Another Piece of the Puzzle

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Academic Competitions in Thailand

Understanding the role of academic competitions in Thai education has taken me a while, and parts of the picture are still missing. Here, I’ll just try to describe what I’ve learned so far.

As in the US, there are competitions in every academic subject. Coaching students who will compete is an important and time-consuming responsibility for Thai teachers. At our school, teachers hand-pick their students early in the summer semester, to prepare for the first round of competitions in July. For our school, the first round is within our network area of thirteen schools. Winners move up the hierarchy to their district, then to the provincial level, and, if successful there, to the regional competition (there are 77 provinces in Thailand and five regions). Regional winners proceed to the national competition in Bangkok, in February. This year, three students from our school did well in Bangkok, all of them in the computer category. Two got second places and one got a fourth place. Everyone was very proud of them.

The contests in English – impromptu speech, spelling bee, storytelling, and multi-skill – are premised on rote learning. Spelling bees in Thailand are similar to American ones, except that no word lists are published in advance. I believe that multi-skill (reading, writing, listening and speaking) is a multiple-choice test, but I haven’t participated in that contest yet, so am not sure.

Impromptu speech is somewhat of a misnomer, since the students must prepare memorized speeches on several topics (announced in advance, typically, “My School,” “My Family,” “My Free Time,” My Environment”). The impromptu aspect lies in not knowing your topic until the last minute – each student draws a topic right before their turn to speak, which is very stressful. Those who don’t have a memorized speech on the topic they draw can speak on something else, but must forfeit a significant number of points. Quite a few choose that option anyway, because if they know their prepared speech well, they might get full points on everything but content (e.g., form, delivery, pronunciation, etc.), and thus come out with a respectable score, though most likely not as a winner. In this contest, you hear quite a few students reciting speeches without knowing what they are saying, a sad consequence of the emphasis on rote learning.

Storytelling also requires memorization, but the student memorizes only one story and there are no last-minute surprises. They are expected to use gestures, different voices, movement, and sound effects to dramatize the story, so there is room for individual creativity. Probably the stories are also easier to remember because they have a plot, interesting characters needing to solve problems, repetition of key lines, and a moral lesson – all lacking from the impromptu topics. I was a judge for storytelling at a regional competition in Mukdahan province, which is on the Mekong River across from Laos.

My co-teacher, a friend, and me, and Laos across the river

Each contestant gives the judges a printed copy of their story.  The other judges (there were four of us) followed along reading the text while the students were speaking, but I decided to consult it only if I got totally lost – which happened a few times. For example, in one Thai tale, a character is transformed into a white squirrel – a phrase that is virtually impossible for a Thai speaker to say, because the sounds “r” and “l” occur in the same word. In my notes I wrote “white skirt?” “white scare?” and then realized I’d better look at the text

Every event must have a banner . . .

I was surprised to see how few students chose Thai tales or tales from other Asian traditions – however, it’s likely that fewer such tales are readily available in good, “tellable” English translations. The stories that were most often chosen by the 60 students who competed here are: Cinderella (6 contestants); The Three Little Pigs (5); Little Red Riding Hood (4); The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats, The Lion and the Mouse, Snow White (3 each); The Little Mermaid, Rapunzel, The Lion and the Oxen, The Little Ladybug’s Dream, and Thumbelina (2 each). In general, fairy tales and tales from Aesop were the most popular. Students were enthusiastic in their use of sound effects and dramatic actions (crying, trembling, rejoicing, etc.) – and several sang songs as well. A song is a great addition if your story is too short to meet the time requirement.

Later, I found some of the above tales in Thai bookstores, in editions containing the dread pronunciation glosses that spell English words with Thai letters (I wrote about this practice in an earlier post, “Sound Barriers”). I believe these glosses help account for some of the storytellers’ error-ridden pronunciation. I wanted to wave the fairy godmother’s magic wand and turn those glosses back into pumpkins!

Besides the traditional academic contests, Thailand also has competitions on knowledge about ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations), in keeping with the national mandate to educate youth about the ASEAN countries prior to launching the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. Based on the vendors’ displays at competitions, there is a thriving industry in ASEAN-related teaching materials – maps, flags, posters, books, CDs, DVDs, lesson plans, quizzes, puzzles, games, buttons, stickers, dolls with clothing and hairdos typical of various ethnic groups in the 10 countries, and much more. Some contests in Thailand's ASEAN competitions are in English, because English will be the AEC’s language of communication, and is already the working language for ASEAN meetings, official documents, and so on.  

For ASEAN competitions, I’ve twice served as a judge for “English Debate,” which, unlike the contests described so far, doesn’t depend on rote learning. It’s a challenging contest because it requires not only a relatively strong command of English, but also content knowledge and ability to think on one’s feet.

The first time I served as judge for English Debate was in our district. It was painful. The team members couldn’t remember the points they were supposed to make, had to read from their written notes, and couldn’t understand what the other side was saying. I felt sorry for the students and wished they could have been assigned to a contest more in line with their abilities – at the time, I hadn’t met any Thai students whose English was strong enough to handle this contest. Weak performances notwithstanding, the team that did slightly better than the others went on to the provincial level. I have no idea how they fared.

The second time I served as a judge for English Debate was at a competition for our region (Northeast) in Khon Kaen.  I was assigned to a category for students who attend private schools or public schools with special English programs – prior to this event, I hadn’t known that such schools existed. The special programs are for selected students only, are taught by native speakers, and provide extra learning experiences, such as the opportunity to take several courses taught in English (e.g., social studies, government, etc.) in addition to regular English classes. You won’t be surprised to hear that students from these schools fared much better in English Debate. My co-teacher colleague, seen with me in the picture below, was assigned to judge this contest with teams of students from “non-special” public schools. Predictably, they struggled with the challenges of English Debate..

Our contest rooms were in the basement, hence low ceilings

 The English Debate teams that I judged in Khon Kaen were a pleasure. Students came prepared with facts and arguments about the topic (the proposed opening up of international trade restrictions in the AEC). In all respects they were the opposite of the teams I had seen in our district – they didn’t recite or read from their notes, but knew what they were saying, understood what the opposing team members said, and could respond, with varying degrees of effectiveness (hey, they are high school students, after all!). Their native-speaker teachers were right there with them the entire time, chatting reassuringly, checking with the judges on small details of the contest rules, and coaching the students up to the last minute. No wonder they did so well!

As someone whose role in Thailand is to help enhance the teaching of English, I have often railed against the academic competitions, which seem at cross-purposes with the Thai Education Ministry’s stated goal of moving away from rote learning and toward more communicative, participatory teaching and learning. Here is a link to a recent article on this subject: http://www.chiangraitimes.com/education-minister-says-english-teaching-reform-in-thailand-begins-this-year.html

If we are supposed to promote better communicative skills, I would ask my English teacher colleagues, why do we make students spend so much time memorizing a speech they don’t understand and that has no intrinsic value? They could learn so much more by spending those hours in listening and speaking practice. Why do we ask them to participate in an English debate that is simply beyond their abilities at this point and would be too difficult for many of their teachers? I didn’t get much by way of answers to these questions but I gradually understood more about the role of the academic competitions in Thai education.

First, I believe it is simply true that Thai academic competitions, like Thai national exams (a topic for a separate post!), are indeed at odds with the goals of education reform. Many Thai educators agree that rote learning does not foster creativity, critical thinking, or independent learning. (A link at the end of this post will take you to a Thai cartoon that makes this point.)  Academic contests that reward rote learning are however still supported by the education ministry despite the contradictions, no doubt because no one has come up with any suitable alternatives. English Debate is a positive example of a contest that rewards oral fluency and critical thinking, but the level of fluency needed is out of reach for students at many schools, where English classes still emphasize grammar and memorization, and there are no special programs for motivated students. The goals for change look good on paper, and it’s very encouraging that some public schools can offer special programs for English. Still, implementing education reform down through the hierarchy, all the way to rural schools like ours, will be difficult to say the least. And most teachers, understandably, won’t change their teaching approaches as long as students are still required to take national exams based on rote learning.

Second, I learned that success at academic competitions is not only for students – though obviously each win, at whatever level in the hierarchy, is a reason for them to celebrate. However, the success of these students is also an important way for teachers to earn points toward a promotion. My co-teacher explained this during one of our conversations about why teachers put students through these ordeals (as they seem to me). A student she coached was a top winner in Bangkok two years ago. As you can imagine, this is a well-deserved enhancement to her resume and a boost to her self-image.  In a later conversation, I learned that our school principal achieved a promotion this year based in part on two first-place winners from our school, the student just mentioned (coached by my co-teacher) and one coached by a talented social studies teacher who left our school last July – but was teaching here when her student won a first place in Bangkok. So, the winning students enhance the reputation of the entire school

Understanding these aspects of student participation in academic competitions didn’t make me feel a lot better about what the students must go through – but of course Thai teachers have to play the hand they’ve been dealt. It would be great if the reforms promised by the education minister (stated in the article linked above) could lead not just to a reshuffle, but a new deck.  Dream on?

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not reflect the perspective of the Peace Corps, its employees, or any American agency.

Link to cartoon: 

https://www.google.co.th/search?q=cartoons+thai+education&client=firefox-a&hs=3SC&sa=N&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=WnsqU7_HNouFrAfJ-4GQDw&ved=0CDoQsAQ4Cg&biw=1025&bih=434#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=QcCNqvkrxYvxyM%253A%3BnWUxXcUdWBEwNM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpropelsteps.files.wordpress.com%252F2013%252F06%252Feducation-system-in-out-cartoon.jpg%253Fw%253D600%2526h%253D377%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fpropelsteps.wordpress.com%252F%3B600%3B314