Thailand to recruit 10,000 foreign teachers to boost English standards of Thai kids

[mlmcleod]

As usual, I think Thais are missing the boat!  Cantonese and Madarin are the languages that Thais need to learn.  That will prepare them for the annual flood of Chinese tourists and eventually when they become a Chinese province.

[TumblinDice]

Idiots. Make up your fricken mind. I got booted out of my teaching job after two years (they wouldn't renew my work permit as a teacher because I don't have a university degree). I have a college diploma in telecommunications engineering technology from an internationally recognized polytechnic school in Canada. I got my TEFL certificate from UniTEFL in Chiang Mai. I am a native English speaker. And here I was teaching along side an Italian, an Ethiopian, a Cameroonian, a Swede & when I left a Russian took my place! LOL. Their asking for NES teachers but settle for non NES because they won't accept a college diploma! Kids will learn English with an Italian or Russian accent!!

What a mixed load of dung coming from these idiots. Glad to be back in Canada & civilization!

[mindfulness]

Will someone jog my memory or a link from the records that it wasn’t that long ago they ‘the government’ were seeking not to use foreign English teachers and use their own wacky English teachers using wacky English teaching methods ? 

[Odysseus123]

35 minutes ago, mindfulness said:

Will someone jog my memory or a link from the records that it wasn’t that long ago they ‘the government’ were seeking not to use foreign English teachers and use their own wacky English teachers using wacky English teaching methods ? 

Well yes...

 

But one must remember that in Thailand it is the right brain that predominates..so no logic or rationality is to be found.

 

According to Julian Jaynes* that places the Thai at about 10,000 BC which is a concept that I am very comfortable with..

 

*'On the Origins of Conciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral mind'

[Ventenio]

Solution.  NEVER non-native speakers.  Imagine going to school in London and someone from China, who has never been to Thailand, is your Thai teacher??????  It's a lose-lose on so many levels.

 

I tried to listen to a non-native "teacher" last year, and I gave up.  Thick African accent (no, not South Africa).  I'll say it again, very nice people...BUT teaching English isn't helping anyone but giving them a little money.  

 

Once the supply dries up and Thailand realizes they MUST hire Native speakers, then the salaries will go up.  Then it's a win-win.  

 

Non-native speakers love to teach what they THINK is spoken in the UK or America, but I've met anyone who got it right.  

 

rant not over, lol.  

[Fex Bluse]

3 hours ago, graemeaylward said:

If they come, they would, in common with Filipino teachers, only teach American English and not "Real" English. Sadly, the few English teachers from UK that I have met do not last long, as they tend not to "toe the line" with regard to teaching methods or spelling! 

I really wish expats would stop this rather silly line of argument. If you talk to a linguist, he will tell you that the BIGGEST reason English is the world's dominant language is SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE it has adapted an is flexible - unlike French, for example.

 

Even this aside, whether Thais learn American English or British English is largely irrelevant. The biggest benefit to them will be an ability to think properly facilitated by a modern language that has concepts or logic inbuilt.

 

And anyway, as to British English, the UK is small country with so many dialects, some almost unintelligible from each other. If the Thais chose to learn BBC English, they would be in a group of only about a few thousand speakers.

 

And who among us REALLY wants Thai massage ladies asking us "would you fancy a happy ending" in BBC English???

[sanemax]

5 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

And anyway, as to British English, the UK is small country with so many dialects,

No everyone speaks English and some Welsh people also speak Welsh as well .

Did you mean accents rather than dialects ?

[Fex Bluse]

Just now, sanemax said:

No everyone speaks English and some Welsh people also speak Welsh as well .

Did you mean accents rather than dialects ?

Maybe accents, yes, but where they are mutually unintelligible, we might as well consider them dialects.

Either way, a massage girl whispering into my ear in "real English" is about the worst thing I can think of, save for her doing the same in German.

[sanemax]

1 minute ago, Fex Bluse said:

Maybe accents, yes, but where they are mutually unintelligible, we might as well consider them dialects.

Either way, a massage girl whispering into my ear in "real English" is about the worst thing I can think of, save for her doing the same in German.

The days of people having strong un understandable accents have long gone , most people just have soft accents these days , especially those who have been abroad

[Odysseus123]

7 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

 

And who among us REALLY wants Thai massage ladies asking us "would you fancy a happy ending" in BBC English???

"Bertie..would you like mumsy-wumsy to give you a little tuggy wuggy?"

 

I would say that the  "farang" garrison of Fort Zinderneuf (Pattaya-by-the-Pooh) would be ecstatic

[Booboo101]

There aren’t enough teachers to fill the vacant posts in English Schools, I can’t see many wanting to come here and earn peanuts and having to work ten times harder to make Thai kids understand English, good luck with that problem !

[Fex Bluse]

Massage Lady: "Fancy a snog, hen? Do you have a rubber johnny?"

 

Totally ruins the mood.

[teacherbrendan]

On 2/16/2020 at 6:28 AM, emptypockets said:

Pray tell me who actually speaks good English. Please don't say the English.

Ever spoken to a Yorkshire man, a Scouser, a Geordie or any one from Cornwall?

What utter tripe. Yes there are some strong regional accents in the UK but the UK has an excellent education system. The majority of Brits whether they are from foggy old London Town or rainy Newcastle will have impeccable English skills. Certainly much better than ‘hi sirrrr’ Filipino or some mongloid yank form of English.  

Edited February 17, 2020 by teacherbrendan

[pixelaoffy]

10 minutes ago, teacherbrendan said:

What utter tripe. Yes there are some strong regional accents in the UK but the UK has an excellent education system. The majority of Brits whether they are from foggy old London Town or rainy Newcastle will have impeccable English skills. Certainly much better than ‘hi sirrrr’ Filipino or some mongloid yank form of English. 

I've taught English for 15 years in 3 countries in Asia and I have a regional UK accent that's not particularly strong.  It's actually about correct pronunciation not accent . In the US there are some folk with accents which 

have a problem with pronouncing correctly 

Edited February 17, 2020 by pixelaoffy

[cdavid10]

I wonder if Texan English would pass y'll.

From what I read the little kid punks have no respect for any teacher.

[Fex Bluse]

2 hours ago, teacherbrendan said:

What utter tripe. Yes there are some strong regional accents in the UK but the UK has an excellent education system. The majority of Brits whether they are from foggy old London Town or rainy Newcastle will have impeccable English skills. Certainly much better than ‘hi sirrrr’ Filipino or some mongloid yank form of English.  

What's a mongoloid yank? Is that basically like a Thai massage with the extra 500 baht bit?

[overherebc]

On 2/15/2020 at 6:50 PM, Denim said:

 

By lowering the bar.

 

There is a big pool of untapped chavs cluttering up the UK who will jump at this......innit.

Nah, mate, ya dont no the hole jackanory, do ya???

Anyways if ya lower the bar yir gonna need shorter stools innit.

Edited February 17, 2020 by overherebc

[teacherbrendan]

3 hours ago, pixelaoffy said:

I've taught English for 15 years in 3 countries in Asia and I have a regional UK accent that's not particularly strong.  It's actually about correct pronunciation not accent . In the US there are some folk with accents which 

have a problem with pronouncing correctly 

Let’s get real here no Thai kid is coming out of a 50 minute English lesson with a scouse accent because his/her teacher was a Liverpudlian. Like you say it’s about correct pronunciation. Even those with the strongest UK regional accent and a basic level of education will be aware of how to pronounce a world properly.
 

Now we are getting ahead of ourselves here. Thailand is a country in which most of the population can’t even count to ten never mind getting their heads around regional English accents. This myth that Brits make bad English language teachers because of strong accents is spread by non-native speakers and unscrupulous agencies who want to drive down wages.

[teacherbrendan]

57 minutes ago, Fex Bluse said:

What's a mongoloid yank? Is that basically like a Thai massage with the extra 500 baht bit?

Those insufferable pricks that speak like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and think Thailand is a yoga retreat.

[PhonThong]

How many of them will be fluent in English? Best most also speak Tagalog.

[metisdead]

Some troll posts have been removed. 

[WalkingOrders]

I could be wrong, but it seems like every native English teacher I meet in Thailand is teaching 5 and 6 year olds. I understand how the young ones can soak up language fast, but at the higher grade levels they seem to be really lacking. Just learning vocabulary, and nothing else, and taught by non native speakers.  I am not a teacher, but assist my step daughter with her coursework. She is 17. Her teacher is from the Philippines, and what she is learning is not what a foreign language class is like at same grade level in the USA. The materials are also filled with errors. Would love to hear comment from any teachers out there. Any of you teaching higher grade levels?

 

[ParkerN]

11 hours ago, Liss Camber said:

Criticism....criticism...criticism here! Is there ever a thing you all can estimate as a good step forward? Keyboard warriors all over?! Sad but true. 

Amazing really. Lots of consensus so it must be lies...

 

Lots of suggestions so they must be bogus.

 

Thais know best, even when they don't and just embarrass themselvs.

 

It must be comforting to be so gullible and to be able to bury ones head in the sand so you don't have to see what just about everyone else sees... just remember, while you're burying your head in the sand, you are making yourself vulnerable in other ways.

 

 

.

[gimo]

On 2/15/2020 at 7:22 PM, Kelsall said:

From what English teachers here have told me, schools prefer American teachers over other nationalities.   True?  I can't see them getting many Americans to fly this far to teach for what is considered low pay in the US. 

          Not true . I assume from you not seeing many Americans teachers coming  to Thailand for low pay , you are American yourself , and therefore most of your advice from teachers in Thailand comes from American teachers .

[Kelsall]

5 minutes ago, gimo said:

          Not true . I assume from you not seeing many Americans teachers coming  to Thailand for low pay , you are American yourself , and therefore most of your advice from teachers in Thailand comes from American teachers .

You assume wrong on two out of three.

[WalkingOrders]

8 hours ago, TumblinDice said:

Idiots. Make up your fricken mind. I got booted out of my teaching job after two years (they wouldn't renew my work permit as a teacher because I don't have a university degree). I have a college diploma in telecommunications engineering technology from an internationally recognized polytechnic school in Canada. I got my TEFL certificate from UniTEFL in Chiang Mai. I am a native English speaker. And here I was teaching along side an Italian, an Ethiopian, a Cameroonian, a Swede & when I left a Russian took my place! LOL. Their asking for NES teachers but settle for non NES because they won't accept a college diploma! Kids will learn English with an Italian or Russian accent!!

What a mixed load of dung coming from these idiots. Glad to be back in Canada & civilization!

They should have you teaching IT basics in English to 16 and 17 year olds. Prepping them for basic certifications.

[gimo]

12 minutes ago, WalkingOrders said:

I could be wrong, but it seems like every native English teacher I meet in Thailand is teaching 5 and 6 year olds. I understand how the young ones can soak up language fast, but at the higher grade levels they seem to be really lacking. Just learning vocabulary, and nothing else, and taught by non native speakers.  I am not a teacher, but assist my step daughter with her coursework. She is 17. Her teacher is from the Philippines, and what she is learning is not what a foreign language class is like at same grade level in the USA. The materials are also filled with errors. Would love to hear comment from any teachers out there. Any of you teaching higher grade levels?

 

          Schools in some areas of Thailand have more difficulty than others , to attract quality native English speaking teachers  ( not simply native speakers , with little grammar knowledge and little teaching experience ) . They often end up with qualified Philippinos who , despite being qualified , have  poor written and spoken English  , with a lot of grammatical mistakes . 

[SteveK]

Is it just me, or does it seem that most of Thailand's problems are not particularly complex and usually have fairly obvious solutions? But always the authorities want to skirt the obvious solutions to the issue and come up with obscure, ill-considered ideas which ultimately make zero difference to the problem. They want to talk a load of hot air to make it look like they are trying to do "something", knowing full well that the pathetic efforts will achieve nothing, hoping in a few months the focus will be on something else and the issue will get forgotten.

 

Like tourism. Not hard to tackle a few key issues plaguing the industry such as taxi mafias, dealing with litter collection, asking immigration to be a little less militant. None of those ideas would be hard to implement, and would make a real difference to how holidaymakers perceive the country during their stay. But what do they do? Give vouchers at the airport, promote Pokemon go, promote durian Kitkats, give free VOA for Chinese and Indians. They ignore the real issues keeping tourists away and come up with childish ideas which they know will make zero difference. The mind boggles.

 

Same with the appalling standards of English in the country, apparently the worst in Asia, which, for a country which has had decades of rampant tourism from the west is an embarrassment. How do they improve English standards? Easy - specify all school English teachers must either be NES with a degree from an English-speaking university, or if they insist on using Thai teachers then they must have completed a degree in an English speaking country. If they can't attract teachers, then they should be asking why that would be. The incessant paperwork and immigration hassles (plus TM30) for a foreigner living and working in Thailand combined with the paltry wages mean that the good teachers will just go to other countries which will no doubt give them a much warmer welcome. So to get good teachers, only take NES teachers, don't pay them just enough to scrape by but enough so that they can eat a few western meals a week, and have enough money to visit their home country once or twice a year, something like 40-50k should be enough and if funds were not constantly being misappropriated then they should easily be able to afford that. And for goodness' sake, relax the immigration requirements for proper English teachers.

 

Having to take Monday off work to do a TM30 because you went away at the weekend is so stupid.

 

There just seems to be an endemic lack of critical thinking abilities when it comes to tackling serious issues in Thailand. If you went around London or New York doing a survey where you asked people "if you ran a country dependent on tourism, but which has the worst standards of spoken English anywhere in the region, what would you do about it?". I'm sure you'd have some very sensible responses within an hour. Yet the Thais just don't seem to be able to resolve it.

Edited February 17, 2020 by SteveK

[gimo]

6 minutes ago, Kelsall said:

You assume wrong on two out of three.

   Only 2 assumptions there .

[WalkingOrders]

7 hours ago, Ventenio said:

Solution.  NEVER non-native speakers.  Imagine going to school in London and someone from China, who has never been to Thailand, is your Thai teacher??????  It's a lose-lose on so many levels.

 

I tried to listen to a non-native "teacher" last year, and I gave up.  Thick African accent (no, not South Africa).  I'll say it again, very nice people...BUT teaching English isn't helping anyone but giving them a little money.  

 

Once the supply dries up and Thailand realizes they MUST hire Native speakers, then the salaries will go up.  Then it's a win-win.  

 

Non-native speakers love to teach what they THINK is spoken in the UK or America, but I've met anyone who got it right.  

 

rant not over, lol.  

I took a University course in Scotland once. Macroeconomics. The Professor was Dutch, and honestly I couldn't understand a word she said. How bad was she? Well, I can understand Glaswegians just fine.