Posted 2008-12-25 07:34:47
 tau8, on 2008-12-25 09:17:24, said:
...for students wishing to have extra tuition after school I teach students ...
That's what I want eliminated.
A proper school should not leave any yawning gaps that have to be filled by extra tuition.
And tell me, which student at age 5,6,7 or 15 years "wishes" more time at school after school?
It's rather their parents drive. First, cut corners with main school, then saddle kids with another cut-corners after school tuition.
Of course, there are many who can't afford expensive school, but that's not a "wish".
Posted 2008-12-25 08:54:19
Think too mutt, posting from one of those Asian countries famed for pushing its children too hard, brings up a good point here. 'Student' may be a full time job, but 8 am to 3 pm may be enough time M-F for an average student to learn enough, if the school is well organized. The Japanese and Korean cultures are infamous for pushing their students to learn about 60 hours per week. That provides the private tutors enough evening/weekend work to make maybe 35K per month on the side. But at least back home, students heard that all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, meaning boring.
Posted 2008-12-25 10:58:18
Ijustwannateach, on 2008-12-24 22:41:24, said: private tutoring for Thai and go ahead and send kids to an all-English program
By this, do you mean the "EP" schools mentioned earlier, or an International School?
It's interesting what you also said about learning everything in the two different languages perhaps diluting the actual subjects being learned, i.e. perhaps some of the child's attention and learning will be taken up by focusing on the language they're being taught in rather than the subject at hand. I definitely want my some to be fluent in Thai, but I wouldn't necessarily require that he's taught other non-language related subjects in Thai - my thinking before was that in doing this he'd get more exposure to the two languages and so fluency would come quicker, but not if this is detrimental to the subject itself. So perhaps EP is the way to go...?
Posted 2008-12-25 11:12:29
PeaceBlondie, on 2008-12-25 10:54:19, said: Think too mutt, posting from one of those Asian countries famed for pushing its children too hard, brings up a good point here. 'Student' may be a full time job, but 8 am to 3 pm may be enough time M-F for an average student to learn enough, if the school is well organized. The Japanese and Korean cultures are infamous for pushing their students to learn about 60 hours per week. That provides the private tutors enough evening/weekend work to make maybe 35K per month on the side. But at least back home, students heard that all work and no play made Jack a dull boy, meaning boring.
"Study 13 hours a day and you will pass. Study 12 hours and you will fail". (add 6-7 hours at school to that)
or
"Sleep 5 hours - you pass, sleep 6 hours - you fail".
That's the common saying among JP schoolkids.
The good point is: why don't they send kids to Internatyional schools more?
Other than money (which is far less of an issue than in Thailand) - it is believed that International School graduates would not be able to pass Japanese/Korean University entry exam;
Also, they will be considered inferior by their peers and employers if they continued and graduated at a foreign University. The prejudice is - they are the cheaters, they did not suffer (pointlessly) as others did. Chinese (mainland) , Koreans and Japanese call them "returning turtles". Even bright ones like Jerry Young (the founder of Yahoo!) would have difficulties finding a job, let alone in top companies.
Finally, if they were in an International school, who would they have to play with after the classes? Their neighbours kids would be at school, studying or taking extra lessons. Another truth is - students in International schools tend to flow through with their parents jobs and relocations, not really the place to meet and make lifelong friendships.
There is a high school near me, my home is on students' way to school. 7 days a week they go past my house, Saturdays, Sundays, always.
Still, Japanese parents complain the kids have too much free time on their hands and that education system should be even more demanding.
Thailand is much more western leaning than Japan and Korea. I have no intention of staying in Japan much longer, my daughter won't suffer from local rigid and ridiculous claims.
Another equially important thing is: the way from local to International school is easy. The other way (say, no more money or whatever) is difficult if not impossible. What does that mean? After 1-2 years at International school, kids become unable to adjust to rote learning and no questions (like in Asian schools, including Thai) and quickly become "dummy in the class" and outcasts. If the kid comes to hate school, that may have life changing consequences.
My Japanese colleague had returned from the US after 5 years and his daughter was attending a regular public school.
In Japan, she could not accept how they teach here and my friend is shelling money for International school, otherwise her life may become a total failure.
Posted 2008-12-25 18:52:27
dantilley, on 2008-12-25 10:58:18, said: Ijustwannateach, on 2008-12-24 22:41:24, said: private tutoring for Thai and go ahead and send kids to an all-English program
By this, do you mean the "EP" schools mentioned earlier, or an International School?
It's interesting what you also said about learning everything in the two different languages perhaps diluting the actual subjects being learned, i.e. perhaps some of the child's attention and learning will be taken up by focusing on the language they're being taught in rather than the subject at hand. I definitely want my some to be fluent in Thai, but I wouldn't necessarily require that he's taught other non-language related subjects in Thai - my thinking before was that in doing this he'd get more exposure to the two languages and so fluency would come quicker, but not if this is detrimental to the subject itself. So perhaps EP is the way to go...?
"EP" is Thai government jargon for a bilingual program. There are different kinds of bilingual education, so the Ministry of Education decided on the term "English Program" or EP, as they thought the term "bilingual program" too confusing. As you can see, their efforts haven't helped.
If you want your child to get an education primarily in English with just a few periods of Thai a week you'd best go for an international school, but you still have to research carefully. As IJWT said, some of the lower-end "international" schools are of questionable quality.
The most reputable and enduring research suggests that learning in two languages doesn't dilute the amount of learning you will acquire. On the contrary, after an initial period (can't remember how long - much of the better research is from Canada, which has had widespread forms of bilingual education since the 60s), students should be able to perform much better on tests in the second language than those who have just had a standard language program (i.e. 4 hrs/wk) and will also perform as well as the other group, or better, in tests using their mother tongue. It depends on variables such as how long the child has been in the country (e.g. immigrants to Canada), age on arrival in the country or entry into the program, socio-economic status, the kind of program that has been run, the level of support among parents, morale of teachers and their support for the program, teacher competence in the languages taught (including bilingual competence), and so on.
The data from my school show that our students (at Year 6, 9 and 12) perform very highly in national tests of English and better than average or very well in national tests of Thai, Science, Maths, etc. "Average" in this case refers to scores from schools in the same educational district, so city schools are not being compared with schools in outlying provinces.
A well-managed bilingual education is a real option for a child that wishes to attain academic bilingualism. However, it takes a long time to achieve this (I would say 11-12 years in Thailand). Many parents take the option of sending their child to a bilingual school from Kindergarten to Grade 9 (10-12 years of schooling) and then to a really good university preparation school, such as Triam Udom. However, all of our graduating students last year from the bilingual program got into respectable universities, including Chula, Thammasart, Mahidol, Kasetsart and Silpakorn and several received full scholarships to Assumption University.
I'm at retirement age, so, in a sense, it's no skin off my nose whether bilingual education works or not, but from what I've seen and read over many years, if the program is bilingual and the school is well run, bilingual schooling is what I'd choose for my child if he/she were starting in the early years. Good international schools do very well on the English and international side of things, but they do not develop the kids' Thai and the school culture, unlike that of a bilingual school, is not Thai (even if a lot of the kids are Thai).
If your child is only small, you could see how he goes in the kindergarten years and then withdraw him if you change your mind. He won't have been disadvantaged.
Posted 2008-12-25 20:02:16
The data has shown for over thirty years that students who study in an immersion program in a second language perform as well in tests on their first language as students who only study in their first language.
What they aren't testing however is how well they do in all the subjects they are taught in their second language, Math, Geography, History, Physics, Biology, Economics and so on. And the truth is they are almost certainly left well behind, as their insufficient knowledge of the second language means they don't fully understand many of the explanations.
Look at the countries that insist on teaching in the first language. Nigeria, France, Germany, Japan to name a few. Look at those that have secondary and Higher Education in English; Nigeria, India, much of the Gulf. 'Nuff said.
Posted 2008-12-25 20:34:47
stevejones123, on 2008-12-25 20:02:16, said: The data has shown for over thirty years that students who study in an immersion program in a second language perform as well in tests on their first language as students who only study in their first language.
What they aren't testing however is how well they do in all the subjects they are taught in their second language, Math, Geography, History, Physics, Biology, Economics and so on. And the truth is they are almost certainly left well behind, as their insufficient knowledge of the second language means they don't fully understand many of the explanations.
Look at the countries that insist on teaching in the first language. Nigeria, France, Germany, Japan to name a few. Look at those that have secondary and Higher Education in English; Nigeria, India, much of the Gulf. 'Nuff said.
Steve, are you talking about an immersion program where students are taught, say Math, in the second language only?
If the students don't have the language ability to get the key concepts, understand the explanations, etc, then they shouldn't be immersed. Current attempts to teach Math and Science in English-only in Malaysia are in serious trouble except among those communities (e.g. urban Chinese and Indian) that already have a reasonable command of English.
What happens when students can't reach the language ability necessary to grasp the key learnings is that the teacher switches to the native language (this certainly happens in Hong Kong schools, for example, and I believe in Malaysia also). No teacher of Maths or Science is going to see his students fail because he insists on teaching them in a language that they can't understand.
In Thailand, if the teacher does not speak Thai and the students are not ready linguistically for immersion in that subject, students will be disadvantaged. So monolingual immersion, as proposed by the MoE for Math, Science and PE, is not a good idea, especially if the teacher can't speak Thai or is not allowed to use it.
A model that I call "parallel immersion" is followed in some (I don't know how many) Thai schools as a way out of the problem. In this model, the students are taught the key concepts and processes in Thai first by the Thai teacher. They are then taught basically the same content in English by the foreign teacher (or a Thai teacher if they've graduated from an English-medium university abroad). Although teaching the content is seen by the foreign teachers as important in itself (they're not just English teachers), the rationale for teaching the content a second time is to provide the kids with the English language applicable to the concepts and processes they've already been taught.
How does a school fit in this apparent duplication? Some corners can be cut with the permission of the Ministry and you can have a longer day or maybe some extra days (I'm not sure about the latter). I don't really know, but it happens - at my school and a number of other schools I know - and it works in terms of the results I referred to earlier.
Posted 2008-12-25 23:19:53
I'm also doing same research for my granddaughters education.
I'm looking at Amnuay Silpa Bilingual School on Sri Ayudhaya Road, Phya Thai area, Bangkok.
Would very much appreciate any comments members can offer on this school.
Thanks
Posted 2008-12-28 16:59:06
think_too_mut, on 2008-12-25 08:04:03, said: We are in Japan, International School here.
They have to fulfill the same criterias to be accredited as an International school as BKK based schools have to. Should not matter where the school is.
It matters to the guy who was asking about international schools in Thailand.
 
Posted 2008-12-28 19:39:15
Basically u need to decide where your child will go to University. an International school needs to teach 100% farangs Only 1 hour a week in Thai (it could be lanuguage, history, culture, cooking) If the child is 1/2 thai than 2 hours a week,,, Even full thai kids they only need to teach 3 hours/week thai. As 1/2 thai and full thai's they will get thai at home as well as on eor both will be thai.
IF you want them to attend school in the west they need an international school. If your looking a a good University in Bangkok then a Bi-lingaul school will be fine as they will be sufficient in English and Thai.
Thai schools and ur a expat... your doing an injustice to your child.
My daughter is 14 and I just sent her back to attend high School in the states. She is doing fine and had attended BIS in Phuket. If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost
Posted 2008-12-28 20:03:13
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: My daughter is 14 and I just sent her back to attend high School in the states. She is doing fine and had attended BIS in Phuket. If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost
Thanks for your views Richard.
I guess this refers back to part of my original post which hasn't really been discussed yet at length - generally speaking how do the three levels of school in Thailand (Thai state school, Bilingual School, International School) compare with schools in the West? Could a good bilingual school, e.g. a University affiliated school as mentioned by IJWT earlier, match up to, say, a state school in the UK? Or would they be way off the pace, leaving you with International School as the only option to get a Western standard of education over here?
You say:
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: Thai schools and ur a expat... your doing an injustice to your child.
But if a good Bilingual School can be of UK state school standard then I believe sending my child there wouldn't be an injustice: if I was in the UK, I would likely use the state school system.
Posted 2008-12-29 09:45:34
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: IF you want them to attend school in the west they need an international school. If your looking a a good University in Bangkok then a Bi-lingaul school will be fine as they will be sufficient in English and Thai.
Not necessarily. A few Thai students graduating from the EP I work for go on to Universities in the West every year. Our graduating classes consist of only about 30 students each year, so when 2 or 3 go abroad for university it amounts to 10% of the class. Another 10% go on to proper Thai programs in Thai universities, while 80% go to International Programs in Thai universities.
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: Thai schools and ur a expat... your doing an injustice to your child.
Not a well-informed comment. At the school I work for, the upper secondary class sizes for academic subjects like science, math, and English are between 8 and 20 students. Western textbooks are used exclusively, and are selected to parallel an education in the West while meeting the advanced standards of the Thai curriculum. A well-chosen bilingual program will rival most international schools in all subjects except English.
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: My daughter is 14 and I just sent her back to attend high School in the states. She is doing fine and had attended BIS in Phuket. If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost
The school system in the US is all over the board in terms of quality. The UK system is much better. Unless I could get my child into a strong district in the US I wouldn't even consider the option. If I were a UK citizen it would be a more difficult choice. On the other hand, I would strongly recommend a year abroad for socialization purposes.
phuketrichard, on 2008-12-28 19:39:15, said: If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost
Perhaps the bilingual schools in your area, Phuket, are not good. Actually, we have had a couple of teachers come to our school who previously worked in Phuket. Their comments about their experiences in the bilingual schools there are decidedly unfavorable.
Edited by way2muchcoffee, 2008-12-29 09:48:53.
Posted 2008-12-29 10:48:23
Jimjim, on 2008-12-28 18:59:06, said: think_too_mut, on 2008-12-25 08:04:03, said: We are in Japan, International School here.
They have to fulfill the same criterias to be accredited as an International school as BKK based schools have to. Should not matter where the school is.
It matters to the guy who was asking about international schools in Thailand.
Why does it matter? An international school in Thailand is as good as in Japan.
Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt.... type of quality around the world, regardless of location.
Posted 2008-12-29 10:59:48
think_too_mut, on 2008-12-29 10:48:23, said: Jimjim, on 2008-12-28 18:59:06, said: think_too_mut, on 2008-12-25 08:04:03, said: We are in Japan, International School here.
They have to fulfill the same criterias to be accredited as an International school as BKK based schools have to. Should not matter where the school is. It matters to the guy who was asking about international schools in Thailand.
Why does it matter? An international school in Thailand is as good as in Japan.
Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt.... type of quality around the world, regardless of location.
Not always true in Thailand, where the term 'international school' is abused. Chiang Mai has proper int'l schools. But in Bangkok, apparently many so-called int'l schools are not properly accredited.
Posted 2008-12-29 11:10:49
PeaceBlondie, on 2008-12-29 12:59:48, said: think_too_mut, on 2008-12-29 10:48:23, said: Jimjim, on 2008-12-28 18:59:06, said: think_too_mut, on 2008-12-25 08:04:03, said: We are in Japan, International School here.
They have to fulfill the same criterias to be accredited as an International school as BKK based schools have to. Should not matter where the school is. It matters to the guy who was asking about international schools in Thailand.
Why does it matter? An international school in Thailand is as good as in Japan.
Sheraton, Hilton, Hyatt.... type of quality around the world, regardless of location.
Not always true in Thailand, where the term 'international school' is abused. Chiang Mai has proper int'l schools. But in Bangkok, apparently many so-called int'l schools are not properly accredited.
I qualified what I mean.
I don't know how they can abuse it. My daughter's school has a plaque that proudly states their membership of International Schools Association and another one granted by the Ministry of Education in Japan.
In enrollment materials it lists hundreds of Universities and colledges around the world that will accept their diploma, has a list of schools with direct enrollment due to identical programs.
Bangkok Pattana School, for example, has those same credentials and is of similar, albeit a bit higher price, than this school in Japan.
Posted 2008-12-29 19:13:21
[quote name='way2muchcoffee' post='2435274' date='2008-12-29 09:45:34'][quote name='phuketrichard' post='2434425' date='2008-12-28 19:39:15']IF you want them to attend school in the west they need an international school. If your looking a a good University in Bangkok then a Bi-lingaul school will be fine as they will be sufficient in English and Thai.[/quote]
Not necessarily. A few Thai students graduating from the EP I work for go on to Universities in the West every year. Our graduating classes consist of only about 30 students each year, so when 2 or 3 go abroad for university it amounts to 10% of the class. Another 10% go on to proper Thai programs in Thai universities, while 80% go to International Programs in Thai universities.
[quote name='phuketrichard' post='2434425' date='2008-12-28 19:39:15']Thai schools and ur a expat... your doing an injustice to your child.[/quote]
Not a well-informed comment. At the school I work for, the upper secondary class sizes for academic subjects like science, math, and English are between 8 and 20 students. Western textbooks are used exclusively, and are selected to parallel an education in the West while meeting the advanced standards of the Thai curriculum. A well-chosen bilingual program will rival most international schools in all subjects except English.
[quote name='phuketrichard' post='2434425' date='2008-12-28 19:39:15']My daughter is 14 and I just sent her back to attend high School in the states. She is doing fine and had attended BIS in Phuket. If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost[/quote]
The school system in the US is all over the board in terms of quality. The UK system is much better. Unless I could get my child into a strong district in the US I wouldn't even consider the option. If I were a UK citizen it would be a more difficult choice. On the other hand, I would strongly recommend a year abroad for socialization purposes.
[quote name='phuketrichard' post='2434425' date='2008-12-28 19:39:15']If she had been at the bi-lingial school she would be lost[/quote]
Perhaps the bilingual schools in your area, Phuket, are not good. Actually, we have had a couple of teachers come to our school who previously worked in Phuket. Their comments about their experiences in the bilingual schools there are decidedly unfavorable.
[/quote]
I've worked in the same EP for about 7 years and can say the best of my students (at M3 level) are easily as good as the best the West can offer (at least in mathematics). A group of my m3 students went to Australia for a month to study and said how easy the mathematics was. Of course, english will be a different story. So I would say, at least for some subjects, the quality of good EP's should be on par with what is taught in western schools. The content of the books will be similar (we use some from Singapore); the difference would be in the level of teacher training that the teachers have received (very few in my EP have teacher qualifications - the calaries and conditions wouldn' attract qualified teachers). So from year to year, the quality of teaching the students get would be variable. However, I also teach upper mathyom (G 10-12), and I can say that it is nearly impossible to teach both the Thai curriculum (note that even Thai students in Thai programs on average, fgail their o-net and a-net exams) and a western one at the same time. Hover, having had a few graduating classes go through (most of whom go on to International programs), the lack of coverage of some topics hasn't been detrimental to the students (I make sure to cover the most important topics anyway). However, for students wishing to study overseas, it's a different ballgame, where they will have to sit external exams like SAT (I cover that also in M6 classes).
Posted 2008-12-30 12:49:09
dantilley, on 2008-12-25 10:58:18, said: Ijustwannateach, on 2008-12-24 22:41:24, said: private tutoring for Thai and go ahead and send kids to an all-English program
By this, do you mean the "EP" schools mentioned earlier, or an International School?
It's interesting what you also said about learning everything in the two different languages perhaps diluting the actual subjects being learned, i.e. perhaps some of the child's attention and learning will be taken up by focusing on the language they're being taught in rather than the subject at hand. I definitely want my some to be fluent in Thai, but I wouldn't necessarily require that he's taught other non-language related subjects in Thai - my thinking before was that in doing this he'd get more exposure to the two languages and so fluency would come quicker, but not if this is detrimental to the subject itself. So perhaps EP is the way to go...?
Both could be ok, as long as the EP is a good one and/or the International School is a "real" one (ISB, NIST, etc.).
I think it might be time to bring up my "advice to parents" thread about what to look for when shopping around for an EP program or considering placing a child in one. Here's a link.
Posted 2008-12-30 13:18:45
Thanks for the useful link IJWT. 
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