prkuehn

I have been teaching Mathayom 3 and 6 students in a government school now for a little over a month. Over this past month I have concluded that all of the problems I am having with my students arise from a lack of motivation on their part in learning English. How else can you explain the chronic skipping of class and tardiness especially for the Mathayom 6 students, and the loud talking in class, horseplay, sleeping in class, and general inattentiveness for both Mathayom 3 and 6 students? Some of the students are motivated, but the majority are not.
I have tried to stimulate the students' interest by being friendly and animated in class by acting out conversations for certain situations, but still, a lot of students, especially the Mathayom 6, are turned off and either sleep or don't want to participate in class activities. Is it going to be necessary for me to stand on my head or dress up as Santa and sing Christmas carols? I think it is because most of them don't understand a word of English which I am speaking. I can speak Thai at an intermediate level, but I admit that my pronunciation and tones especially are bad. Even if I did give the students the Thai meaning for all of the English handouts I give them, they still would not be able to understand the English. I think this is because most of the students have never had a foreign teacher before, and they never developed any listening comprehension skills in the lower grades. So, how can I give them remedial listening comprehension skills which will carry over to speaking if the school handcuffs me by not providing any audiovisual equipment or aids?
I feel that the average Thai places a very high value on the family, money, and status. It seems that they will do almost anything for these three. Do you think there is some way I can play on these three values to motivate my students? I would be very interested to know how most of you are motivating your students, especially the government school Mathayom students.