Thai teachers and English-language teaching
In recent years many schools in Thailand have started to hire native English speakers and English-speaking foreigners to teach English. But foreign teachers numbering in the thousands are only a small number. Most schools still rely on Thai teachers, most of whom unqualified, to do the job. Many don’t speak the language well enough, or have sufficient English knowledge and instruction skills to guide students in their learning.
A survey carried out in February 2006 in collaboration with the University of Cambridge to gauge the qualification of some 400 Thai teachers of English revealed staggering problems.
Over 60% of the teachers had insufficient knowledge of English and teaching methodology; what they had was below the syllabus level they were teaching.
Of the 40% that had passing knowledge and teaching skills, only 3% had a reasonable fluency in English whereas 80% were not teaching the right grade of students for which there were qualified or competent.
Some were teaching the level of English inappropriate for the students’ age groups. For example, they were trying to teach English for 15-17 year olds to 11 year olds.
There were huge disparities in English proficiency among teachers and students across schools. For example, in a group of over 40 schools representing nearly 80,000 students in primary and secondary education, some primary school pupils in some schools scored higher in some random tests than the teachers in other schools!