Topic: Are Thai tefl courses getting hit?

[Geekboy]

A genuine concern of anyone who has taken a TEFL Course from the myriad of providers in Thailand has got to be, will the course provider be around in a year or two? From the rumblings I am hearing, one major program is trying to diversify and another major provider is scrambling for students as it swings to unprofitably.

Has the bottom fell out of the Thai tefl course industry? What about the lies perpetrated by some of the providers?

[maichai]

There's no doubt about it.  They have been hit hard and will continue to be hit hard until things settle down and who knows when that will be?  Couple that with all the negative information flowing out of Thailand about new regulations and changes regarding visas, teacher licenses, degrees, transcripts, background checks, etc., many once prospective customers for these courses in Thailand are turning elsewhere in their job and training searches. 

Who wouldn't?

[anyonefortennis]

a lot of the providers have been running courses with just the bear minimum 3 people on for a while now, not surprising as a quick search on google shows just how soggy the tefl course providers market is in Thailand, and of course the ever growing list of 'on-line' courses.

I for one don't think it will be a bad thing for the providers of shitty courses to any Tom, Dick or Harry to close their doors, my gripe for a long time has been that anyone with the 30k baht can walk in and sign up, regardless of what maybe lurking in their closet.

I was interested to see that Stamford provide a TEFL course for Filipino's at half the price farang pay, does it mean that they teach half the content? they use less qualified trainers? Or is it because they can take a larger slice of the cake when they put the teachers into schools and pay them half the salary, so are happy to take a loss on the course?

[Mods-Rockers]

What might be a nice idea would be for the MOE to get its shit in one sock and define what it finds acceptable by way of TEFL courses, we all know that there are some dodgy providers out there including one of the HOS schools. These cowboy shops do little in the way of training prospective eachers and are thus little more than money shops. Yes I know that regulation would put many of these guys out of business, but it would also save many teachers some hard earned cash in the long run.

As people who call ourselves teachers we must accept that there is a need for regulation and standards, but then the employers must also accept that with these standards then it also falls on them to pay a decent rate for teachers who meet the standards.

Of course there is a risk in all this, the powers that be may well push another language instead of English as the needed second language in Thailand, can anyone teach mandarin?

[Mods-Rockers]

Yes, I apologise it was a pipedream.

Putting a 100 years timeframe on any prediction is a great way of never having to say your were wrong, though I suspect that you are far of the ,ark with your prediction about the Thai language, although it is difficult to ascertain if you are stating it will die or not! The language of the Apache native americans is far from dead, though I grant you its on shaky ground and thats a language wherein the non indigineous americans used such tactics as genocide in trying to eradicate it. I cannot think of any language that has died out in the last 500 years where the native speakers had a viable (in terms of numbers) population.

Chinese? a little vague. lets look at mandarin! Whilst certainly not as strong as English there is a wealth of research showing that mandarin and spanish as fast catching up and certainly English is losing its market share. Lets not forget that English as a global language became predominant simple because the great trading nations forced it down the throats of the fuzzy wuzzies "If you want to do trade with us, then learn our language!" Well Native mandarin speaking countries are fast becoming the great trading nations. England is merely a nations of shopkeepers ad shoppers and certainly does not produce much that is wanted by anyone else! America whilst it has a technalogical advantage is fast losing the trade war alongside its more conventional wars. Excatly how long has Englund got as a major language? oh I know it will not happen in my or my childrens lifetime, but I would say that your prediction vis-a-vis the Thai language could also hold for English!!!!

[Mods-Rockers]

OFF-TOPIC ALERT! Mods, feel free to relocate

Well I disagree about being off topic when we are discussing language, so personally I wont mod it, anyway I never mod threads I am active in, its far too much like abuse of power, and I have not been in Thailand long enough to have learned that skill!!

Today it is different, it isnt so much the need for communications to trade, it is the need for communications for... well, to communicate, which is important. Today and for tomorrow, the commodity isn't spice or textiles, or even opium, but knowledge, though of course the Thais have little apparent need for that.

I disagree here! Thais have an insatiable hunger for knowledge, they cannot create any homegrown knowledge so need what they find on the net as a source for plagiarism!!
But as an aside here, we, westerners and English speaking westerners think of the data held on the net as being predominantly English. The dynamic nature of this data is such that its difficult to quantify with anything like a degree of accuracy, but I have seen estimates that as much as 60% may well be in languages other than English. Of course, if you really want to be a pedant about the data then its all, every single bit of it in one language only and that’s binary but try reading one of Shakespeare’s sonnets written in binary and it gives you a major brain ache!!

Moving right along...

A recent prediction by the British Council, is that by 2015, English will be the first language for 50% of the worlds population. The British Council does have a vested interest of course, but I assume the research is still objective; intellectual or academic fraud is frowned upon over there, unlike here. 

Any chance of a link to this? I have seen similar statements but stating English as a second not a first language.

FWIW, I fear good ole USA is now going into a long term decline, economically certainly, but also in terms of their influence in the world. They will struggle of course and I very much fear that the incumbent President is going to do something daft in Iran (either himself or using a proxy such as Israel). If this is the case, we may yet all be thankful to be living in this little backwater, nicely removed from the killing fields, however scornful we (I) may be of the obvious shortcomings of the Thais. The aforementioned incumbent is imho a fully fledged, firing-on-all-twelve, 5-star, 24ct, 100% proof maniac.

Ok here we may be drifting a little off topic 
There are many who would say that the bushman of texas and the country he leads is the proxy if Israel and not the way you state! We shall see. Feeling safe in SE Asia is possibly a sign of ostrich syndrome. Remember that another axis of terror country is North Korea! And they are a lot further down the road to being a fully fledged nuclear power than Iran, Hell we are surrounded by nuclear powers here. India and Pakistan for instance. The worrying thing is that for MAD to work we need leaders who are not MAD.

[Krungsri]

At the risk of being thoroughly tiresome and because I'm interested but lazy, can I just paste the comments below as a contribution?  They are from a short article I wrote a couple of years ago in a newspaper supplement here.  Hope they are of some interest.
Krungsri

Languages on the Net
With regard to the use of different languages on the world wide web, it is interesting to note that in 2004 there were 7 million people in Thailand accessing the internet and other online facilities.  Of this 7 million, 4.9 million were doing so in Thai.  This means that 2.1 million internet users in Thailand were using a language other than Thai for connection with the world wide web.  In other words, 30% of internet usage in Thailand is by means of a non-Thai language.  One would assume (but without the data) that most of this 30% is in English.  Clearly, for a high proportion of Thailand-located web users, English is the most convenient language.  You might like to look at http://global-reach.biz/globstats/refs.php3#26 for more detail about languages on the net.  Incidentally, 68.4% of web content is in English.  The next most represented languages are Japanese with 5.9% and German with 5.8%.

English in Decline?
The internet data would suggest that English is unassailable as the language of international communication, something with which this writer would agree.  However, my attention was drawn recently to an article on the National Geographic website: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0226_040226_language.html advising that the status of English may be about to peak and then decline.

Reading beyond the headlines, however, it is clear that this decline is only relative, in terms of the total native-speaker population (340 million) and its proportion of the world’s population.  Whereas 9% of the world spoke English as their mother tongue 50 years ago, the figure is now only about 5%.  Mandarin Chinese is well established as the world’s largest language in terms of native speakers.  However, the number of speakers of Mandarin as a second language (200 million) is only 40% that of English as a second language (515 million) and 90% of Mandarin second language speakers are in China.  It’s also worth noting that, in China, about 250 million people are learning English.  By comparison, there are only 20 million students of Mandarin as a second language throughout the entire world, of which 75% are in Asia.  The world is becoming increasingly bilingual, and easily the most popular and influential second language is and will most likely continue to be English.

Speaking of influence, another study reported on the same website, has found that the position of English as the language of Science is strengthening.  At present, 90% of journal literature in some scientific fields is in English and there is no sign of the influence of English diminishing in the scientific world. 

Indeed, though its native-speaker population may be in relative decline, this fact needs to be balanced by the growth in numbers of second language speakers of English whose ability is at or close to native speaker levels.  More and more second language speakers throughout the world now have high levels of competence in English.  These people will pass on their enthusiasm for the language to their children and this phenomenon is not going to decline. 

[Smeg]

Take a look at how much time kenkannif, text and talk's salesman, is spending on the forums lately. Its my guess that the boss has him back teaching and can no longer afford to pay him to play on forums for most of the working day.

[Smeg]

And have they pulled their Bangkok Post ad? It looks like they can't afford it anymore