Students of English in for 'fly lice' all year?
Published: 21/01/2012 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
'I'm not comfortable speaking English. I don't speak English in my daily life, so outside of the classroom it makes me feel uncomfortable to speak it."
That was the response of a young student when questioned earlier this week by Bangkok Post reporters about the government's "The English Speaking Year 2012" project.
No doubt that sentiment is shared by a majority of Thai students who are now being encouraged to improve their skills in the "world's language".
Thais have never had a big problem learning English, we remember everything you tell us to write down and memorise. We just don't know how to put that knowledge into practice.
But now under the government's ambitious new plan, schools around the country are expected to focus on speaking English one day a week, throughout the school day.
Now, just to be clear, Thai will still be used when teaching subjects such as math and science. However, personal interactions will be expected to take place in English, and there will be an emphasis on actually teaching the language in all schools.
Through this policy all Thais will become proficient enough in English to make our workforce competitive enough to compete in all Asean markets, while at the same time making Thailand a more attractive place for foreign investors to do business.
Except, it's never going to work.
English is never going to become an official or even unofficial second language for Thailand. At least not until we take things more seriously than just coming up with a catchy name and telling teachers to fix all our problems.
For starters, there are no clear guidelines or goals to "The English Speaking Year 2012" project. Schools are only being encouraged to teach English; currently they can teach whenever they choose, for however long they want and there is no fixed syllabus across the education system.
If we looker deeper into the situation, many schools do not have the human resources to teach English to their students. We could be doing more harm than good by having unqualified teachers push poor English skills on our kids.
No doubt many of the teachers that do have English skills will employ the traditional Thai method of rote learning and focus on grammar rules and other things that most native English speakers have no clue about.
These problems, however, are all relatively minor issues. Teachers can be retrained to teach more effectively and nationwide standards can be set to ensure control over the quality of learning that children receive.
Unfortunately, what cannot be changed is the fact that this kind of scheme has failed before.
There are a number of countries that have embarked on similar endeavours. The problems they faced in improving English standards mirror that of Thailand's and show that without a new method of thinking, we are doomed to fail.
For example, this year Malaysia will abolish their PPSMI project. In place since 2003, the policy was designed to force schools to teach certain subjects in English rather than Malay. The reason behind the reversal was cited as being because for many children, English is not their mother tongue and therefore they could not keep up and their overall learning suffered as a result.
Even in Hong Kong, English language learning is under much debate. English is still considered an advantage in both education and business; however, the Hong Kong Education Commission only permits 30% of all schools to teach it. The remaining 70% are excluded from teaching English because their teachers are under-qualified.
Furthermore, according to facts on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region website, only 3.2% of the population is fluent in English. Surprising, considering that English is still an official language in the former British colony. Could this mean that teaching English in classrooms does not mean an English-speaking population?
Other countries are also still finding their way around the conundrum of making their populations a more homogenised mass of English-speaking people. Namibia, Vietnam and even aboriginal areas of Australia's Northern Territories have all pushed for English learning recently and all have hit the same roadblocks.
Teaching English in schools is a nice first step, but without the greater outside implementation, we are just going to be stuck at "yes", "no" and "hello" for a very long time.
To make 2012 a truly English-speaking year, the government needs to think beyond the classroom. Give English a greater presence in places that aren't associated with boring classrooms.
We should be encouraging English speaking at home, providing free English classes for families, offering more incentives for students that excel in English, producing more English-language entertainment on terrestrial TV. More of the same classroom antics are not going produce the kind of results the government wants.
It may sound overly ambitious to expect the government to fund "fringe" English learning, as there will be no direct or immediate returns. But following a model that we know will fail seems even more ludicrous.
Forget the slogans, the tests and the designated English time - it doesn't work. Invest in some new techniques and maybe then the government can have the competitive workforce that it's always wanted.
Arglit Boonyai is Multimedia Editor, Bangkok Post.
Students of English in for 'fly lice' all year?
Published: 21/01/2012 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
'I'm not comfortable speaking English. I don't speak English in my daily life, so outside of the classroom it makes me feel uncomfortable to speak it."
That was the response of a young student when questioned earlier this week by Bangkok Post reporters about the government's "The English Speaking Year 2012" project.
No doubt that sentiment is shared by a majority of Thai students who are now being encouraged to improve their skills in the "world's language".
Thais have never had a big problem learning English, we remember everything you tell us to write down and memorise. We just don't know how to put that knowledge into practice.
But now under the government's ambitious new plan, schools around the country are expected to focus on speaking English one day a week, throughout the school day.
Now, just to be clear, Thai will still be used when teaching subjects such as math and science. However, personal interactions will be expected to take place in English, and there will be an emphasis on actually teaching the language in all schools.
Through this policy all Thais will become proficient enough in English to make our workforce competitive enough to compete in all Asean markets, while at the same time making Thailand a more attractive place for foreign investors to do business.
Except, it's never going to work.
English is never going to become an official or even unofficial second language for Thailand. At least not until we take things more seriously than just coming up with a catchy name and telling teachers to fix all our problems.
For starters, there are no clear guidelines or goals to "The English Speaking Year 2012" project. Schools are only being encouraged to teach English; currently they can teach whenever they choose, for however long they want and there is no fixed syllabus across the education system.
If we looker deeper into the situation, many schools do not have the human resources to teach English to their students. We could be doing more harm than good by having unqualified teachers push poor English skills on our kids.
No doubt many of the teachers that do have English skills will employ the traditional Thai method of rote learning and focus on grammar rules and other things that most native English speakers have no clue about.
These problems, however, are all relatively minor issues. Teachers can be retrained to teach more effectively and nationwide standards can be set to ensure control over the quality of learning that children receive.
Unfortunately, what cannot be changed is the fact that this kind of scheme has failed before.
There are a number of countries that have embarked on similar endeavours. The problems they faced in improving English standards mirror that of Thailand's and show that without a new method of thinking, we are doomed to fail.
For example, this year Malaysia will abolish their PPSMI project. In place since 2003, the policy was designed to force schools to teach certain subjects in English rather than Malay. The reason behind the reversal was cited as being because for many children, English is not their mother tongue and therefore they could not keep up and their overall learning suffered as a result.
Even in Hong Kong, English language learning is under much debate. English is still considered an advantage in both education and business; however, the Hong Kong Education Commission only permits 30% of all schools to teach it. The remaining 70% are excluded from teaching English because their teachers are under-qualified.
Furthermore, according to facts on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region website, only 3.2% of the population is fluent in English. Surprising, considering that English is still an official language in the former British colony. Could this mean that teaching English in classrooms does not mean an English-speaking population?
Other countries are also still finding their way around the conundrum of making their populations a more homogenised mass of English-speaking people. Namibia, Vietnam and even aboriginal areas of Australia's Northern Territories have all pushed for English learning recently and all have hit the same roadblocks.
Teaching English in schools is a nice first step, but without the greater outside implementation, we are just going to be stuck at "yes", "no" and "hello" for a very long time.
To make 2012 a truly English-speaking year, the government needs to think beyond the classroom. Give English a greater presence in places that aren't associated with boring classrooms.
We should be encouraging English speaking at home, providing free English classes for families, offering more incentives for students that excel in English, producing more English-language entertainment on terrestrial TV. More of the same classroom antics are not going produce the kind of results the government wants.
It may sound overly ambitious to expect the government to fund "fringe" English learning, as there will be no direct or immediate returns. But following a model that we know will fail seems even more ludicrous.
Forget the slogans, the tests and the designated English time - it doesn't work. Invest in some new techniques and maybe then the government can have the competitive workforce that it's always wanted.
Arglit Boonyai is Multimedia Editor, Bangkok Post.
การแปล กรุณารอสักครู่..