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Parental attitudes often have a big impact on the language proficiency of Thai students in international schools. These year-four students read their native language fluently, thanks partly to the tutoring they get at home. |
Students of Thai origin are required to take five sessions a week of language and culture while non-Thai is must have a single weekly session. The regulation applies to students in grade one up to grade nine. So far, international schools have been left largely on their own in determining what type of curriculum to develop.
 Dr Paul Beresford-Hill |
For the most part, the new requirement has been very well received amongst the schools, particularly the requirement concerning Thai nationals. Says Bangkok Patana headmaster, Dr Paul Beresford-Hill, "I think we’d be failing in our mission if we produced a hybrid who had no connection to Thai culture, who had very very little reading or writing ability in Thai and who was maybe going on to an American or British university, but who ultimately would be coming back and in many ways would be at a disadvantage."
Dr Beresford-Hill’s school, in fact, has become one of the acknowledged leaders in implementing a Thai studies programme. Recently the Learning Post paid a visit to see how it works.
The sky is the limit
 Dr Sarinthorn Wittayasirinan |
The task of developing Bangkok Patana’s Thai curriculum has fallen largely to school headmistress Dr Sarinthorn Wittayasirinan who came to the school three years ago from Chulalongkorn University. It is a complex job, but obviously one which she relishes.
With a staff of nine permanent teachers and 14 part-timers, Dr Sarinthorn has opted for a flexible curriculum that can accommodate students at almost any level of Thai language proficiency. Students can go as far as their interests and abilities dictate.
At the upper end in years 12 and 13, for example, qualified students can choose the International Baccalaureate (IB) first-language Thai, a rigorous literature-based course that would challenge students at the best schools in the Thai national system.
Over the two-year course, based closely on the IB higher level English course, students read and analyse over 15 texts – a mix of Thai novels, poems, plays and short stories as well as translated classics from world literature. Among the Thai novels students read are Si Phaendin, Khun Chang Khun Phaen and Songkram Chivit. Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Camus’ The Outsider.
IB-first language is an optional course and at present it is very much a niche course for the most proficient and highly motivated students. Currently only four students are enrolled. Dr Sarinthorn hopes, however, that as the rest of the Thai programme develops, enrollment will increase dramatically.
British national curriculum
Bangkok Patana follows the British national curriculum from year two (the equivalent of Prathom one or first grade in the American system) through year eleven. Dr Sarinthorn has been working hard to develop the Thai curriculum to be as compatible as possible with that system.
Interestingly, Thai students in years ten and eleven are actually able to take a Cambridge University-designed and fully accredited Thai course. Like other ICGSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) courses, the course is externally examined by the Cambridge examination board.
Much of the curriculum in the earlier years is designed to bring the Thai students up to the level of that ICGSE course. It is a gradual process which is likely to take a number of years to complete.
At present, Thai courses are compulsory only from years two through five. That will expand from year to year as the present batch of children move up through the system.
According to Dr Sarinthorn, there is often a problem fitting Thai into Bangkok Patana’s tightly fitting programme. Many of the students end up taking their language lessons outside of normal teaching hours in the afternoon.
One way around this, says Dr Sarinthorn, is to give children the option of taking Thai as a modern foreign language. In the British system, students begin taking a second language in year five, "so we give Thai parents the option of having their children take Thai as a modern foreign language. Or, if they prefer, they can have their children learn Thai in the afternoon and take another language like French or Japanese," Dr Sarinthorn explains.
Challenging environment
 The Thai language is compulsory in Bangkok Patana school for Thai students through to year 11. |
In some respects Bangkok Pattana school has a very challenging environment for setting up a Thai studies curriculum for Thai students. It is one of the most cosmopolitan of international schools with Thai nationals only accounting for a relatively small percentage – less than twenty percent. English is the language of the campus and for many Thai students, it is also the predominant language at home.
If you visit the afternoon programme, for example, you will see classes at dramatically different levels for the same age group. In one room, you will see year four students who are much more comfortable in English than in Thai and the Thai they speak is heavily accented. In the next room, the students are fluent and they are reading texts at nearly the same level as Thai students in the national system.
According to Dr Sarinthorn, there are two reasons for the vast differences in ability. The first stems from the home environment. "Usually the higher groups have private tutoring at home," she says. "This is even the case now when we have school-based learning. The parents are concerned about Thai literacy, so they provide home tutoring along with the school instruction."
Secondly, many of the year four students are relatively new to Thai class. "We started to make it compulsory this year," she explains. "There are plenty of students who have never taken Thai lessons before either at school or at home. That’s why we have lots of students who are very low in Thai literacy."
"If you want to see how far the children can go, you have to look at the year two because this is the group where we have started with compulsory classes," she says.
Growing popularity
 The subject of the day for these non-Thai students is the white elephant. |
Dr Sarinthorn says she has been gratified by the growing support for the Thai programme from Thai parents. "I have been the Thai headmistress for two years," she says, "and I have seen a lot of change. I have seen a different attitude from the parents.
"Some have even come to me and said that they are happier with the programme than in the past because now we have something that is structured and they can see it in a concrete way.
"But Thai parents can also be demanding," she says. "I can say we have one of the best programmes, but the parents don’t look at that. Parents compare us with the foreign teachers here. "We are not compared to Thai teachers, so I’ve got lots of complaints that our teachers cannot control the class as well as the foreign teachers do. It’s very hard to get them to realise, it’s not that easy. But I’m optimistic," she says. "I believe it’s going to be better."
Indeed, enrollments have been steadily increasing. One year seven class for example, began the year with four students and by the third term that had increased to 14.
Here she says, the rest of the school has been very supportive. "We never say no to Thai students when they want to move to a Thai class. One thing that I’m very proud of is that our academic staff here, they are very supportive.
"Like when students want to change from French or Mandarin, if they are not supportive, they might say ‘no you cannot it’s in the middle of the year’. But they never say no because they understand that Thai is important for Thai students. All the administrative people too are very supportive, she says.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |
