Reading Comprehension
Posted by Stuart at 11:58 AM on July 02, 2003As a teacher in Bangkok, I am of course concerned about the state of education in Thailand. As with most things, improvements can certainly be made. An article in yesterday's Bangkok Post was especially telling:
"Few young Thais leaving school have adequate literacy skills to cope with the complexities of adult life, according to a report released yesterday by Unesco and a rich countries' club.
"Only 1% of Thais surveyed reached the level of reading proficiency that enables them to manage and understand complex texts, infer relevant information, and critically evaluate it by drawing on specialised knowledge."
Hm. That doesn't sound very good to me. Unfortunately I don't know much about the education system in Thailand, but as I learn more, hopefully I can do my part to improve the situation.
The entire article can be found on the Bangkok Post website.
Thanks for the good wishes, Bob. Part of the reason I am in Thailand in the first place is for the challenge. And teaching Thai students in English is definitely a challenge.
As far as English names go, unless a Thai person has spent time in an English-speaking country, they almost always mess up my name. Stuart becomes "Saaa-tuuu-aaa" since there is no "st" sound or "hard t" word endings in Thai. But I understand the problem, as I have trouble with a few Thai names as well, especially if they start with ป (bore blaa, which for those of you who don't know Thai, is something between a B and a P) or ต (dore dtao, which is something between a D and a T). So, luckily for me, my friends Dtri and Dton are understanding of my mispronunciation.
And apologies on my poor spelling. Yes, I am an educated English speaker who knows how to spell (most of the time) but I type like mad most mornings, proof it quickly and publish it. This means that typos are made, now and then. Sorry!
Oh, as a follow-up comment to this post, Bob kindly pointed out that I have mispelled the word "province" several times. Sure enough, I did a search on my site and I spelled the word "provence" in six different posts. D'oh!
Obviously, this wasn't a typo, just a flat-out spelling error. Thanks for the tip, Bob!
Rotsa ruck on "improving the situation", fella! I've been hitting my head against the wall in that respect for 11+ years now. The so-called education so-called system in Thailand is populated by so-called teachers who think they don't need to learn anything more after they get their degree or certificate, and, at least in the area of English, refuse to accept anything a native speaker says that conflicts with their received ideas--for the simple reason that that would mean losing face and tacitly admitting that their own skills and knowledge are not up to speed. Virtually non of them can actually speak the language for Doodley!
I have actually had people stop just short of telling me I don't know how to pronounce my own name correctly because it's different from their version of "Robert" which sounds like "Roh-buht".
By the way, SG, your spelling is the pits in places!!!