Teaching science to Thai students

**jonny danger** · 22nd March 2012 20:23

The worst part about teaching science in M1-6 is having to follow the Thai curriculum. Those who designed it never took into account it's difficult enough in their own language. They're way out of touch. The only thing wrong with slipping in some English lessons is that you might step on some toes, or maybe cause some loss of face in the department. You can get around the language barrier easily enough with more imagery, videos and films but you'll fall behind the curriculum as it is written. And once the Ss pass the early Ms and go on to high school they'll be expected to have learned science to their grade level EP or no EP.

**slamb** · 22nd March 2012 21:45

Originally Posted by jonny danger

The worst part about teaching science in M1-6 is having to follow the Thai curriculum. Those who designed it never took into account it's difficult enough in their own language...

I suspect that the Thai admin don't even understand the science indicators in their own language! I just teach them what I think is relevant as I set my own exams & nobody can be bothered to check; even if they could understand.

**jonny danger** · 22nd March 2012 22:14

Some of the stuff they get. I broke away from the Thai curriculum a lot. I tried to teach them deductive reasoning. I figured at least that would be something they could use in real life.

Once I bought 6 pure white lab rats and dyed a coloured dot on each of them. Then we did experiments betting on which would excel in different events (like mazes and other races and such), and why we felt they would better the others based on what we knew of them through observation. We even made parachutes for them and dropped a few from the fifth floor.

Another was with an M1 class. They knew diddly. I bought two baby turtles, one a green Japanese slider, the other a Thai mud turtle. I told them there was probably only 10 people in the world who could sex a baby turtle but let's examine them and try to decide which is male or female.

After awhile one kid said the Japanese slider was female cause she was prettier. I asked which would win in a fight and all seemed to agree the Thai turtle would .. why .. cause he's Thai.

**Don Ho** · 22nd March 2012 23:25

Originally Posted by jonny danger

probably only 10 people in the world who could sex a baby turtle

Let's hope it's less than that these days.

**jonny danger** · 22nd March 2012 23:30

There's a major for ya, Ho.

I had one as a student strange as it seems, marine biology. But she had to open them up first.

**triduc** · 25th March 2012 11:19

It's a nightmare

**steveo** · 25th March 2012 15:58

I am teaching Science to M1,M2, M4. English levels are quite low. I do a lot of Q and A's with them after explaining the concepts. Get them to read with a few partners each class. If anyone has powerpoint presentations that they can share with me I would appreciate it!

**Don Ho** · 25th March 2012 17:19

Originally Posted by steveo

If anyone has powerpoint presentations that they can share with me I would appreciate it!

Good luck with that. Every time I've been offered something by someone on here and sent the email I've gotten nothing in return.

My PP's are property of my employer so unfortunately I can't share them with you. They follow very closely with our text book anyway so I'm not sure how much use they could be.