A while ago I had the opportunity of teaching a few English classes in a secondary school in Chiang Rai. It all started quite coincidentally: after a conversation with a teenager who attends the school. She brought me into contact with her English teacher. He was very keen to have a foreigner, especially a foreign English teacher, teach a few classes at his school. He would have preferred me to instantly take a job at the school for the rest of my stay in Thailand, but that was out of the question: I don't have a work permit here, and the conditions of my sabbatical leave don't allow me to take a job anyway.
Eventually we agreed that I would teach for six hours: three two-hour classes in the fourth, fifth and sixth years respectively, in the 'Major English'. We thought it best for me to concentrate on spoken English, because that is where most problems lie for Thai speakers. English pronunciation is extremely hard for people who, firstly, have a mother tongue that has a completely different sound structure; secondly, know a teaching tradition that pays little attention to a good pronunciation of English; and thirdly, have little contact with spoken English. As a result, they are used to speaking English as if it were Thai – they just apply Thai pronunciation rules to English words. The Thai language, for instance, does not have /s/, /l/ or /f/ sounds at the end of a syllable or a word; those are automatically changed to /t/, /n/ and /p/, or sometimes just left out. Plosive sounds are not completely realised at the end of a syllable or a word; for those who know something about phonetics: the occlusion stage is there, but the release does not occur or is very limited. And another problem: most Thai speakers routinely use /l/ instead of /r/. A few examples: 'five' sounds more or less like 'fie', 'best' becomes 'be(t)', 'rice' is changed into 'lie', 'Raf' becomes 'la(p), etc. As such, pronunciation often proves to be the main obstacle for Thai speakers to be understood when they try to use English. Some people do have a fair command of English, but can't make themselves be understood because of their poor pronunciation.
Anyway, let's get back to the original subject. One Monday morning, I arrived in a simple classroom, and faced about twenty-five fourth-year pupils who were eagerly looking forward to this English class that would be taught by a genuine foreigner. Much to my surprise, the head pupil called out 'Stand up, please!' and the entire class then chanted: 'Good morning, teacher!', while they respectfully greeted me with the traditional Thai 'wai', with the palms of the hands brought together. They then remained standing, waiting for me to tell them to sit down.
The class turned out to be a very pleasurable experience, but the pupils were often hard put to understand me if I ventured beyond the most basic English. Often they only understood a question after I had written it down on the blackboard – proving that spoken English is not the first concern of English teachers in Thailand. I was very glad that I could occasionally provide a Thai translation to clarify what I meant. Speaking was, if anything, even harder for the pupils. Indeed, Thai is a language that comes across as quite compact (a sentence like 'This house is beautiful', for instance, becomes more or less 'house beautiful'); moreover, Thai people love to shorten sentences in daily life. Personal pronouns, for instance, are often omitted if this is unlikely to cause any confusion. But, regrettably, they also tend to apply those 'rules' to English, with the result that they immediately turn it into a form of pidgin English.
The pupils showed tremendous enthusiasm, though, and were very eager to learn. I occasionally tried to improve their pronunciation, and stressed the importance of pronunciation if they wish to be understood by foreign speakers of English. At the end of the two hours, when it was clear that I had finished my class, the head pupil shouted 'Stand up, please!' again, and the pupils chanted: 'Thank you, teacher; see you again next time.'
The next few days, I also taught the fifth and sixth years, and the evolution in listening skills was obvious. Speaking skills were also better in the higher years, but not to the same extent. But the pupils' enthusiasm was always high, and the respectful greeting and goodbye words remained the same.
On the second day, when my class happened to be the first one of the day, there was another surprise for me. I arrived at the school well in time, and all pupils (all eight hundred) were still at assembly on the big field in front of the school buildings, listening to the head speaking; this is a daily ritual in Thai secondary schools. When the English teacher noticed me, he came to me and told me he would like to introduce me to the entire school; would I mind saying a few words to the whole group? A few moments later I found myself standing there, with a microphone in my hand, introducing myself, first in Thai, then in English... After assembly, when the pupils were on their way to their respective classes, the school band played a merry tune.
Those three days in the school were an unforgettable experience that I wouldn't have misssed for the world.
