It has come to my attention that the issue of native (NS) and nonnative (NNS) dichotomy is an immediate topic to be discussed in Thailand. I have seen so many classified for teaching positions in Thailand specifying for "native speakers" with preferences of specific countries. This is what I believe to be the discrimination in work place.
The incentives or the payment for these native speakers are higher than local Thai language teachers. Is this really only the look with blonde hair and blue eyes? I have heard from my friend that he was in short of money while traveling in Thailand. Backpackers with maybe high school degree receive about 10 times higher than local Thai teachers. Is this the equality we are looking for in the society?
Let's start the conversation about this.
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But what has led to the "discrimination"? Partly because many Thai teachers of English are not qualified! So Thai students -- and parents -- have no other choice but to seek for native speakers -- who at least CAN speak, read, and write English. However, I am not suggesting that "under-qualified" NS get hired.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Many qualified Thai teachers work in universities and colleges, where many students (and non-student learners) do not have access.
I do not agree with the previous post that "many Thai teachers of English are not qualified". We can see many Thai people who can speak English well and never go abroad. Also it is not legitimate to discriminate against our own local teachers because that will only promote the discrimination and the dichotomy as well. If we do not hire our own people, who else will hire us.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that our teacher education programs might not prepare the 'future' teachers well; however, they also need to be motivated to improve their own language awareness. In this information technology era, I believe there are many ways that students can learn to improve themselves.
We need to take into consideration on many factors involving teachers, students, motivations, reasons of learning, and among other.
"Also it is not legitimate to discriminate against our own local teachers because that will only promote the discrimination and the dichotomy as well. If we do not hire our own people, who else will hire us."
ReplyDeleteSeems like you're suggesting that "qualification" does not matter--we should hire our people first.
I am not advocating a discrimatory practice against "our" people; I am asking for "qualified people," regardless of their race, etc.
"It is true that our teacher education programs might not prepare the 'future' teachers well; however, they also need to be motivated to improve their own language awareness."
ReplyDeleteWhat are we to do between now and then?
"We can see many Thai people who can speak English well and never go abroad."
ReplyDeleteAll right (although no stats to back that up). but let's accept it for now... yet, alas, they don't teach. but who does the teaching? Um...
Thank you for your comments. I am not suggesting that qualification does not matter. It does! However, I think there is a fine line between this qualification. This is really subjective matter. I know that we all hope for the best for our students.Students would also like to speak, read, and write as fluent as this so-called "native" speakers do.
ReplyDeleteWe are unable to change the past. We only can hope that the teacher education programs will move forward to be a more critical one rather than focusing on teaching methods for teaching. Teaching methods is practical for teachers, but it does focuses on the problems of SLA in that the theories from the west do not fit into our teaching contexts. We need to ADAPT, not adopt them.
I learned English skills from my high school. I could speak, read, and write though not fluent, but my production was intelligible. I learned English from Thai teachers. So I believe the student's motivation and its function for individual reason do count as well.
of course, the learner is probably the most important factor in this equation; teachers can only do so much. BUT that's not the point of this discussion, is it?
ReplyDeletemy point is this: hire those -- be they Thai, Indian, Filipino, British, Australian, American, etc. -- who are qualified to teach, and compensate them accordingly. those with an M.A. get paid the M.A. salary base; those with a PhD get the PhD salaray base.
"I think there is a fine line between this qualification. This is really subjective matter."
> qualification will ALWAYS be subjective: two Thai teachers graduated from the same university, with the same GPA aren't alike. the subjectiveness applies not only to foreingers vs. thais, but also to thai vs. thai. so that's why we need the degree to make that distinction.
NOW to another point of discussion:
"We only can hope that the teacher education programs will move forward to be a more critical one rather than focusing on teaching methods for teaching."
> so much has been said about being critical. but have we ever defined it? and aren't you contradicting yourself? "being critical" is somewhat a western idea--which may not fit well with thailand. yet i am not saying that "being critical" is not good. but i am suggesting that we may need to be "critcal" of ourselves first -- that is, we need to be conscious of the concept/theory/idea that is "working us" first before we start to expouse that idea. don't you think?
Thanks for your response, very productive indeed. I would like to give my feedback to each point accordingly.
ReplyDeleteFor the money issue, it is impossible to do so in such aspect for Thailand. I believe the university has to rely on the rate that is set by the ministry of education, unless you work in the private universities. For the money itself, if we think about teachers in high schools, we are unable to touch upon this as well because ministry of education has already set the money for these teaching positions as well.
I am not going to make any references to the subjective matter as it is in itself being sujectified...LOL
But the critical aspect of language teaching has actually be embedded in Thai society for a long long time. I know one work in which the authos has discussed about buddhit teaching. Think carefully about the teaching of Lord Buddha. He teaches us not to follow the way he reaches the enlightenment, he also suggests that each of us has our own ways of learning and reaching the nirvana, so try different paths to see how it fits ourselves. I am not mistaken, the teaching is called the "charter of inquiry".
From: Methitham (2009), page 29,
ReplyDeletehttp://dspace.lib.iup.edu:8080/dspace/bitstream/2069/151/1/Phongsakorn+Methitham+3rd+Correction.pdf
The pursuit of this transformation is a core teaching of Buddhism. For
example, in Buddha's last sermon (literally, Buddha translated to the Enlightened One),
Kalama Sutta (Charter of Free Inquiry), the following appears
Yes, you may well doubt, you may well be uncertain. Do not accept anything
because it is the authoritative tradition, because it is often said, because of rumor
or hearsay, because it is found in the scriptures, because it is based on speculative
metaphysical theories, because it is a defense of an existing viewpoint, because it
is a rationalization, because it agrees with a theory of which one is already
convinced, because of the reputation of an individual, or because a teacher said it
is thus and thus. But experience it for yourself
i guess your two posts above refer to my claim, albiet vaguely: "being critical" is somewhat a western idea.
ReplyDeleteyes, you're right: buddhism stresses "charter of free inquiry." but let's be honest here--many, if not all, teachers in Thailand do not think about buddhism when they talk about being "critical." but they tend to think about freire, garoux, etc. don't you agree? (though freire may not be catagorized as "western" but his idea has been heavily adopted by western academics.)
now i don't think the "teaching" of freire or garoux is the same thing the teaching of the buddha -- although with regard to the points you have brought up, both are alike.
p.s. "He teaches us not to follow the way he reaches the enlightenment, he also suggests that each of us has our own ways of learning and reaching the nirvana, so try different paths to see how it fits ourselves."
> misunderstanding. his teaching: there are ways to reach nirnava (มรรคมีองค์ 8). he doesn't teach us to invent our own approach, etc.
"For the money issue, it is impossible to do so in such aspect for Thailand."
ReplyDelete> don't you think "impossible" is too strong a word? if it is impossible to change the "institution"'s policy (the ministry of education), then it's EVEN IMPOSSIBLE to change the parents' and the students' MIND/ATTITUDE/BELIEF...to convince them that thai teachers are as good native teachers.
yes, there are ways to reach nirvana, so why are Thai people and students only aim at reaching the native-like competence? Do not forget that we can try it for ourselves, he teaches us the meta-skill of how to reach it, he does not point to ways to reach it.
ReplyDeleteThis is also an attempt to rasie the awareness of our socio-cultural to the teaching aspect. My colleagues and I are at the moment working on the rough outline of an article by basing on socio-cultural aspect of ELT in Thailand.
Referring back to Methitham's result, the participants state that farang teachers deserve to receive higher payment because they are like "guest" for our country. We need to give and treat these teachers the best we can. However, we never really think that Thai people work more than these farang teachers (we need to do administrative stuff + homeroom and correcting homework while these farang teachers only teach and correct papers).
For the money aspect, I still believe that it is impossible to do so. I recently heard a news about the government increasing salary for teachers. However, let's face this. Thai people have the average 300 baht/day; for farang it is different. For teaching in high school with my BA, I received 8000 baht/month, while the farang teacher received 600 baht/hour. Do not forget that there are many factors regarding this monetary issue, not just the institution's policy or the economic situations.