Info on EDUCATIONAL matters in the field of ELT needed

[Burn]

My final university thesis deals with ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THAILAND (= Thai teachers at "normal" schools; no expats or tourists without valid degrees, training etc.) and I am in desperate need for information on the following topics:

- teacher education (How? What? Where? etc.) --> also course material, outlines etc. are very much appreciated!
- (national) curriculum
- national tests
- learning aims and outcomes
- difficulties in teaching English in Thailand (e.g.: language differences [tenses, cunjugations ...])
- the official underlying approach to the subject English (WHY is it being taught/learned?)
- the students'/parents' approach to the subject (Benefits?)
- basically anything related
- ...

It seems very difficult to find any material at all, especially with my Thai still being restricted to some speaking skills. Chula and Thammasat University have not responded to my requests so far, I contacted the educational and language departments. Don't know about the Ministry of Education, though, and will try this as well.

I am thankful for every hint, book recommendations, email addresses, drafts, thesises (National Library?) etc.
Feel free to contact me!

Julia
University of Munich, Germany

[Non Aligned Bangkok]

Burn I would be very happy to help you.
How can I contact you?

[Burn]

burn [at] gmx.net

Looking forward to hearing from you!

[kalyaja]

Hello Burn, That's interesting. I live in Munich and I'm Thai of origin, and naturalized American citizen. Not sure if I can help you finding any material you're requesting. But surely you can try speaking or writing Thai with me. I have Thai keyboard at home. สวัสดีค่ะ. Do you know what that is? I also speak Deutsch, although not so fluently. May I ask why you pick this topic as your Thesis?

[kalyaja]

Hello again Burn, I think you better don't count too much on the help from Chula and Thammasart Uni. Most of faculties I believe are too busy joining PAD anti-government demonstration. They probably won't have much time to respond to your request. Contact the government of education dept? Good luck, the government right now is in shamble. Nobody is really in the mood. I think you probably better off to try to find contact directly with english teacher from private int'l school in thailand. Can't you just look in the internet for these school?
kcr

[bubon]

Here's a good place to start:

The International Schools Association of Thailand.
http://www.isat.or.th/home.asp

I used to work in an Int'l school...... but I'm on my own now

[Burn]

Wow, so many replies after weeks of ... nothing. Ace .


@kalyaja

That's really interesting as my Sprachduo-Partner, a Thai woman I became friends with, just left to a new job in Shanghai. We met up to practice Thai/German together, which worked quite well and was fun indeed!
My reasons for the still very broad topic are quite easy to explain: I am a teacher to-be for English and Social Studies studying at the University of Munich plus I am very much into Thailand. It's in the nature of things whith my subjects that I love the English language and am also quite interested in the field of education in general, politics, especially human rights and development asstistance. Last year I took part in a six-week project of teaching English in Thai rural schools where I encountered several interesting facts such as teachers not being properly trained, having problems with English themselves, students not understanding a word of what was going on in the classroom but suddenly, after three days of different teaching and working, suddenly being able to communicate etc.
Because of this experience I talked to my professor and we agreed on writing my thesis about ELT in Thailand, which in my opinion is quite an interesting topic but also a hell load of work awaiting me. However, I am definitely looking forward to it!


@kalyaja and bubon

The thing is, that I actually thought to concentrate on rural schools, schools without a lot of money to spend, schools where the majority of children goes to and where I'll also be for research beginning of next year - not well equipped private schools for a minority without these problems and mainly expats or foreigners teaching.

[bubon]

...@kalyaja and bubon

The thing is, that I actually thought to concentrate on rural schools, schools without a lot of money to spend, schools where the majority of children goes to and where I'll also be for research beginning of next year - not well equipped private schools for a minority without these problems and mainly expats or foreigners teaching.

Firstly, I think that that would take a lot of fieldwork to get that sort of feel -- more of your rural school voluntary work, so on. I did a summer voluntary job teaching English at a gov't school one summer..... it really had a special sth about it. Now, each and every one of my students from different schools & backgrounds are all different, but all still DO have something in common from being Thai. I could go on forever!

Secondly, you could contact the someone in http://www.ajarn.com/. There's sure to be someone who could help you there. I'm pretty sure the webmasters would be more than happy to help you out somehow.

Good luck, Burn!!!

[Burn]

Hehe, I've already started several threads in that forum and am awaiting replies .
As I mentioned, I will be back in Thailand for fieldwork next spring for 7 weeks. Of course this won't be a PhD thesis, although I am thinking about expanding it in case it works out well - we're talking about an 80-100 pages project only.
What I am doing now is mainly compiling information BEFORE I return to Asia, so, at this point, basically everything helps. Esepcially regarding the fact that I need all this input to decide on what I essentially want to focus.

[stilljustbrowsing]

Hello Burn, don't know how your research is going or if I can be of help.
I teach at a state training establishment under the Ministry of Transport!(In Thailand) English language is supposed to be a Prerequisite here. The majority of students already have certificates for understanding, reading, writing, and speaking English. However, whilst they can read and write in english they cannot speak it!