Three pronged attack! EEC master plan to improve English and revolutionize curriculum

[garyk]

I thought Chinese was the language of choice now.

[Songhua]

Ah, yet another cunning plan.

[ParkerN]

Another Thai master plan...

 

That'll work.

[DLock]

The Thai education system is flawed from the top-down.

 

It will never improve and even if it did, it would be at least 6 years before the results could be seen and useful.

 

Thailand is an education wasteland...and they had the audacity to even suggest that Thailand could be a regional education hub.

 

Scrubs.

[Fex Bluse]

7 minutes ago, DLock said:

The Thai education system is flawed from the top-down.

 

It will never improve and even if it did, it would be at least 6 years before the results could be seen and useful.

 

Thailand is an education wasteland...and they had the audacity to even suggest that Thailand could be a regional education hub.

 

Scrubs.

Rather than just getting on with it like many have done, they seem predisposed to big talk. 

 

The Singaporeans worked their [deleted] off for 50 years.

 

The Chinese, while often tricky, have work ethic and have quietly been creeping up. 

 

The Japanese did it before them both.

 

Taiwanese did it quietly. 

 

Koreans did it quietly. 

 

The Thais have nothing to show after the last 50 years but talk as if they have made great contributions to the world. It's this arrogance that so many people dislike about the country. 

 

[ParkerN]

5 hours ago, Brigand said:

The problems with learning English (and much other stuff) are to be found in high school as it is nothing more than 6 years of brainwashing rubbish and they learn little of use. By the time they get to university then the damage is done and some can swim and many can't. If you want to sort out Thai students ability in most things then go to war on what happens in those 6 years of high school. Your average Thai high school teacher is just lamentably useless on so many fronts and you can't expect the unis to wave a magic wand and reverse all the nonsense they have been drilled with when they get there at 19 years-old.

I agree, for what that's worth. The problem is that teachers should be the intelligentsia of any country. If teachers in Thailand are mainly moronic, which seems to be the consensus, what does that say about Thai society?

[ParkerN]

1 hour ago, Fex Bluse said:

Rather than just getting on with it like many have done, they seem predisposed to big talk. 

 

The Singaporeans worked their [deleted] off for 50 years.

 

The Chinese, while often tricky, have work ethic and have quietly been creeping up. 

 

The Japanese did it before them both.

 

Taiwanese did it quietly. 

 

Koreans did it quietly. 

 

The Thais have nothing to show after the last 50 years but talk as if they have made great contributions to the world. It's this arrogance that so many people dislike about the country. 

 

"It's this arrogance that so many people dislike about the country."

 

One of the smartest observations I've read on TV.

[Rhys]

Give it a rest... 

[Redline]

Nope.  Sounds good though 

[Inn Between]

16 hours ago, webfact said:

He promised that 120 bachelor degree graduates, who qualified within the last three years, would drive change to deliver 80% changes to the curriculum. 

And there was also a theory that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare, but we know that's not true, either. It's pretty much in line with the same logic, though. 

[ParkerN]

12 hours ago, Eligius said:

I won't even bother reading this article.

Decades of experience prove that it is all going to be a load of insincere, intelligence-insulting twaddle!

 

Why might that surprise you? Every nation does what they're good at, why not Thais? They've found their own level, which is what everyone does, let them enjoy it. As for these articles where someone wants to sit grinning behind a desk... explore each of them for (say) a month. Look for any signs of intelligent life, it'll be a good if futile way to while away a few hours. Then do the same with the braindead TV channels.

 

 

[hotchilli]

16 hours ago, Chazar said:

where  does his neck start and head  end?

A foot below his belt, which is where he's talking from!

[thesetat2013]

20 hours ago, StayinThailand2much said:

This is all BS. The curricula for Thai students are simply too hard. In high school they ask students to discuss topics, such as the environment and global warming in English, but a large number of the students (after "studying" English for the past 11 or 12+ years), have never learned to even utter simple sentences such as: "Hi. My name is Somchai." Besides, overly long school days lead to tired and apathetic students. The lack of Thai and foreign teachers doesn't help, and a large number of classes is cancelled for the sake of ceremonies.

I used to think the same as you and then I went to teach in China. They have long days of school every day. Many days they are still in class at 7pm. So I don't think it is the many classes that causes them to be apathetic. I do however believe that their many classes and time at home without being any discipline for their actions or in actions, causes this problem. They may sit in classrooms but they do nothing while there because they will pass no matter what. If they receive a low grade then their parents will blame the teachers or pay them off to raise the grade. Either way the student wins while doing nothing in classroom to try to learn. 

[Pedrogaz]

More inanity, this time with unhelpful buzzwords. With the quality of the minister for education the students studying English seem to have zero chance.

[ireckonso]

On 12/6/2019 at 3:13 PM, Pedigree said:

Pay foreign English teachers good salary to boost their motivation and they will work harder to deliver and Thailand's English woes will be solved subsequently!

Im guessing you have never worked or taught in the thai education system, money isnt the main problem.

[SteveK]

The problem is that in many Thai schools the children are taught English by someone who can't even speak it themselves. Get some qualified teachers over from UK or USA, treat them well and the situation could be markedly improved in a few years or so. But we all know that this will never happen. They'll keep cutting corners and using non-native English speakers from various countries so that they can get away with paying them less.

[ParkerN]

17 minutes ago, SteveK said:

The problem is that in many Thai schools the children are taught English by someone who can't even speak it themselves. Get some qualified teachers over from UK or USA, treat them well and the situation could be markedly improved in a few years or so. But we all know that this will never happen. They'll keep cutting corners and using non-native English speakers from various countries so that they can get away with paying them less.

 

Yep, in 'do-it-on-the-cheap' Thailand, the objective is not to improve educational standards, if that were the objective they could have done it years ago. No, in 'do-it-on-the-cheap' Thailand, the objective is to keep people poor and stupid and uneducated while appearing to be trying to improve standards. (in Thailand, appearance is very important, it's how they fool smarter people).

 

It isn't xenophobia, though it appears to be; it's a policy of wanting to continue providing Thailand's wealthy Sino-Thais with a ready supply of cheap and grateful labour. Every pre-Thaksin and post-Thaksin government policy has had this at it's heart, and I'm not even sure about Thaksin's objectives any more. Thais are kleptocrats, they love kleptocrats and they are so brainwashed they will keep voting for or accepting being governed by kleptorats. It's the reason Thais cannot be trusted to be honest. Ever. I'm not even sure this can reasonably be doubted there's so much evidence for it, if in doubt watch a few hours of Thai TV. Thais live in a state of constant cognitive dissonance. Anyone willing to live thusly does not deserve my sympathy and won't get it.

 

Let them get on with it is my recommendation. Keeping Thais stupid has benefits for retirees in Thailand as well.

[WeekendRaider]

computer coding requires reading a lot of technical books. it’s no coincidence at all that Marc Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are standouts for folks with a love of reading books and journals.  
 

in 20 years I have only seen or met 5 people in ‘real life’ that were at all engrossed in reading a book... while in Thailand, and that included my teaching and living on campus at a Thai university.  At a Thai university.  one year at a very large campus.  of the 5 readers, in 20 years.... only one was reading a nonfiction selection, and that was was a very poor selection.  Something about how everyone should have less than a 40 hour workweek, a small paperback.... but I can’t forget as it was the only non fiction book I’d ever seen anyone avidly reading.

 

in Thai culture reading is explained away as ‘a different way of thinking’ (that is not ‘Thai’) and with some joke about ‘book learning’ being dumb or something about a bunch of folks ‘must have all read from the same book’ etc. etc.
 

meaning it is cultural, therefore any amount of magical thinking is just more nonsense.

 

[overherebc]

On 12/6/2019 at 1:39 PM, trainman34014 said:

Why do anything when talking is what they are best at ?

But not in English.

[overherebc]

29 minutes ago, WeekendRaider said:

computer coding requires reading a lot of technical books. it’s no coincidence at all that Marc Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are standouts for folks with a love of reading books and journals.  
 

in 20 years I have only seen or met 5 people in ‘real life’ that were at all engrossed in reading a book... while in Thailand, and that included my teaching and living on campus at a Thai university.  At a Thai university.  one year at a very large campus.  of the 5 readers, in 20 years.... only one was reading a nonfiction selection, and that was was a very poor selection.  Something about how everyone should have less than a 40 hour workweek, a small paperback.... but I can’t forget as it was the only non fiction book I’d ever seen anyone avidly reading.

 

in Thai culture reading is explained away as ‘a different way of thinking’ (that is not ‘Thai’) and with some joke about ‘book learning’ being dumb or something about a bunch of folks ‘must have all read from the same book’ etc. etc.
 

meaning it is cultural, therefore any amount of magical thinking is just more nonsense.

 

Usually if it doesn't have pictures you can't call it a book.