher of English in a
school' means nothing and six weeks of ‘intensive training’ is going to do
absolutely nothing to change the way Thai teachers teach their subject. I can remember from my first year teaching
English in Thailand, a Thai English teacher who came into the Teachers’ Room
one day very proud to have completed her BA in English. Trouble was...she
couldn’t put an English sentence together to save her life. I don’t know what
they taught her during her 4 year program but it was woefully inadequate. They
don’t know any better. That’s the way it has always been done!
This is the same Education Ministry
that, a few weeks ago, decided to reduce the number of academic hours students
receive on a daily basis so they could participate in more extra-curricular
activities. After spending 14 years teaching in Thailand, I can only feel sad for students when I hear misguided leadership like this. If the government wants to do something constructive and really improve the English proficiency of the millions of Thai students, they need to take a serious look at every Thai university program that purports to train Thai teachers how to teach English. To earn a teaching degree or a BA in English, every student should be required to reach IELTS Level 7.0 (International English Language Testing System) or TOEFL 90 (Test of English as a Foreign Language 90 (incl. writing 25 and speaking 25). One of these is what international students need to qualify to attend an English language university such as University of Waterloo here in Ontario. Although overseas requirements vary, it seems to me that this should be a minimum requirement for Thai teachers of English to be able to demonstrate their competence in the language and ability to teach it. Otherwise...keep moving those deckchairs around!
I suppose it has an upside though...lots more
tutorial classes for foreign teachers as Thai parents want and need their kids
to learn English correctly and proficiently so they can later go overseas to university.
See ya, eh!
Bob
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