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why was the same thread deleted from ajarn?

From what i have read,it was because the posters were walking a fine line of asking questions of a representative of thongsook and slandering him(which is illegal in thailand)

I hope the course is a success and is recognized by the moe,i for one would be interested in attending

Where did you read that?

the other big teaching thailand forum
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why was the same thread deleted from ajarn?

From what i have read,it was because the posters were walking a fine line of asking questions of a representative of thongsook and slandering him(which is illegal in thailand)

I hope the course is a success and is recognized by the moe,i for one would be interested in attending

Where did you read that?

the other big teaching thailand forum

Ok, Bruce.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just a quick follow up,i sent off a few emails to some of the accredited links to universities,colleges etc linked on the thongsook website.The only reply i got back was from university of southern queensland(usq),they have no knowledge of this college and in no way are linked with thongsook.

I would really like to believe this degree offered at the college will be legitimate,but i think i will defer my interest in them until more info is available.

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I think a lot of questions have been asked and answered. If you don't like the answer, so be it, but there are getting to be some rather personal remarks made that would be best left unsaid.

Please exercise care in your posts.

Sorry Scott but just looking at the so called 'Accreditation' list on the Thongsook website should start alarm bells ringing.

Accredited by Virgin Radio for heavens sake??

Dave's ESL Cafe? Jeeeeez............they would accredit a paper bag if you paid them enough

There is NO Manhattan Institute of International Education that recognises 'Thongs suk' Thats just a clever play on words.

Not a cat in hells chance of these degrees being recognised 'internationally'. Not by reputable educational institutes anyway.

As another poster has mentioned, the Uni of Southern Queensland don't even know them (apparently). Also, Thongsook College don't actually acknowledge that the Disney Corporation 'accredit' Thongsook. The college website simply states that the Disney Corporation recognise the value of TEFL training.............and that could be anywhere.

Edited by Phatcharanan
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Just a quick follow up,i sent off a few emails to some of the accredited links to universities,colleges etc linked on the thongsook website.The only reply i got back was from university of southern queensland(usq),they have no knowledge of this college and in no way are linked with thongsook.

I would really like to believe this degree offered at the college will be legitimate,but i think i will defer my interest in them until more info is available.

I have a question for you about this. if the college was accredited by Disney, or Nike would this be better than being recognised by the Thai MOE?. I am really looking forward to the Mickey Mouse degree comments, but to be honest i don't give a Donald Duck as it's all a bit Goofy to me.

The problem is thongsook say they are recognized by M.O.E,and the b.a tesol will be recognized as a degree when completed.So you have to have faith(blind)for three years.

The school had a forum attached to its website,its no longer running,one of the directors seems to have attracted a lot of negative comments over the last 8 or so years in connection with other tefl institutes and none of the accreditations for thongsook can be substantiated yet.

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Just a quick follow up,i sent off a few emails to some of the accredited links to universities,colleges etc linked on the thongsook website.The only reply i got back was from university of southern queensland(usq),they have no knowledge of this college and in no way are linked with thongsook.

I would really like to believe this degree offered at the college will be legitimate,but i think i will defer my interest in them until more info is available.

I have a question for you about this. if the college was accredited by Disney, or Nike would this be better than being recognised by the Thai MOE?. I am really looking forward to the Mickey Mouse degree comments, but to be honest i don't give a Donald Duck as it's all a bit Goofy to me.

The problem is thongsook say they are recognized by M.O.E,and the b.a tesol will be recognized as a degree when completed.So you have to have faith(blind)for three years.

The school had a forum attached to its website,its no longer running,one of the directors seems to have attracted a lot of negative comments over the last 8 or so years in connection with other tefl institutes and none of the accreditations for thongsook can be substantiated yet.

Research is probably the way to go with this. Thongsook are recognised by the MOE, A degree is not a degree until completed so cannot be recognised until it is. The course is new and as all courses when new are not guaranteed until the first wave are through it. Thongsook have never had a degree not acknowledged so why think this one will be.

So that you know, I am probably biased about this and going headlong into something others think is stupid. I am taking the course, and so far I am more than happy with it. I have been teaching here for 2 years, and have met quite a few TEFL teachers who have been here for many more years, but seem to be no better than me at teaching.So far this course has taught me so much more than I knew previously. The instructors (so far) have been more than helpful and willing to go that bit further. The course organisers have also put themselves out and are more than willing to change things if they feel there is a better way (we all realise this is a new course). I think this is much better than them waiting for the next influx of students before any improvement. I am really looking forward to the classes we have to attend in October as I am sure these will be really helpful too. In short, with my experiences so far I would recommend the course to anyone. I am not looking at this as a quick fix as I do not believe it will help me become fully legal until I complete the course.I do think it will benefit me later though, and the learning I will go through can only possibly improve my classes and help my students. Is it a gamble?----maybe. Is it worth the gamble?-----to me yes, am I going to improve as a teacher------yes, and already have.

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A degree is not a degree until completed so cannot be recognised until it is.

Recognised? Sorry mate but under-grad degree courses are usually approved before commencement and that is based on the content, applicable qualifications of trainers/lecturers, track records and a host of other matters.

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A degree is def not a degree until completed hmmm how true, but lets get real a degree program is worthless unless it is accredited. All those nurses that recently got screwed because of accreditation problems at their school should be a lesson to anyone contemplating a degree in thailand. Anything is possible in thailand until someone says something lol.

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  • 2 weeks later...
yes, am I going to improve as a teacher------yes, and already have.

I hate to point this out but you are hardly in a position to know if you have improved. Only an experienced educator with many years of experience (and knowledge) would be able to tell if your teaching had improved. You only think your teaching had improved.

It is a shame that people rely on shortcuts to try and get qualified. My advice is to do it once and do it right. This qualification is of questionable value and the requirements for teachers are only going to get more and more onerous.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I taught in Thailand as a degreeless teacher for a good few years. I looked into all the various options open to me regarding studying there. After not really liking what I saw I put it off again for a few years. After getting married and having a son I knew that putting it off any longer was not a good idea. I then looked into it again and...Ramkhamhaeng,Rangist Uni and a few others but it just didnt feel right. I also around 2008/9 looked into a program that seemed similar to this one. I even went to some dodgey looking office and again...it just didnt feel right. I decided to take the family back to Aus with me and am now nearly finished my degree....

I take one look at the photos on that facebook site and, to be honest all I can think is "thank god I am not sitting in that class hoping to get a degree out of it" I can imagine going there, sitting in that dodgey looking classroom and wondering what the hell I was doing. The degree I will have is not in TESOL but it will be from a recognised Australian university and I am going to be studying a masters in TESOL from the same uni once I have finished the bachelor. I wll be doing that online while living and working over there. I would rather take my chances with an unrelated but recognised degree from a western uni and then up my ESL skills in other ways than taking my chances with Thoongsook. It looks like some dodgey 250 Baht per hour language school. It doesnt exactly inspire confidence...and I had an open mind before.

The sad thing is that there are a lot of folks there that need to get cracking at getting some kind of degree. All the people teaching over there that I know are STILL degreeless, as I was. I really hope this whole thing is the real deal. Schemes like this have a habit of falling on their butts in Thailand. A course like this one is needed, and if proved legitimate, if it lasts, then great.I will not be holding my breath. There are other ways to get degrees from your home country studying online, degrees that will really be recognised anywhere in the world.

Goodluck to you, at least you are making an effort to get in line with the regulations. I hope it will not all be in vain.

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I certainly echo YooYung's positive wishes and wish you all the best with your studying. I admire the fact that you're at least trying to get in line with the (perhaps often "over the top") regulations. thumbsup.gif

I can't say I agree that the classroom looks "dodgy" - it certainly looks 100 times better than any classroom I've taught in, in Thailand. Then again, I suppose that it's not everybody that has taught in classrooms with holes in the floors and where the ceiling is supported by bamboo poles - in case it fell down.....rolleyes.gif

But, yes, there has been a large amount of discussion about Thongsook for a long time - on this and other forums. Much of the discussion has apparently been rather negative, although in my opinion in some cases it appeared that posters rather wanted Thongsook to fail.

Hopefully everything will go well and you'll be able to "wave" your degree around without any further negative comments.

Good luck smile.png

Splod

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I have taught in classrooms like that actually, but I would expect a University offering an international program to be a little better.

I know its Thailand and all.....but that just adds to the point doesnt it?

Anyway. The proof will be in the pudding as they say.

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i was sceptical about this as well,but if these people attending the course already have years of teaching english without a degree and this legitimizes them,why would they be any worse at teaching than a person who has a degree in business or arts or any thing else unrelated to education and just lobs up in thailand after doing a tesol in their country

.Maybe it shows they are dedicated enough to do three years here and qualify.I have three young english backpackers living next to me who are travelling the world on their tesol,nice guys,love to party,but don't really care too much about teaching,just a means to and end for them.

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I do not understand the criticism of the classroom. It is well air conditioned, had comfortable seats, plenty of tables, full audio visual equipment for Powerpoint, free water and coffee. What else are you looking for?

I would certainly agree with the comment above that many people are rooting for this program to fail. That simply boggles the mind and says very sad things about teachers in Thailand.

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Beachbaby you are wrong. The remark says nothing about teachers in Thailand. It says something about a very small group of people who for some reason would like to see a program fail.

Programs and curricula grow and change with time.

I hope the program is a success and hope the students are happy with their education.

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I am the teacher in the pictures in the 'Introduction to Linguistics' folder on the Thongsook International Facebook page.

I'd like to contribute by simply stating that the classrooms were more than adequate. The instructors for Week 1: Intro to Linguistics and Week 2: Teaching Grammar were myself (you can find a very cursory/unfinished profile of me here: http://mattnoble.wordpress.com/) and Dr. Hemanta, the president of Nepalese English Language Teaching Association. As a teaching team we complimented each other well; me with over 6 years of (very engaged) teaching experience in Thailand plus 'fresh' knowledge of TESOL at the graduate level and him with decades of academic and ELT supervisory experience to share.

Briefly, one of the central concepts in the design of these two classes was the integration of what we can call 'pedagogical linguistics' and 'grammar teaching'. How many teachers know what inflectional morphology is? It's only the systematic combinatory system of affixes that functions as the nuts and bolts - really the thing itself - of the English tense system, not to mention plurals, etc. etc. Now, we can talk about talking about grammar all day long, but what IS the language system itself, behind conventional descriptions of tense etc.? This is what the quietly powerful and effective language teacher knows. It is the 'Matrix' the flows behind and within the language. The first two weeks were highly integrated content-wise to support the notion that some explicit knowledge of theoretical linguistics will likely 'ground' grammar teaching in more 'fertile ground'.

Another central issue was CF (corrective feedback). What does the teacher listen to and for when the teacher listens to student speech? ('learner language' in the parlance) Meaning or form or both simultaneously? When a student makes an error, what should the teacher do? When, what, and how should they perform a corrective feedback move? How to the students feel about this? Is there 'uptake'? How often and after what types of corrective feedback?

This is simply a glimpse into some of what actually happened on this course. Refreshing, isn't it? ;)

Under the circumstances there were bound to be problems and gaps and issues and there were; however, my opinion is that we delivered worthwhile educational modules geared towards increasing awareness of foundational SLA and TESOL concepts and theories and suggesting ways for teachers to reflectively apply and experiment with new and/or expanded teaching methods and techniques based on these research-based ideas.

During the 3rd week work continued with more direct study of SLA (Second Language Acquisition) and the 4th week gave the teacher-learners a chance to delve into the world of 'sufficiency economy' and the successes and onjectives of royal projects in Thailand.

Of course there is no way to fully judge a program that you are not a part of. The style and wording of content the website may simply 'sound wrong' to some. The look for the classrooms used for the on-campus session might look suspect to others. All of this is simply what it is; the speculation and opinionating of interested (for positive and negative reasons) parties. A program develops as it will regardless, and in the process opinions and impressions can change.

Feedback from the students regarding the courses taken on-campus during the past month has been positive. The ultimate assessment of the value of these courses will come from the teachers' feedback over the next few months regarding their ongoing teaching practice; our Reflective Journaling module is designed to capture this. RJing functions as 1) a personal process of self-examination and creative thinking about teaching and 2) a kind of 'remote observation' regime where we can monitor the teacher-learners process as they work with the concepts introduced in the course - meant not only to be remembered and thought about but also to adapt, use, and 'own' in one's work in the classroom.

Take care all. smile.png

Edited by matthew78
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Fair enough. Keeping it all nice and transparent, as you seem to be doing is the way to go. I am certainly not wishing the program to fail, on the contrary such a program if proven successful will be a positive step in the right direction for many. Which brings me to another question that is somewhat related to this whole topic...

Does anyone in the Thongsook organisation or anyone else for that matter have any further info on the Diploma that was running, then cancelled dealing with the TCT requirements? I havent heard anything more about it and would be interested in finding out if it would be running again. I will be back over there early next year with degree in hand and know that at some point I will have to start taking the tests. To be honest if there were course running that you could do instead of blindly (or so it seems) pinning the tail to the donkey and doing the tests....I would do it.

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Mathew 78

Fine, we've seen the classrooms, we've read your testimonial and description of the course content, let's see some pictures of the campus too.

Have a look on google maps..Thongsuk college.. you can see the sat pictures and streetview from the main road.

Bear in mind it IS a fairly small private college..

I have to admit i was one of the ones poo pooing this course early on.. But it seems to be coming along nicely.. I wish all concerned good luck and a happy result.

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Mathew 78

Fine, we've seen the classrooms, we've read your testimonial and description of the course content, let's see some pictures of the campus too.

To be honest I don't understand or really enjoy the tone ^ here, so I don't think I'll be responding directly to something like that. Apologies if you sincerely want/need to see photos of the Thongsook campus and can't find them on your own, I'm sure someone less sensitive to tone and register will come along to grant your simple demand-like request.

Anyway, from where I'm sitting I see a whole wave of SLTE (Second Language Teacher Education) in various forms and on several different levels coming to Thailand. AUA/ThaiTESOL just did/is doing a biggie now - the AEC is coming and will indeed make a lot of things happen (yes, I know the drill, nothing ever changes, lalalala). While over there I spoke with a few very well connected people and learned a lot about various developments. Western teachers need teacher education. Thai teachers need teacher education. And teachers from other ASEAN nations need teacher education.

I think the Thongsook program can and will definitely have a place in all of this. Whether it can 'polish' and refine/define itself a bit further in order to deflect and ultimately rise above some of the pettiness it seems still to attract and inspire is likely an important part of the equation...with the successful completion of the on-campus October session I'd say it's on the right path. Just my take, and of course I'm somewhat biased but I'm certainly not shilling. I just tell it like it is (to me).

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Not happy with the tone, Matthew? Welcome to my world. I could post the sky is blue and I would be vilified. You never get used to it; at least I don't. I just avoid Thai forums.

To answer the comments about the "Accreditation" page, the site initially said "Accreditation and Associations" and since part of the BA TESOL is the TEFL International Certificate, I felt, rightly or wrongly, that these past and present associations could be listed--especially when we were just getting the site UP. I took the list down a few months ago and replaced it with scanned copied of the Thongsook accreditation from the Ministry of Education.http://thongsookinternational.com/accreditation.html

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  • 3 weeks later...

I attended this course in October and thought I would let you know my views. The college itself is small but, it is clearly a college, the classrooms we used were both neat and tidy, they had aircon, good quality tables and chairs, they were clean and comfortable. I have studied at 2 colleges in the UK and this was better with bigger rooms and more modern facilities.We had sound and vision capabilities that were well used by the instructors (though there were some technical difficulties as they got used to the set up.

The instructors were obviously interested in us learning and the content was great. Some people did not like the final week where we were taught about Thailand's vision of a sustainable economy. I for one thought this was a great idea. We were taught by influential people whose knowlege came from working within the Thai government, they took us on field trips with access to places that you cannot visit privately, and even took us (and paid for) a lovely meal at the end of one trip...my steak was the best I have eaten in Thailand..

The course work was quite intense as we were in college for 8 hours a day and usually had work to do in the evening. We were given several tests along with presentations we had to give to the tutors and our fellow students. We even had to complete a paper in class and a research paper once we went back to our respective schools.

I enjoyed it all the college took an obvious interest in us with the Dean coming to the classes regularly, and we had chats with associates. Bruce came to answer questions and we were given the resources we needed. Obviously this course will be under scrutiny until we graduate, but if it carries on like this I think we will all benefit. Thank you to all involved in the October classes and I am looking forward to going back and meeting the guys and gals again.

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We have restructured the course in a way that makes it more accessible to our students.

Thongsook College will schedule 14 weeks of classes per year. This will be from the first Monday of March through the second week in May and four weeks in October.

There are 120 credits in this program. Of those 120 credits, the following will NOT require a face-to-face component at Thongsook college:

--Your 120-hour TESOL course (wherever you took it) and the 29 units of Intro to TESOL: 6 credits

--One term of Journals and teaching: 6 credits

--General Science: 3 credits

--Language Acquisition Research Paper: 6 credits

--Phonology, Morphology and Syntax Research Paper: 6 credits

--Methodology Research Paper: 6 credits

That leaves 84 credits, or 28 classes, that you must attend face to face.

One week is one class, so over the course of your study you must attend class for 28 weeks.

During the 14 weeks of classes per year we will offer as many of the classes as possible, duplicating them so those that missed can make them up.

I believe this schedule will allow for a great deal of flexibility for those with varying schedules. This also eliminates most of the online portion of the course.

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I received this from a Thongsook College BA student today and she gave me permission to post it on the forum.

"Bruce,

I wanted to let you know about my experience at Immigration on Wednesday. I think it MAY be good news for Thongsook International. As you may (or may not) know my Visa was stamped back in September when I renewed it that because I did not have a BA, and the 2nd Waiver from Krusapha (Thailand Teachers Council) that I would have to leave Thailand on December 8th. (my 2 year waiver would end then)...although my Work Permit WAS renewed for a year!

Well, I did all that I could (completed the Thai Culture and Ethics course) got enrolled with your program affiliated with Thongsook...but Krusapha still turned my school down for a 2nd Waiver. About 3 weeks ago, I decided to go to Krusapha myself and plead my case to stay. They acted like there was nothing they could do. I plead all I could, and several people were in the "Foreign Teacher" office listening. Well, I don't know how...but before I could get back to my school, Krusapha called my school and told them to change my contract and make me a "Volunteer" teacher or a "Special Lecturer" and they would extend my waiver. We did that, sent the documents back to them and they granted the waiver.

On Wednesday, at Immigration, the Immigration Officer acted very surprised and confused and she and the Admin person from my school who goes with us, had a 30-min discussion back and forth (in Thai, of course) and I was concerned they were not going to give me the stamp in my Visa...but as it turned out, the Officer attends Thongsook and had not heard about this program...and didn't understand how Krusapha approved my waiver (apparently I was the first one since all these new changes and rules are being enforced that got the waiver from them without a BA) that our Immigration office has had come through approved. So the 30 minute discusson was our Admin person explaining all the hoops I had to jump through and the Immigration office wanted to know because they have so many come through that they have to just turn away because they don't have the waiver and they told her they want to be able to tell them what to do. The Immigration officer (that attends Thongsook) wants more information about this BA program to pass on to others. I told my admin person I would contact you to see what info I can give them. But it could mean LOTS more students for the BA TESOL program. They were excited, she said, that Krusapha accepted the letter from Thoongsook and to hear about this program. Apparently, that's what the 30 minutes discussion was all about.

they even made a copy of the Waiver from Krusapha and the Letter of Acceptance from Thoongsook and put into the big manual."

Edited by brucetefl
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