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Bangkok Post

Comment

It's a matter of pride

Re: "Trying to help a waste of time", (PostBag, Dec 6).

One of the reasons why Thai students are not doing so well in English is because of the bad attitude instilled into them by conservative adults.

Thais take great pride in their language and are proud of the fact that the country has never been colonised by the Europeans. They believe that fluency in English will make the world assume that Thailand had been ruled over by the British.

Older conservatives always emphasise that "English is not our mother's and father's language".

Somsak Pola

Placements needed

Re: "Raising the English bar", (PostBag, Jan 5).

I can share the secret to achieve the successful teaching of English as a Second Language (ESL).

As I approached retirement from the United States Department of State, teaching ESL (in several countries) was a hobby. I had taken several training programmes. My worst experience was a class of about 25 in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic (DR). This was a waste of everyone's time. My best experience was at Northern Virginia Community College (Nova) in the suburbs of Washington DC, which was seen as a success. So, what was the difference and how can that be applied to Thai schools?

In the DR, the government wanted to help tourism by increasing the numbers of English speakers. They assembled four groups of students each with a teacher, regardless of their skill level. Students who could hold a conversation but couldn't read English sat next to students who could not speak a simple sentence. The more advanced students dominated any conversation, but quickly got bored because the beginners required more attention. Nobody learned anything.

This is also what I saw when I taught a semester in a Thai school. No one was learning. When I asked a Thai student a question, her/his face often went blank and s/he turned to find another student to feed her/him the answer. In the Thai school, I learned that the same group of students moved from class to class as a group, while retaining the same (low) ability levels until they go into the work force.

Recently, I spoke to 24 university Masters students about this and, although all had taken English for years, only three or four had any idea what I said. I have always been complimented for being easy to understand.

At Nova, students from all over the world felt the need to learn English to chase the so-called American dream. Maybe their motivation is stronger. But the big difference was that no one was allowed into a class until they took a multi-part placement test of reading, writing, speaking and listening.

For this reason, everyone was in their right class and they were surrounded by people with similar skills. No one was bored and no one felt like the class dummy. Plus, not falling behind your peers to qualify for the next class is a great motivator.

Placement tests are needed to conduct successful language training. Maybe this is beyond the capacity of Thai schools to do, and there is no shame in that, but it is extremely important.

John Kane

Safety a 24/7 issue

Re: "Safe roads not just for holidays", (Editorial, Jan 6).

The 2013 WHO statistics indicated Thailand had 36.2 deaths per 100,000 population. This came out to about 24,237 deaths a year, or 66.14 deaths a day. The seven-day toll of 463 equates to 66.40 deaths a day.

So what's the big deal about the seven dangerous days when statistical evidence indicates that Thai roads actually have 365 dangerous days?

Road safety is a 24/7/365 days a year job. By using these holidays as news, we are ignoring the actual issue.

Flpatbkk