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Breaking Thai students out of their mold

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  • Breaking Thai students out of their mold

    Is there anything a teacher can do to break Thai students out of their mold.

    What I mean by this is I always find that they all seem to answer questions with nearly the same answer.

    For example:

    Who is your hero? Almost always they say my mom. They never have a hero like a leader, a scientist, author, or an explorer.

    What is your favorite food? Most will say Tom Yum Goong. Never pizza or even fried rice.

    Do you like to going to the mountains or the beach better. Usually they say beach.

    What do you do at the beach? Never fails, they say eat seafood. Not swim, walk on the beach, or play volleyball.

    Any thoughts as to why this is and how to get them to be more creative in their answers?

  • #2
    Of course why would you wish to? Mom and prawns what's not to like?

    Daytrip to the Bleach ?

    Mold and Moisture | Indoor Air | US Environmental ...

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    Many who come to Siam in a missionary position get turned over
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    • #3
      If it aint fixed don't break it.

      Your job is to teach them English presumably? While the Thai teachers get on with teaching Thainess and other indoctrination, the kids will never know the joy of the mountains, or why their mom holds the family together, and dad gets all the plaudits.

      There is a young woman in my village. Her English is flawless and she is intelligent and articulate. She used to teach but her boyfriend wanted her at home to take care of his needs. If only she wasn't so pretty too.
      She now runs a noodle stall in her front garden.

      'Tis a greater tragedy than even Shakespeare dreamed of.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Charles View Post
        Your job is to teach them English presumably?
        I am trying to do just that. They need to know more than the patent answers. How are you? I'm fine thank you. This said after they fell off their motorbike and are dying.

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        • #5
          You are going to have to supply them with ideas that may inspire some to be more imaginative. It will take agreat deal of effort on your part but it will be worth it in the end.

          I am not a teacher but I have spnt some time teaching village children when I can. Mostly, it is English and maths, although the time is outside of school hours so it has to bedone in an imaginative way.

          For example, let's take favourite food. I collected pictures of different foods eaten by dfferent nationalities. Most of the pictures showed food that they had never seen before. No problems, I cooked different foods and gave them tasting sessions...actually several helped me prepare the food while others watched. That allowed me to see different interests and behaviour quite quickly, especially the extroverts and introverts.

          When I return to the village nowadays, it is not tom yum they want but macaroni or popadoms or hot-dogs.

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          • #6
            Originally posted by troy View Post
            I collected pictures of different foods eaten by dfferent nationalities. Most of the pictures showed food that they had never seen before. No problems, I cooked different foods and gave them tasting sessions...actually several helped me prepare the food while others watched. That allowed me to see different interests and behaviour quite quickly, especially the extroverts and introverts.
            The pictures are a wonderful idea. I guess if I did some cooking, I would have to bring in a hot plate. Not sure if that would be allowed. Thanks for the good advice.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Bangkok Teacher View Post
              I am trying to do just that. They need to know more than the patent answers. How are you? I'm fine thank you. This said after they fell off their motorbike and are dying.
              Clearly a communication problem here. No malice intended on my part.

              Perhaps motorcycle maintenance would have been more helpful in this case.

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              • #8
                There are lots of reasons why you might not get a wide set of answers. It could be that the students just have no interest in giving you a good answer because they aren't interested in the questions. I wouldn't discount this. If somebody asked me who my hero was, I'd have a hard time answering since I don't have any and I don't really want to expend the mental energy of thinking up somebody who might fit the bill because...it's just a bit of a dumb question. And going to the beach or the mountains? It doesn't really make your heart beat faster, does it. What's my favourite food? Hot dog cɒck, now you ask. That's a question I look forward to about as excitedly as I look forward to being asked if I can eat spicy food. You could try more interesting questions. Would you rather be rich and ugly or poor and good looking? Would you rather have an extra leg or an extra arm? Would you rather spend the day with Ploy or Chompoo? Would you rather give up Facebook for a day or wanking for a day? OK. Maybe not that one but you can make things a bit more relevant to their day-to-day lives or a bit more interesting to think about. Questions like this are also a bit easier to answer because you are choosing your answer from a set of two (rather than from an infinite set) and the questions (if you can find the right ones) are a bit more motivating. You could ask students to think up 3 justifications for their answers and then use the answers to do something else (e.g practice conditionals - if I spent a day with Ploy, I'd ....). If you wanted to stick with your questions, you could always ask them to play the role of somebody else when they answered (assuming the students had the character, the knowledge, and the language to do this).

                Related to this is the fact that they might think that you have no real interest in the answer. Do you care about whether they prefer the beach to the mountain or is this just some boring language exercise which they've gone through dozens of times before? If you're not really interested in the answer there's no reason for them to be interested in it either. What do you do with the answer? Nod and ask somebody else a different question or does the conversation go somewhere? A lot of the times, these are just empty display questions so it's natural for students to treat them as such.

                It could also be that their language (either in fact or their perception of it) is weak so they're taking the fairly sensible path of solving one problem (thinking up difficult answers) in advance so that they can concentrate on solving the other problem - putting together a sentence in English.

                It could be that they want to give a safe answer if they are performing this in front of other people. Maybe somebody's hero is Robespierre but that student doesn't really feel like sharing this information with the rest of the class. Maybe somebody has never been to either the beach or to the mountains so this student just gives an easy answer to cover the embarrassing fact. Maybe they are just shy.
                Last edited by Dan; 11-04-2014, 08:27 PM.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Bangkok Teacher View Post
                  I am trying to do just that. They need to know more than the patent answers. How are you? I'm fine thank you. This said after they fell off their motorbike and are dying.
                  That's a very different question. It's your job to get students to use language productively but it's not your job to judge how Thai cultural patterns play out in their lives.

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                  • #10
                    I'm not a teacher, but I never expect Thais to speak much English. We're in Thailand and they have their own language. When I was a HS student, I studied German. My skill level was probably not much different from most Thai HS kids struggling with English. Studying a foreign language is all fairly contrived and shallow if you're not intent on using it routinely, completely immersed in learning it, or have a group of friends or family that speak it regularly. Artificial and unrealistic -- and quickly forgotten.

                    On the other hand, there is an auto mechanic that lives in town who regularly stops by with questions about his English language repair manuals. He is driven to understand English and is miles ahead of where he was a few years ago. His livelihood, in part, depends on it. I wonder how many of these kids with English crammed into their heads every day will use English in their lifetimes?

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                    • #11
                      I wonder how many of these kids with English crammed into their heads every day will use English in their lifetimes?
                      Virtually none, including many of those who study English at 'university' (scare quotes needed). Inadequate teachers forcing a useless subject on uninterested students unsurprisingly tends to give dire results and, by and large, English teaching in Thailand is a total waste of time and effort.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Dan View Post
                        Maybe somebody's hero is Robespierre but that student doesn't really feel like sharing this information with the rest of the class.


                        Give it a few years, he'll be .

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                        • #13
                          Last edited by Norton; 11-04-2014, 10:32 PM.
                          Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

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                          • #14
                            Alternatively they could wait 20 years and the whole issue might be moot. Like stringing telephone lines in Thailand's hinterland. They put if off for so long, it's no longer necessary.

                            Artificial Intelligence Outperforms Average Japanese High School Senior (in English)The software, known as To-Robohttp://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2...school-senior/
                            Last edited by Texpat; 11-05-2014, 12:22 AM.

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                            • #15
                              While NTT lab said To-Robo was getting better at completing conversations, structuring sentences appropriately and grasping the context of a dialogue, it added that the software still needs to improve at understanding more complex exchanges and comprehending the emotions of speakers.
                              It is therefore already capable of posting on Thai fora and being immediately misunderstood.

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