Failure in English Education System in Thailand

Most Thai schools put the English language class to be of top importance because English is the international language which is used world-wide. It is a pity that many schools in Thailand fail in teaching English. It is a fiasco that most Thai students read and write English quite well; however, most of them are not good at listening and speaking English at all despite fifteen years in English class. To assess the quality of the class, we divided into two parts: class lectures, and homework & exam.

Nearly all lectures in a classroom are about English grammar, but taught in Thai. It would be fantastic if linguistic teachers were native speakers. To make the class even better, teachers should encourage student to think and participate in the class so that students could practice their listening and speaking skills as well.

In addition, everyday homework and most exam papers are about grammar, vocabulary and some reading assignments but no listening or speaking practice is assigned. Moreover, for vocabulary, students try to memorize the spelling and synonyms but do not know how to use them properly.

As you can see, it is terrible that many Thai students have to pay so much money on extra English courses just to practice their listening and speaking skills. It is true that to be good at English, students can learn and practice by themselves at home. Yet, wouldn’t it be nice to adjust the English education system to improve Thai students listening & speaking skills to be as good as their reading & writing skills?

Human Being

Why is there the word “Human Being”? Human is a kind of animal, but why we have to sort out ourselves as human. Thus, there must be some differences between humans and animals.

Like many kinds of animal, people need to be social. However, when compared with other animals, people have deeper social needs. Regarding to “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, there are 5 steps: Physiological needs, Safety needs, Social needs, Esteem needs, and Self-Actualization. For other species, their needs are only in the first two steps which are the basic needs to sustain their lives. However, social needs in the meaning of Maslow do not mean just to live in herd or flock. Instead, they are the needs of being accepted by other people such as needs for friends, needs to give and receive love. Humans’ needs may advance to the final step, Self-Actualization, which is the quest of reaching a full potential as a person.

Moreover, people have a highly developed brain and complex critical thinking processes. Evidence can be found from the fact that people can create tools to help their lives more comfortable; for example, people invented a car as a vehicle for travel while animals have to walk by their own feet. People not only form language for communication but also have morals and code of conducts; on the other hand, animals do not have.

MaGic!!

Magic is a kind of superstition that has no scientific evidence. It is about human belief. It is believed that magic has two sides, white magic and black magic. White magic helps people achieving their goals while black magic is used for harming enemy.
Magic played an important role in human life in the past. It was believed by many people. For example, witch doctor was asked to cure patient by using magic. However, it becomes less influence on human life at present because of education development. People are much rely on reasons and past experiences.
Nowadays, most magic can be found in cartoon, film, novel, etc. just for fun such as Harry Potter. There is no solution about magic whether it exists. However, I am the one who does not believe in magic unless it can be proved. How about you?

Is your mood affected by the space that you are in?

One of my works today is to do the survey about the effect of surroundings on people's mood. I interviewed Por and the result was that his mood is affected by the surroundings. He kindly gave me some examples about this.
The first one is that he always moody when his room or desk is messy. He does not like to do his work on the untidy desk. So, he cleans up his room everyday when he comes home in the evening.
Secondly, he told me that in summer hot weather partly makes him angry easily.
The last example is that he likes working or reading outside his house. In the weekend, he usually goes to coffee-shop near his home to have a cup of hot coffee and do his work there because the nice environment, soft song, and sweet smell of coffee bring him a good condition, so he can better concentrate on his work.
Thanks Por for good cooperation!! :)