It took me a while to get to this topic and to read thru it and, it's been a while since anyone posted on this topic. I want to post because I taught English in Korea for just less than 2 years, in the MOE progam, EPIK (English Program in Korea) and for the past 8 years I have been teaching English in Thailand, six of those years at a private bilingual school, which is one of the 16 schools the Chinese-Thai family of owners has created over the past 40 years. Further, I left Korea after having spent two weeks vacation time here in Thailand during the January school break in Korea. I taught in Korea some time ago: 1996-98, so I cannot necessarily speak to the present in Korea, altho I still have Korean friends in Korea in education with whom I email. It seems that not much has changed in education in Korea since my experience there.
Mods-Rocker precisely sums up the situation at private schools here in Thailand. Young Somchai is the typical student at a private school in Thailand and his parents no doubt are the typical parents of such kids here in Thailand. However, a private school here limits class size to 35 or so students, whereas the "public" (government) schools in Korea and Thailand have 55 students crammed into a classroom. The Hokwans you refer to in Korea are much like the private schools in Thailand. For example, the private school where I taught reqired the foreign and Thai teachers to buy our own wyteboard markers. (The school's owners liked to say they are "frugal," but they misspell the word, as the actual spelling of the word is "c-h-e-a-p." Profits, profits, profits, period.
Further, as to government schools in Thailand, they generally are not the place to be. There's an excellent government school near me but it's the rare exception; it's wanted to hire a native speaker of English for several years but just can't get anywhere near the money required. The Thai teachers of English there are excellent, so that somewhat compensates for the school's inability to get money from the government to hire a native English speaker.
Korean learners are serious about their education. Thai learners would play and talk in class each minute of the school year and not ever have the thought ocurr to them that they might be missing something, ie, an education.
"Public" education in Korea goes thru Grade 12. In Thailand, it's Grade 8 officially but it's more Grade 6. Thais in Thai society are literate and numerate, but only minimally. Koreans are much better educated but have a more difficult time learning English than do Thais, both student-aged students and adults. There is a real interest in Thailand in learning English, whereas in Korea, even tho the ROK Government has native speakers in the government schools, Koreans aren't much interested in studying or learning English. As you know, the structure of Korean grammar, ie, subject, object, verb, presents a mind-boggling problem to Koreans in learning English (subject-verb-object). Moreover, Korean students don't see the native teacher long enuf (once a week) to learn any English or to have any reason or motivation to try to remember last week's lesson. Never once in Korea did I find a taxi driver who knew a word of English, whereas here a number of taxi drivers can converse in English or know enuff English to have a broken conversation in English. The education system in Korea is professional, whereas in Thailand educators (and Thais in every other profession) don't know the word. Owners of private schools know the word but bury it in the backyard, never allowing it to see the light of day.
Thai learners are fun, warm and lovable people but often madening to try to teach. Korean learners are learners, period. Korean society is far more and better organized than is Thai society, a situation which presents itself in the classrooms of each country, respectively. Korea some years ago make the breakthru to becoming a developed country, whereas in Thailand, the wealthy and ruling elites don't want an educated or socio-economically developed population as that would mean the rich and powerful elites would have to share the wealth of the country with the population in general. A recent minister of education refered to the student-centered classroom as "buffalo learning," which in the US would be akin to using the word "turkey" in negatively describing sthg or someone.
Hence, while there are some good people at the MOE here and some good propriatary schools, it's a big gamble to leave a good position at a good school in a developed country to relocate to a place that, while it is a tropical paradise and has warm and wonderful people, nonetheless is also full of 3rd World (read:desperate for money) swindlers, cheats, liars, frauds and thieves....in education as in every institution of the society. Still, this is my 8th consecutive year teaching and living in Thailand. If what I say about Thailand, Thai people and the fact that this is my 8th consecutive year in Thailand seem contradictory, there's a good word that describes the situation: "paradox."
Topic: Teaching at public / private high schools in Thailand? (Read 2112 times)