Basic Education Levels Worrisome: Thailand

[tonypace01]

I sometimes use Thai expressions to give fundamental technical instructions and repeat them in English until the students get to know them. Also I have a Thai teacher's aid. If you take a foreign language course and hear nothing but that language for one hour then not hear those words used again for another week, you might learn to use basic expressions in seven to ten years.

About "self-esteem." My experience is that students with lower self esteem make better students. They don't think they know it all and give teachers the benefit of the doubt.

[tonypace01]

Maybe if you spoke Thai to the students it may help,instead of making them lose face in front of each other,after all we are all living in Thailand,or are you just upset with the fact that maybe your students speak more English than you speak Thai.
[/quote]
Actually they do not speak more English than I speak Thai. However, in the four Thai schools that I have taught in, it was mandated that English teachers use exclusively English. However, like many Thai teachers, I occasionally cheated a little and spoke some English because the mandate was ludicrous. As far as "face" is concerned, it is my observation that students feel no shame in my classes when they get it wrong, it is when they say nothing.
When you have a teacher in a class with forty to fifty students one hour a week teaching from books designed to teach language one hour a day, what is the expectation of success?

[tommy]

Maybe if you spoke Thai to the students it may help,instead of making them lose face in front of each other,after all we are all living in Thailand,or are you just upset with the fact that maybe your students speak more English than you speak Thai.

Actually they do not speak more English than I speak Thai. However, in the four Thai schools that I have taught in, it was mandated that English teachers use exclusively English. However, like many Thai teachers, I occasionally cheated a little and spoke some English because the mandate was ludicrous. As far as "face" is concerned, it is my observation that students feel no shame in my classes when they get it wrong, it is when they say nothing.
When you have a teacher in a class with forty to fifty students one hour a week teaching from books designed to teach language one hour a day, what is the expectation of success?
[/quote]So by what you say your employment at the schools has no use,so ask yourself the question are you really doing enough,or are you just there to pick up a wage packet.