I taught in Thailand from 2013 to late 2019. During that time, I worked in government schools, language centers, a university and a Satit school. In all that time, I never had any hard data with which to track my students’ progress. I always tried to keep records as best I could, but as any long-term ajarn knows, the chaos of day-to-day life in Thailand tends to intrude on even the best of plans.
It was difficult to track student growth from week-to-week and essentially impossible to track progress from year-to-year. In the end I just kind of did the best I could and tried to meet my students where they were, even if I might only have a ballpark estimate of exactly where that was.

Skip forward to 2024: I’m now in my third year of teaching in the United States as a Master’s-degree-holding, licensed ELL teacher. My district uses a program that allows me to evaluate my students’ speaking and writing abilities on a weekly basis and give feedback. This informs the next week’s instruction. I can also view the week-to-week data and see my students’ progression over time. Not only does this allow me to tailor my instruction, but having access to real-time data has basically changed the way I teach entirely. In Thailand I had to “eyeball” where my students were at and try to come up with something that worked for as much of the class as possible. Here, I can use weekly data to differentiate the next week’s instruction.

Say, I have three students who absolutely bombed a section on capitalization and punctuation. I can review those target areas with them the next Monday while the rest of the class starts on the next assignment. After each student reaches the goal, they can rejoin the class and pick up where they left off. Having access to this kind of data has been a game-changer. When I consider potentially going back to Asia to teach someday, I can’t help but think about the resources I’ll have access to. I’ve been around a few mid-tier international schools in Thailand and even those didn’t have anything remotely resembling real-time data collection tools.

I’d like to go back to Asia one day, but at this point I can’t even imagine teaching without being able to collect weekly, accurate data. Relying on annual or bi-anual exams just doesn’t cut the mustard, assuming you even have access to those scores and also assuming that the Thai teachers or administrators don’t change them on the fly. I’m glad I started my teaching career in Thailand. But, after a few years of teaching in the U.S. I just can’t imagine going back to the old norms and methods.

Clif (With one "f") USA