Points make prizes

The month’s winning house. Speaking English both in class and during extracurricular activities wins points, both individual and house points. Windsor kids take great pride in winning points for their house.

In Lisa Goulding’s early years class, even the youngest Windsor students are eager to win points.

For all the English-speaking International schools springing up around Thailand, immersion in English is seen as a selling point to prospective parents.

The drawback is, of course, that unlike the Quebec schools where children are living in a Francophone culture, Thai children live in a Thai culture. It is so much easier for children to communicate with each other in their mother tongue once outside the ‘farang’ classroom. Once unsupervised in their peer groups, what incentive is there to struggle with a foreign tongue?

Reza Sripetchvandee, Director and Stephen Robinson, Headmaster

Teachers Roz Robinson and Lisa Goulding

This was a challenge Windsor International soon encountered after opening last September. In common with most international schools, Windsor International has an all-English policy. This means all academic teaching takes place in English, other than the legally required Thai lessons.

In fact, one of the school’s core values is that all instruction, whether part of the curriculum or extra-curricular activity, will be provided in English. The students are encouraged to speak English at all other times of the school day too.

To facilitate this goal, one of Windsor’s benchmarks is that its teachers are all native speakers from the UK and Australia. But the problem of creating opportunities for English outside classrooms still remains, due to a natural reluctance on the part of the students to speak.

"Learning to speak a foreign language involves risk taking, it leaves you exposed and vulnerable," Stephen Robinson, the school’s Headmaster explains.

The first step in a successful all-English policy has to be the school’s philosophy. Robinson, who has 20 years experience in teaching children, stresses the importance at Windsor of a child-sensitive approach.

"If you get the environment and the relationships right, then the rest will follow. What I mean by that is an environment that is very aware of the needs of the children, where children can feel happy, safe and confident. Good relationships are characterised by warmth, friendliness and a genuine respect on both sides. "For example," Robinson explains, "we have huge admiration for our students. They spend every day working and playing in a foreign language. And very successfully too!"

"In the opening term we were very patient, allowing our children to speak Thai," Robinson recalls. "This was a deliberate policy on our part, because we felt it was important for them to settle into the new building, with the new teachers and new peer groups. At the end of the term we had a teacher conference where we gave considerable thought to how to encourage the students to speak better English," he says.

From this staff meeting came a brainwave that was to cause dramatic change.

The scheme is called ‘points make prizes’ and is linked to the four school houses — North, West, South, East. Basically the children are awarded for speaking English with points from the teachers. These may be either individual points or house points. The children who have less English start off with more points.

"Each child carries a points card in their pocket," Robinson explains. "The old one is handed in every Friday and new ones given out. The teachers tot up the scores and at Monday assembly the results are read out. Pupils who have the most points win small prizes. At the end of term there are trophies for the most successful children and a magnificent trophy for the winning house."

The children responded to the scheme magnificently, Robinson observes. Indeed the teachers were surprised by just how successful the scheme has been. For example the staff had worried that the less confident children might be marginalised. However this did not happen. All children responded with enthusiasm, fired up by the combination of individual credit and the honour of winning for their house.

"We turned a school where there was a lot of Thai spoken outside class, into one where there is virtually none, more or less overnight," Robinson says.

This does not mean Thai is not valued, he adds. "At the same time we keep in touch with the children’s own language, culture and heritage. Thai lessons continue as normal and Thai festivals are celebrated and so on. We had a lovely Loy Kratong last November for example."

Nung

Fluke (left) and Nat

Cathy (left) and Yu

Lisa Goulding, one of the teachers, was surprised at how quickly and well the new initiative worked. "We as teachers had such a shock. Almost at once the scheme took off. Within the first few weeks we had to reappraise the point system as the pupils were scoring so highly. And they were so proud. They love showing off their points cards.

"Now, when they go outside for break or lunchtime," Goulding says, "they are speaking all English. They don’t speak Thai on the school campus. Even children in the nursery who use stickers and certificates, now chat away all day in English."

Roz Robinson, another teacher, has also noticed a change in how students interact with the staff. "What’s also lovely is, outside of class, the children initiate conversations with us now. They enjoy telling us what they have done. They are so pleased with their achievements."

Were there any drawbacks or unresolved challenges to the scheme? "No, but we do have to be constantly reassessing the students, such is their progress," Robinson observes.

"The teachers get together all the time to discuss the children’s needs.

"We also make sure that new children coming into the school get that support to catch up and not feel left out," he says.

English support lessons take place after school with 28 pupils currently enrolled.

The aim is to foster their speaking and listening, essential skills for the curriculum taught at Windsor. The lessons also are designed to give that extra help for children needing a confidence booster.

Luke Millgate

Luke Millgate, who runs the intensive group, says each class is arranged largely on English level, so they include students of different ages. "Activities include media tapes where pupils and teachers read stories together. We do a lot of role-playing and conversation games, phonics, quizzes and such," he explains.

Goulding stresses the importance of appropriate learning materials and assessment strategies. "We adapt outside materials to suit our children’s individual needs. We also constantly assess them, for example evaluating each student every half term. So those doing well can move up a level, or those not doing so well can get more support," she points out.

"Among the club members are some late-starting children. Yet they have made such tremendous progress, they are like different children!" Goulding says.

Phonics, too, play a key role in the programme, says Robinson. "Children can’t really get into a language until they’re on top of pronunciation, so we do a lot of phonic games, which they really enjoy. As they improve in this we continue with pictures, little plays, reading aloud, all of which boost their confidence.

They have done really well, it’s amazing," he boasts.

At the same time Windsor’s teachers give full credit to the children. "The children here are very determined and positive," says Goulding. "They want to learn English and try so hard. They are great to teach, and the teachers all work together to encourage this positive attitude among the children."

"Once they’ve got that confidence," Robinson adds, "and they realise it doesn’t matter if they make a mistake,"then they’re away. Confidence is so important."

Both teachers commented that the children also learn from each other, and that is a very effective learning strategy. Book Week nicely illustrates this.

"The older children loved coming into the younger class to read them storybooks, while the young ones were so proud," says Goulding. "It’s having them all involved and keeping it personal that makes it work."

One last advantage of the Booster Club is that, taking place after school, it avoids students being withdrawn from their academic classes for ESL tuition.

Thanks to the success of the ‘points make prizes’ and the Booster Club, the children do not find the English language an obstacle to their mainstream subjects. But teachers do need to make adaptations to their classroom approach.

"When I’m teaching the academic subjects, I do teach a lot of vocabulary work – more than you would obviously need to do in the UK," Robinson explains. "It’s not so much by work sheets as by just talking in class. And our visual aids help too."

Do they ever need to resort to Thai in the classroom? "When we first opened and we had a lot of children with very little English, it did occasionally happen. But since the ‘points make prizes’ scheme, it’s no longer necessary."

The next step, says Reza Sripetchvandee, one of the school’s directors, is to focus not just on speaking English, but on speaking English correctly. "Politeness, clear pronunciation, public speaking and so on – fine-tuning their skills."

What do you like about school we asked ten-year-old Nung.

"I like reading books. At the moment I am reading Frogs in Socks."

Why would anyone have frogs in their socks? The children were too busy laughing to come up with a suitable explanation.

Seven-and-half-year-old Nat told us she loves writing, especially stories. Fluke did too.

English is the language of instruction and conversation in all extra-curricular activities at Windsor International.

Cathy explained that you get bonus points for good English while Fluke remarked that if you speak a lot of English in class you get a prize.

All the children agreed that the ‘points make prizes’ was a lot of fun. The issue of which house team was winning this term was clearly of keen interest. The children also said booster classes were fun and a lot of help.

Clearly, the innovative idea of ‘points make prizes’ has turned learning English into a fun and cheerfully competitive game. And, as educational psychologists have found out, children learn best when playing games.

The caring, child-sensitive philosophy and excellent cohesion of the staff team clearly underpin this success. At Windsor International, children have found a new enthusiasm for practicing the language. If there is one lesson we can take away from the Windsor experience, it has to be that even simple and low cost ideas can make a significant difference.

For further information please call Windsor International at 02 540 7122. Or visit the web site at http://www.windsor.ac.th

Windsor International School
344 Mu 12 Ramkamhaeng 164 Road
Minburi Bangkok 10510

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Last modified: June 16, 2003