News Forum - Thailand’s English proficiency level drops again, as the pandemic widens gap in education disparity

[Thaiger]

Thailand is continuing its downward descent for the 5th straight year in regards to its English proficiency levels. According to the Swedish company, Education First, Thailand is now ranked 100 out of 112 participating countries for its English proficiency levels. Its EF EPI score of 419 and its ranking of 22 out of 24 overall in Asian countries, has deemed Thailand to be that of a “very low” English proficiency level. This level, according to the organisation, explains that the average adult in Thailand is able to: -Introduce oneself simply (name, age, country of origin) -Understand simple signs -Give basic […]

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[Dedinbed]

2 hours ago, Thaiger said:

Its EF EPI score of 419 and its ranking of 22 out of 24 overall in Asian countries,

relegation to the Dumbo league next then .. 

[Pinetree]

Thailand needs to break out of this generationally low education attainment. Parents here are very often not capable of helping and guiding the kids, the teachers\ are manifestly incompetent and culture is holding them back., Teaching Chinese before English is a monumental mistake and a block to progress, first step, allow retired expats to teach here, part time, tax free, that's a massive resource being ignored.  

[Bob20]

35 minutes ago, Pinetree said:

...Teaching Chinese before English is a monumental mistake and a block to progress...

Who pays the piper calls the tune...

[huhuarf]

42 minutes ago, Pinetree said:

allow retired expats to teach here, part time, tax free, that's a massive resource being ignored.  

Hmm, this may help a few schools but I can't see this making a huge dent in the English deficit of the nation.  Also, if it did then it would put downwards pressure on native English speaker teaching salaries.

[Smithydog]

It does amuse me that a foreign non-native English speaker, with a low level degree unassociated to teaching or English with no teaching or life experience to draw from is often considered to be more highly rated than someone who has spoken the language all their life, may have no degree but masses of life experience and often work experience in teaching others.

For example, what does a Bachelors degree in a subject from a non-English speaking university have to do with a Teacher pronouncing the words correctly in a class or simply helping a student form a sentence?

To me, the more actual native English speakers you get to engage in conversation with and hear, the better the outcomes will likely be. There is an untapped resource of Expats for them to tap on that they seem reluctant to make use of.

 

[Bob20]

3 minutes ago, Smithydog said:

It does amuse me that a foreign non-native English speaker, with a low level degree unassociated to teaching or English with no teaching or life experience to draw from is often considered to be more highly rated than someone who has spoken the language all their life, may have no degree but masses of life experience and often work experience in teaching others.

For example, what does a Bachelors degree in a subject from a non-English speaking university have to do with a Teacher pronouncing the words correctly in a class or simply helping a student form a sentence?

To me, the more actual native English speakers you get to engage in conversation with and hear, the better the outcomes will likely be. There is an untapped resource of Expats for them to tap on that they seem reluctant to make use of.

You're correct of course, but also don't forget that when teaching languages that have nothing in common, you need to teach grammar etc. by its fundamental rules.

The native speaker could be very eloquent but may not be able to convey the rules and structure.

Preferably you have teachers with both qualifications (native speaker and experience in educating), but obviously there's no abundance of them here.

BTW, they do make some use of expats as I regularly was asked by students to talk to them and/or answer a few questions to improve their English in CM.

[oldschooler]

1 hour ago, Pinetree said:

Thailand needs to break out of this generationally low education attainment. Parents here are very often not capable of helping and guiding the kids, the teachers\ are manifestly incompetent and culture is holding them back., Teaching Chinese before English is a monumental mistake and a block to progress, first step, allow retired expats to teach here, part time, tax free, that's a massive resource being ignored.  

Worked in China and spoke to smart fluent young Chinese English Language Graduate at work. Took her 20 years to attain full expert Mandarin Chinese level ( speak / read / write)… speaking Chinese every day since aged two ! Takes gifted UK Civil Servants one to two years intensive study to conduct a basic conversation and read a simple news article correctly in Mandarin. Over 1000 “letters” in simplified alphabet…. Convenient Future World Language it aint…..

Usual backward wrong education policies again……they are not a modern people and never will be in this millenium.

 

 

 

 

 

[JohninDublin]

1 hour ago, huhuarf said:

Hmm, this may help a few schools but I can't see this making a huge dent in the English deficit of the nation.  Also, if it did then it would put downwards pressure on native English speaker teaching salaries.

There are pro's and cons in your post, but the most important one in my opinion is what happened with Japanese teaching of English. For years, English in schools was taught by Japanese who learned it from other Japanese. Clearly you can imagine the problems that might cause in a country that regularly transposes "L and R". Now factor in Japanese travelling abroad were a rarity until about the 1980's, so these teachers rarely had a chance to speak to Native speakers. Thus any "bad habits" that the first teacher had were rarely picked up, and were passed onto the next, who in turn would have their own "bad habits" that they would pass on.

So between 1945 and 2000, you might have three generations of teachers unknowingly, increasingly mangling the language. I am well aware of this problem, because my wife is Japanese. Just after we got married, she wrote to the woman teacher that taught her, and the opening line in her reply was, "Thank you for your love letter".

Round about 2000, Japan realised that they had a problem, and though most schools still have Japanese that teach English, they also have native English teachers who come in to the lessons for a couple of hours a month. This has led to improvements in the standards

[HolyCowCm]

Well the unelected head cheese doesn't even have a level so to speak of. 

[JohninDublin]

49 minutes ago, oldschooler said:

Worked in China and spoke to smart fluent young Chinese English Language Graduate at work. Took her 20 years to attain full expert Mandarin Chinese level ( speak / read / write)… speaking Chinese every day since aged two ! Takes gifted UK Civil Servants one to two years intensive study to conduct a basic conversation and read a simple news article correctly in Mandarin. Over 1000 “letters” in simplified alphabet…. Convenient Future World Language it aint…..

Usual backward wrong education policies again……they are not a modern people and never will be in this millenium.

Regarding the "alphabet", I would salute both Turkey and Vietnam who both dropped their traditional alphabets in favour of the Roman alphabet which is far more widely used. Just occasionally when I am travelling abroad, I see words in the local language that I can recognise the English translations of and if you and the people you might ask for help don't speak English, that can be useful. 

But Japanese has about 1800 symbols in it's three alphabets. I don't know about Thai, but it occurs to me that simplification of alphabets might go someway to improving language skills. 

Incidentally, any Thai speakers here can answer this. I often see a word in Thai that looks like "saunas" in Thai script. If anyone knows what I am talking about, can they translate for me please?

[LoongFred]

3 hours ago, Pinetree said:

Thailand needs to break out of this generationally low education attainment. Parents here are very often not capable of helping and guiding the kids, the teachers\ are manifestly incompetent and culture is holding them back., Teaching Chinese before English is a monumental mistake and a block to progress, first step, allow retired expats to teach here, part time, tax free, that's a massive resource being ignored.  

Even allowing or encouraging native English speakers to volunteer at local government schools would be great. I don't need the money but don't want troublem with immigration. A couple of hours/day would be fine. It would also be a great way to integrate retired falangs into their communities.

 

[Smithydog]

The problem of teaching by "rote" is that as soon as you ask something out of order from what has been drilled in through the method, recall drops significantly. Students often are seen to loose their place when asked.

The use of games can also be helpful. I was talking to my daughter's junior high English teacher one day and she was remarking how hard she was finding the kids remembering basic body parts in English. I taught her simply the "Heads, Shoulder's, Knees and Toes" song and demonstrated how to do it. The students had great recall because it was simply fun.

 

[gummy]

35 minutes ago, Smithydog said:

The problem of teaching by "rote" is that as soon as you ask something out of order from what has been drilled in through the method, recall drops significantly. Students often are seen to loose their place when asked.

The use of games can also be helpful. I was talking to my daughter's junior high English teacher one day and she was remarking how hard she was finding the kids remembering basic body parts in English. I taught her simply the "Heads, Shoulder's, Knees and Toes" song and demonstrated how to do it. The students had great recall because it was simply fun.

Spot on with that @Smithydog, Thai speaking children love it because as you say it's fun.

[Bob20]

58 minutes ago, Smithydog said:

The use of games can also be helpful. I was talking to my daughter's junior high English teacher one day and she was remarking how hard she was finding the kids remembering basic body parts in English. I taught her simply the "Heads, Shoulder's, Knees and Toes" song and demonstrated how to do it. The students had great recall because it was simply fun.

I can see the headlines and photo with policemen pointing at the first foreigner teaching body parts to children already

[PeterD]

The English spelling system is the real underlying issue that no one wants to fix. Everyone must fix something (and it is true that the educational system in Los sucks), but, it is the epitome of hypocrisy to ask others to fix a broken system when yours is broken. Masha Bell's research on 7000 common words revealed that about half are illogically spelled. If the English spelling system were a car with that many faulty parts it ould be recalled. No one would ask the driver to get better training on how to cope with faulty brakes AND turn signals AND windshield wipers ... Seymour (foundation ..., 2003) revealed that learning to read by native-speakers is delayed by about2 years compared to speakers of other languages that have a transparent spelling system like Finnish or Spanish. Fix your house. 250 years of laissez-faire and excuses. Laziness or incompetence? Stupidity? It cannot be done. Right? Too many dialects? No! You haven't figured it out yet. Odd!

[HiuMak]

16 hours ago, Smithydog said:

The problem of teaching by "rote" is that as soon as you ask something out of order from what has been drilled in through the method, recall drops significantly. Students often are seen to loose their place when asked.

The use of games can also be helpful. I was talking to my daughter's junior high English teacher one day and she was remarking how hard she was finding the kids remembering basic body parts in English. I taught her simply the "Heads, Shoulder's, Knees and Toes" song and demonstrated how to do it. The students had great recall because it was simply fun.

The Thailand education ministry should recruit you as a consultant

[HiuMak]

16 hours ago, LoongFred said:

Even allowing or encouraging native English speakers to volunteer at local government schools would be great. I don't need the money but don't want troublem with immigration. A couple of hours/day would be fine. It would also be a great way to integrate retired falangs into their communities.

great suggestion