Unteaching what the Thai teachers have taught
Postbox letter from Ralph Sasser
Let’s look at the reality. Thai teachers do teach grammar and vocabulary, although I don’t see how considering most can’t even speak a coherent sentence in English
Responsibility: Teaching the fourth R in education
It's time to make our students look good - and not just academically
In our zeal to teach the three ‘R's, reading, ‘righting, and ‘rithmetic, we are neglecting to teach another very important ‘R': Responsibility; responsibility for oneself and responsibility for others
My dinner with Ning
A call for traditionalists in the classroom
We were an unlikely pair. Me, a 51 year old Canadian English teacher who is jaded, cynical, and has had more negative experiences with Asian women than I care to admit; and her, a 31 year old Thai Science teacher who, in my opinion, is looking for a foreign status symbol.
We're not all going on a summer holiday
A two-month teaching diary until May rolls around again
So, school is out. If you’re going on holiday either in or out of Thailand, lucky old you, I hope that you have a great time.
Writing your own readers
Why not design your own student reading material
Let your textbooks dictate the level and style of language to use and only introduce new vocabulary if it’s cool and/or funny. Students have a nice habit of always remembering these types of words.
Repetition
An argument about what students really need
Most of us are faced with the same challenge: large class sizes. We can’t do anything about this other than work with it.
Edutainment is back
Love it or loathe it - we're in the entertainment business
Games are a great way to get student’s brains working in English. And, in the rarity of having any ringleaders who say that they don’t want to play games, have them copy the copyright crap from the inside front cover of their textbooks while the rest of the class enjoy themselves.
Teaching at my university
What does holding down a university job entail?
if you want to teach university classes like mine, in particularly regard to Thai classes, if they are school leavers they’re really as good a bunch of starters as you could ever hope to get. If you try and teach them in a systematic way, you will encounter difficulties – difficulties that might, at first, be inclined to plunge you into the deepest depths of despair.
What do Thai students think of us?
Straight from the horses's mouth
I wondered if our Thai students really had a true picture of the salaries we earn, the hardships we face, and the hoops we have to jump through? I put ten questions to a range of Thai corporate staff - male, female, single, married with kids. What do they really know? And is there any respect left for the 'ajarn farang'?
CLT again
Establishing a ‘communicative English language teaching environment’
I would say that the practice that most improved any of my classes, by far and away was the practice of walking around the class (particularly in writing classes) and making sure that students were doing the activities, and furthermore knew what they were going to get from them
