Farang teachers crackdown !(no cowboys)

Quote Doc: "I hate to say it - but you are hanging on to American standards and life styles and wish to impose them upon Thailand."

No! I do not, I like things exactly the way they are here. If anything, IMO, I think Thailand is moving too fast and getting closer to the West.
Basically, my post was me thinking out loud. It was also advice I would give to some thirty-something person with a Western degree, thinking about coming to Thailand to teach.

Quote Doc: "Basically my friend - you know absolutely nothing on a first had basis about the education system in Thailand - so therefore, you need to step back and only read and learn from those that are directly involved in the educational system in Thailand. You may have a friend that works for Thammasat University - but obviously he /she thinks that they are on the short end of the stick.. "

I admit, I'm not a teacher. Nor, do I have any inclination to become one. I have done some volunteer tutoring in the past. Which gave me a respect for the difficulty teachers have here. I was tutoring students who had a basic knowledge of English, so it wasn't as difficult as starting from scratch.
I don't know, maybe some schools, colleges, or universities do offer an attractive employment package? Tell me about them?
I never said my friend at Thammasat is unhappy with his position, he accepts it as part of TIT. But then again, he had money when he came here. Actually, he love's his job and would probably work for less. But, he doesn't teach conversational English from the beginning. He teaches some courses in English Literature and Business English. So his students are motivated and in turn motivate him.

Quote Doc:"Your comments demonstrate that you want to impose Western standards on Thailand - rather than accepting - and living within Thai culture and Thai standards.

In other words - as short and succinctly as I can put it - your opinions are totally without merit and demonstrate that you have absolutely no valid position to base your most recent posting upon. All that you are giving is opinion - which in my ever so humble opinion - have no factual basis and are based upon pre-conceived notions of what Thailand should be. Pay some Thai taxes - then you may have something to complain about. Otherwise - you are in, once again, my ever so humble opinion, blowing a lot of hot air about something that you know absolutely nothing about.

However, despite all of the preceding - I would be more than happy to meet you for a drink or two to see if we can find some common ground someplace. That is up to you. I have made the offer."

Well, I do pay Thai taxes on my fixed deposit accounts here, probably not as much as you do.
I'm not complaining, pretty much I like most things here in Thailand EXACTLY as they are. As I said in the beginning, I was thinking out loud. I never stated that what I wrote is the gospel truth. Doc, I think, you may have taken my post a little too personal? But, hey, I've been guily of the same thing on some other threads.
Sure, let's meet for lunch some time. I go to the fitness center at the Ban Chiang Hotel most mornings and then off to eat somewhere. PM me. From your post's that I've read, you sound like a decent chap. I think we are already on a common ground: you were in your 50's when you moved here, probably with substantial saving and income and then you decided to supplement what you already have with teaching. That is great! I wish I had your patience.

i know one thing, if my christian beliefs are for not, i hope i can switch to buddhism at that deciding moment, in which case i'll be reincarnated, val will move on the the next level, and since you won't need it, can i have you quick and intellectual wit.

you scare the hell out of me when it comes to debate, but i'm just a humble servant of society, and didn't study or practice

love you, don't change

la i find it really hard to compare the two systems i have experiece with (victoria australia - thailand) and the intended outcomes they have for students. in australia it's all the lingo and acronyms, benchmarking, world best practise. it's a generally well thought out and well operated education system that serves the needs of society and the economy. we have a maximum class size of 20 for the first 4 years of primary/elementry school. we have numeracy and literacy programs that are funded and supported. all teachers are supplied with a lap top and a personal professional development budget. performance is reviewed annually and incremental pay rises linked to student's performance. none of us starve and we have state managed retirement plans. our societies wealth (all the stuff in the ground in western australia) and level of investment in education correlates with the level of competance of school leavers.
thailand isn't in a position to do what we do. schools with 5000 plus students and class sizes of 60 in plain, noisy, hot classrooms don't allow it. only the best of international schools (those that pay comparible wages and conditions to what I get here) would produce similar outcomes for students. i don't know the thai education system well enough to know if it is producing the school leavers it requires.
I'm also interested in reading everyones opinion and input.
cheers
mark

that would be a welcomed system in the states, where unfortunitely, the education system has gone way down since my school days. the forced busing and merger of the 70's, just after i left high school, and the unionization of the teachers, at least in pennsylvania, usa, had a negative effect on the system. my high school merged with 4 surrounding schools to form one district, the one town already attended grades 9-12, since they lacked the facilities. new school, now busing all added to the cost of operating. the one town's students couldn't maintain the same point average, so instead of concentrating more on the problem, they solved it by lowering the grade point standard. then the teachers finally got well deserved pay raises, as prior to unionization, you taught for the love of it, now it's a great paying job w/3 months vacation, all the holidays, and salary starts are quite nice with tenoir salaries very nice. the dedication is not longer there. school taxes are outrageous and have nothing to do with the quality of school. when i graduated, the school was 2nd in the state, now 2nd from the bottom. my real estate taxes were just shy of 4000 dollars a year, 300 for county, 600 for state, 2400 for school and 400 or something for municipal. this for a mere 100,000 dollar house, my brothers taxes were almost half for a house more than twice the value, and top 10 school district. both out of the inner city, which are 10 times worst, but not tax burden. then to top it off, i had to pay for private school for 2 kids i raised, and no tax reimbursement. moved from the philadelphia suburbs to memphis suburbs, the south, and education, sadly went right along racial lines. library offered data on all school districts with some amazing stats and demographics, from teacher to student race, age for each school/grade. they had the drop out rate for all grades. before i moved there, i researched where i was going to live, and those 3 districts were the only ones with decent school, which was reenforced with the data for school district from the state's own study. the employee pool for the memphis area was horrendous. i literally couldn't read half of what other wrote, and their math skills were terrible. thank god for built in safety margins for the aircrafts, as we entered the data in computer for pilots to set aircraft wing settings, so it went up, instead of down. it was quite eye opening, sadly, others are much worst in other areas. this was less than 10 yrs ago. the tennessesse school system is so bad, they created their own testing system, because they couldn't pass the accepted national testing system, i think developed in california. this explains why all the top athletes from tennessesse schools attend tennessess universities.

i love the pay raises are in conjuction with student performance. this should also be done with gov'ts, if you can't balance the budget, then there is no money left over for salaries.

thanks for your input, also wait others experiences and opinions.

valentine wrote:

oldfield wrote:

valentine wrote:Again Val, you are making comments about things which you know absolutely nothing about (as usual). Knowing about and using punctuation and grammar on a forum thread have little bearing on how good someone is at being a teacher of English. There's no correlation between the two. I'm sure Doc will agree, the emphasis is on listening/speaking and conversation as opposed to grammar and punctuation.

Go back to talking about land fill Val

Oldfield, your ignorance is manifestly apparent, both from your postings and your attitude. For your information, I do have a degree in teaching English as a second language issued by the combined Oxbridge open university. I have taught commercial English to staff of many large corporations in Bangkok for several years. Being able to read and write a language correctly is a great benefit to speaking it fluently.
So , once again, you have put your foot in by making assumptions, based on ignorance, that are totally incorrect.

Yeah... whatever

would the teachers please comment on your opinion of the basic high school graduate and their opinion of the education level they would compare it to in a western school. excuse my ignorance, but from what i have seen, not much, but most high school graduates here are equal to 6 - 8 th grade education in decent, non-inner city school from the states. just gov't school, as private school usually prep students much better for job opportunities or further education, but again, this priviledge is only for the middle or upper finacial families, worldwide.

It is difficult for someone that does not speak Thai to give a total evaluation of the education system in Thailand. I would however, have to concur that it appears that the graduates have lower knowledge than they would in the States. However, having said that - I am quite often amazed at what the students do know. Many students - and graduates are able to make up for a lack of book knowledge (and common sense) with creativity. I am continually amazed at what Thais can do with so little.

I do know that Thai students do have a large amount of home work to do. Of course, the intended results of the home work are often lost due to the prevalence of copying in Thailand.

Of course, we are looking specifically at Issan - and not Thailand as a whole. I tend to believe that the standards are lower in Issan, in part due to lack of adequate funding for schools. Another reason would be the ultimate lack of a demand for skilled and knowledgeable employees.

Of course, Thai culture must also be considered. A Thai student can not fail. If a student fails, the requirement and onus is on the teacher to give the student an easier test.

My ex TW graduated from the local university here - and basically, I was rather appalled at the lack of knowledge that she had in her chosen field. However, given that the tuition was only 5,000 Baht per semester - I reckon that she got value for the money spent. A year of university for only USD $275 - unbelievable! I pay more for a years worth of health insurance coverage. Whilst many students will end up going to the local University - many have their sights set on Universities in other parts of Thailand - Khon Kaen, Chaing Mai and Bangkok in particular.

I would suspect that students in more affluent areas of Thailand would fare somewhat better. Economics are an important part of public education.