Failing students and the failing ESL industry
Failing young students is simply a poor strategy
Giving students an "F" grade.
Failing young students, especially those in prathom and mathaiyom, is simply a poor strategy. Extensive research has been done in this area and it clearly indicates that there are numerous negative emotional consequences to failing a child and holding them back a grade while their peers move forward. Additionally, there are virtually no academic benefits that result from keeping a child back a grade level. Hayhurst (2007) notes, "Leaders in the education community cite definitive research that shows failing struggling students in elementary school provides no academic advantages; researchers in the 1930s first reported negative effects of retention on achievement. Meanwhile, many studies show an association between retention and dropping out of school." I can go on and on with citations to substantiate the point, but I think you get the picture.
Furthermore, is it really a critical issue that all Thai students develop competency in English language skills? Regardless of the lofty ideals of the MOE's Key Stage and General Stage Curriculum Outcomes, the fact is few Thais will ever really need to have command of English in order to succeed in life. Sure, those who are motivated enough to want to excel in the language, or those who have a God-given talent for language acquisition, may very well end up with better employment or educational opportunities in their lives. But at the end of the day those who do not gain competency in English during their younger years can endeavour to do so later in life once they gain the motivation to do so. The door is never closed on learning.
As educators we must endeavour to nurture all aspects of a child's development. We must focus on their strengths and ensure that they excel in these areas. In areas where they are weak, we must provide educational support mechanisms such as peer grouping and employ teaching strategies such as Piaget's and Vygotsky's "Social Constructivism" which allows for students to gain competency and skills through group learning. Failing students is simply not the answer here.
ESL Industry Failings
Without a doubt the ESL industry around the world is primarily a scam that is governed by unscrupulous business people that rarely have any pedagogical knowledge or academic backgrounds in the field of education. Worse yet, are those with the actual pedagogical training and educational qualifications who choose to employ their expertise for monetary gain without actually delivering the quality education they all-too-often proclaim to offer. Academic pursuits that are not rooted in altruistic values of dedication to student learning are simply immoral and unethical.
Apart from the heinous acts of the so-called language institutes and school administrators that see English as an easy "cash cow," the other side of this industry that is acting completely irresponsible are the pseudo wannabe pretend English teachers that are using this industry as a tool to earn fast and easy money so they can travel the globe. Real educators take upon themselves a huge responsibility when they take a child into their care. Those of you who are in the ESL industry, and the education sector in general, need to ask yourselves one very simple question, "If it were my child that I was sending into a classroom to develop their intellect and knowledge, would I trust and believe that the teacher who is responsible for my child's education has the dedication and competency to actually teach my child effectively?" If you are true to yourself it is all-to-likely that when you look in the mirror you will recognize that you are not competent enough to stand in a classroom. So, DON'T DO IT! You are acting irresponsibly and having a deleterious effect on the development of an innocent child who has been entrusted to you by people who believe that you can educate them.
The ESL industry should not be a tool for people to travel the globe and make money to support their wanderlust. Find another way to support your travels and leave the development of a child's education to people who are qualified educators and dedicated to the child's learning.
The ESL industry is long overdue for some governance and legislation that will protect the education of innocent children. Perhaps part of the reason why students fail at language acquisition is that the classrooms are full of hacks that have no idea how to actually teach language. And for this there are those out there who proclaim that students should be held back a year for not achieving the KSCO of that academic year. Ridiculous! The onus is on the teachers to deliver a quality education and set up strategies to ensure that the weaker students are provided with the support and tools they need to succeed. Grow up people. If you want to teach English, then be an educator. If not, get the hell out of the classroom and stop blaming students, bad school administrators, and scamming language institute business people for all the failings of students. At the end of the day it is you, the teacher-mentor-educator, that has within your hands the capability to change the lives of your students. Regardless of all the external forces outside of the classroom, if you are truly a dedicated educator that cares about your students, you will succeed in helping them to learn.
D.Burke
Comments
Points to consider.
There is no ESL in Thailand, there is only EFL. If you don’t know the difference then you are not ‘qualified’ to teach in a classroom in Thailand.
On the point of qualifications can somebody tell me why I would require a ‘qualified’ or ‘certified’ teacher from a NES country?
My point is that in a NES country I wouldn’t employ a math teacher to teach chemistry. I wouldn’t employ an English teacher to teach I.T. and I wouldn’t employ a French or Spanish teacher to teach sports. For some strange reason though, we get the myth thrown around that a ‘qualified’ or ‘certified’ teacher of any discipline in a NES country is perfect for teaching English to Thai students.
Why? Even a ‘qualified’ English teacher from England is not actually qualified to teach English to Thai students in Thailand. English is taught as a foreign language in Thailand, not a native language.
(This is why there is no ESL in Thailand. ESL exists only in native English speaking environments and Thailand is not one of these.)
So the real and only qualifications for teaching English in Thailand are TEFL, TESOL, CELTA / DELTA, S.I.T. qualifications and preferably a Master’s in TESOL.
The degree requirement in Thailand is purely for administrative purposes dreamed up by the Thai authorities. It has no bearing on the ability of the individual to teach English as a foreign language.
My old English teacher back home, though a wonderful teacher and a fine gentleman, could not have taught Thai students because he’s not a foreign language teacher. His qualifications were aimed at teaching English in his own country to native English speakers, not as a foreign language and not to students of other cultures.
So any ideas that D. Burke has do not apply readily to Thai students, particularly the outdated and non-scientific work of Piaget from the 1950s.
For the record, these are the only English qualifications for teaching English to English learners that are not native English speakers. CELTA, DELTA, S.I.T. or a Master’s in TESOL. Anything else is a lower standard of TESOL qualification or completely irrelevant to teaching English in Thailand or any other non-English speaking country.
The question of ‘failing students’ is laughable. Standards are set by setting exams, tests and coursework to be completed fairly by the students in any educational establishment. The students achieve grades in each of these as they complete them. Therefore the students’ motivation, commitment and ability determines what is achieved by the students. They fail or they succeed. If most of the class score high grades but ten per cent achieve low grades then who is responsible for those low grades? It is quite clear that the student is responsible for their low achievement. If the majority of the class achieve low grades then surely the teaching methodology would and should be questioned to find out why. The idea that a teacher just decides to fail a student or maybe I’ll give him a pass or maybe something else reflects a system that was wrong to begin with. Set the standards, make the students aware of what is expected of them and let them take responsibility for their actions while the school monitors the teachers’ methods.
We know that grades are massaged in Thailand in an upwards direction. It’s called cheating. It allows students to absolve themselves of responsibility year after year and make failure and cheating a part of their school lives. Is it any wonder that so much corruption and failure to take responsibility exists in Thailand generally with a school system that promotes these negative points?
One suspects D. Burke may be exorcising the ghosts of his or her own low self esteem at school with these selectively used pieces of research, if you call Piaget’s work research of course. Most people know that he started something and that is all. The real research followed Piaget’s lazy evenings with his children.
Thailand will muddle through, applying its unique logic and culture to education as it corrupts the young so that they don’t really see the political corruption as something to be ashamed of. They don’t fail students here anyway, as we know. They save face and pass them on to the next level and everyone is happy, no low self esteem and little achievement too. Fortunately there is a small minority who work their tail off and succeed. They speak Thai with a Chinese accent.
By Don Maccy, Bangkok on 2011-11-13
The author has obviously taught in Thailand, and has some idea of the problems teachers face. I think his article is pretty good - however, I think that the subject is one of ‘graduation’. Failing students at the end of the year so that they must go back and do it again is obviously a bad idea.
Students should simply be given a grade from A to F - all being passing grades whether it equates to 10 or 90 percent. This is the crux of the issue.
I teach children to read, and the course does include spelling tests. I mark them creatively - students who write words like ‘kat’ or ‘shair’ instead of Cat and Chair will gain a point for correctly attempting to spell a word they cannot spell - and double points for hitting the correct spelling. Sometimes they score 4 in a practice test and 2 in the real test - I don’t need to tell them they ‘failed’ and I simply tell them about ways I would try to improve my skill if I were them.
Failure is a stupid idea. Students gain very very bad attitudes from their environment. The problem is that the writer is looking for ‘legislation’. This is a stupid idea - legislation in this country? Thailand is already famous for making it harder and harder for anyone to do even the most legitimate business here - and is simply making life difficult for educators or institutes to choose the best teachers.
Legislation should relax and the blame should be placed on Schools instead of the individual teachers. Bad teachers only survive in bad schools - take a good look at some of the largest schools here, with their compliment of a hundred or so farang teachers all holed up on school provided accommodation, drinking themselves stupid every night and learning very quickly that the whole ‘school’ thing is a scam - lots of show and no substance.
No, legislation won’t help. Legislators have already been bought by these schools, and it’s the rest of us that would suffer. I say leave them to it, and relax rules for work permits so that ALL good teachers can get one - then all the morons with degrees will be on an even footing and might have to learn to teach well, or quit.
By Ben, Bangkok on 2011-04-27
I believe the writer has never taught in Thailand, or at least in a position other than an international school. If he had he would know that Thai teachers do not engage in sanook activities and the students work in these classes and are attentive. It is only the foreign teachers who are expected to be entertainers in the classroom. Entertaining, acting, playing, etc to get the attention of the student is a part of being a teacher, but it should not be the focus of education. The Thai student will grow to perceive the teacher as a joke and not respect the teacher as he or she does the Thai teacher who is not the clown.
With respect to not failing students, social promotions failed in the US and the policy has certainly failed here. The justification in the US for social promotions was to prevent damage to the student’s self-esteem. The whole concept of self-esteem is slippery and hardly justification for graduationg students who cannot read or write, unless they are special education students. If a student is failing perhaps there should be educational interventions such as assessment to determine if there is a mental or perceptual deficit, special education programs for those needing them, or pulling students out of class for one-on-one instruction. There should also be set objectives for the learners.
Everything I have mentioned is absent in Thailand; except at the elite international schools where parents pay dearly for these services. Every era has a new educational philosophy and I expect that the youth of the writer fuels his moral indignation regarding the lack of fellow teachers following his pet educational approach. Regarding TEFL, in my opinion it is a joke. Hiring teachers who are certified in their respective countries should be the path to follow in Thailand. This would at least guarantee some standard of baseline knowledge and dedication to the profession through years of college level coursework. Finally, teachers need not follow the same method to be succesful. Creative thinking and critical thinking skills are things we should nurture in children and certainly allow teachers to develop as well.
By Mark, Bangkok on 2011-04-27
In resposne to Mr Burke’s insightful comments into the ineptide of language school teachers (which he no doubt does not count himself) I would point out that private language schools are driven by demands of the marketplace in which they exist. There is no getting around that fact. If people do not get what they want from a language school they will not continue to buy its services. The fact is that in most situations in Thailand it doesn’t really matter if you are good teacher or not. People want sanook. They do not want a teacher that is “too serious.“
Prior to coming to Thailand I was a Peace Coprs teacher in Africa. I also gained a teaching credential in California and have worked in schools at home. I have experience teaching in language schools here and Korea. Yes there are a lot of teachers who dont care about the education of their students everywhere. I have been a student in classes and and have worked alongside more than one teacher at home whose primary objective was to get the hell out of the classroom and into an administration job so they can spend the workday honing their skills on some moronic computer game.
That is one reason why I left teaching at home. The system is broken. The United States spends 10,000 dollars per student and well over half the people gratduating high school dont know that The US gained its indepedence from Great Britian. A system like that is full of *&^%$ ups. (credentialed &^%$ ups but *&^% all the same) A reasonable fix to the problem at home would have been the Bush administaration’s idea of vouchers which would give parents 10,000 dollars to send their children to private schools if they so chose. The schools that performed would survive and profit those that did not would fail and go out of business. I think in America generally people go to school or send their kids to learn and this is a plausible model for education reform at home. I am not so sure that the same values exist here in Thailand - at least in the language school sector.
There are good teachers here, even those that are financing their travels through teaching. I agree that kids dont learn enough English in classes here in language schools. Often times that is the fault of the teachers and the schools. Some people send their kids or go to class themselves and get ripped off. More often though the school is just providing the service that their customers expect.
I personally don’t think McDonalds is to blame for obesity in America. Each individual makes their choice. McDonalds and other such enities are only responding to demand.(In fact Mcdonalds lost millions into their failed “Mclean” burger becuse it just didn’t sell. Try opening a language school in Thailand and naming it “Serious English” ) I doubt if Mr Burke had his money down on a language school and was forced to chose between a “serious” highly qualified teacher who was unpoular and didnt keep his students or a underqualified clown who the students loved I would bet he would choose the latter.
By Lee Lepper, nonthanburi on 2011-04-11
Despite the conversation here, whilst delving into the jobs market here I find that most of these comments are pretty irrelevant.
Qualifications and paperwork are required mostly for superficial purposes. In the past I’ve witnessed many school owners and parents alike stating that more than half of their best teachers actually have no relevant formal qualifications - they are adequately educated, and have talent.
Good schools will provide well planned material for teachers to work with. They will call in teachers to do test teaching and judge them on their performance on the floor, the way they interact with the children and engage them in lessons… However, the reality is that appearances are of much more importance than education. Teachers should be aged between 25 and 35 and be dressed like professional businessmen (the clothes that teachers wear in Western countries is not acceptable).They must have a full set of qualifications (take a look - schools paying 15,000 per month are requiring a Bachelors in Childhood Education - it’s laughable!).
Even now, possession of a Master degree guarantees a higher salary - yet I have yet to meet a teacher with a Master degree who can do more than barely survive in the classroom - I didn’t meet many, but they all earned more and had virtually no talent whatsoever.
Actually, it would be better to talk about ‘good teachers’ than to use loaded phrases like ‘professional teachers’ - because the word ‘professional’ implies that qualifications are a very important aspect - and from experience I believe that this only really applies to higher levels (perhaps with students aged from 13 upwards) when teaching specialised subject material.
Having previously taught Science to Prathom levels, I can say honestly that you spend more than 90% of your time teaching the students simply to read, learn and spell vocabulary for material that they pick up extremely easily - and this requires only for them to bring a dictionary, no specialist knowledge on the teacher’s behalf.
By Ben, Bangkok on 2011-04-10