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jandajoy

You stick to English - real English, not the English you use with your wife.

Wife and family stick to Thai.

Eventually he'll start to differentiate, around 6-7 yrs old. He may stutter a bit at that age or seem strangely quiet. Don't worry. Imagine what his head is processing!

The differentiation is quite important. You can make it clear to him when you read.

"This book is English"

When you wife reads to him she does the same, "This book is THai"

Fear not, he'll get it.

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kingwilly

very good advice.

kingwilly

actually yes.

Its better he learns that you speak one language and mom another.

pidgin whatever will just end up confusing him as to which language is which.

Nawty

I speak only english to my kids and wifey speaks both thai and english, but her english is pretty good. Nanny only thai.

As a result, both kids, 6 and 3yo are fluent in both lingos, as fluent as a 3 and 6yo can be in any language at that age.

My 6yo son was translating to me at 2yo.

We never do the bed time book thing. Don't know why, dont recall ever being done with me very much as a kid. It certainly has not effected his abilities now. But I might just go and get some books for him to read at home some more. he does enjoy it.

good2bhappy

The book at bedtime is great.
it instills love of reading, which lasts for life.
Books are fun, books are great, lets pick up a book today and read.

MisterStretch

I have the same problem with my 7-year old. I can't understand the amount of homework he has. He goes to extra classes after school so finishes at 5:30 most days. One day a couple of weeks ago he had about 4 hours of homework, given by different teachers. Most of the homework my wife and I oversee is fairly stupid and is material that really should be covered in class, particularly in his social studies class.

I never had that much homework. Granted, I was in a different country and a straight A student, which my son is not, but I still think it's excessive.

I share his joy, and his sister's when they come home and answer me, "No homework, daddy!" I'm happy for them because I think they generally have too much.

I agree. I picked up my love of reading about age 7 and I still have it. Unfortunately, my kids don't speak understand enough English yet for me to do the bed time reading, my wife handles that every night. I never hesitate to buy books for the kids, and am waiting for them to graduate from 'comic' books to real ones, hopefully soon.

kingwilly

Unfortunately many teachers just give out homework for the sake of it, not because it may enhance or consolidate the learning covered in classes.

There is a good arguement these days for NOT giving any homework....

I doubt many thai schools have heard of it yet.

You CAN go and speak to the teachers invovled, question the amount of homework being given, question the appropriateness of the homework, question the principals, ask the teachers to coordinate together so that the students are not overwhelmed.

Many schools will accommodate these requests, do not just accept it.

A few years ago I was flabbergasted to see my then current girlfriend (who was completing her school certificate as a mature age student) be given a homework assignment of draw up the peridodic table in science. I asked he why not draw it using a computer program?

Not allowed? So she spent 3 hours drawing a grid. she knew fuck all about the elements or how to read the periodic table, but at least she had drawn one by hand!

Nawty

Nice to know others feel the same and it is happening elsewhere.

I too am wondering if it is just handed out willy nilly and why the same stuff is not covered in class.

We received a request for my son to do after hours schooling also, this was straight after school finished for an hour and half. No school bus then, so we had to pick him up and the content was to help the child complete unfinished work, complete homework and so on.

I told them to stick it up their hooters. Far as I am concerned they should be completing all works in school hours, particularly at this age.

Camel Toe

Maybe I can help answer this question, I work with 110 Thai primary teachers. But what I can judge for teachers in Thailand comes only from one source, my little private school of employment.

The key work is jaded! Next is over-worked. Next is under-paid. Next is disrespectful Thai kids where the main objective for a teacher is crowd control.

We have 50+ students per class and the teachers earn 10,000 a month, that's all teachers, new and old. They have two resources: blackboard and chock.

Now if your child's school has better paid teachers (we aren't in BKK) or considerably smaller classes, AC, good resources, there are no excuses for giving so much homework .. just Thai laziness.

Lorenzo

zillions of kids math books at SAED and Asia Bookstores

bet the kids love em

kingwilly

lack of understanding, training & laziness

hence the reason I said to query it...

Nawty

I will be querying it next week.

This school is in Bkk, very well run and organised by the looks of it. It is bi lingual, they teach 60/40 english/thai apparently.

They have about 6 farang teachers that I have seen, have aircon etc and the class sizes are around 25 I think.

The only positive thing I can see about the homework deal at this young age is that it may be good for forming a habit of doing it for later in life when they do need to do a lot of real homework. Also as I said before, my son is now trying to squeeze the learning of a further fluent language into his schooling, so this must squeeze the available time for everything together.

I also could be looking at it from the point of a parent that hated school, left at 16yo and never went back. Wagged 50% of the form 5 year and climbed out the windows of classes I did not like.

But now I am grown and mature...I dun want my son doin the same as me.

kingwilly

no it is not!

he'll end up hating it too.

kingwilly

read the 5 or 6 articles on homework

Articles by Subject

Nawty

interesting stuff...see I was right all along....might print it all out and read it in detail in starbucks tomorrow...or immigration, which ever takes longer.

And I will take along relevant thoughts to meet the teachers next week.

Nawty

Where is the best place to get books for kids aged 6 and 3.

Somewhere central would be good.

Any place I have shopped before had been relativley poor in choice. Looking for both thai and english.

CSFFan

One bookstore I use quite frequently for supplemental material is the Ramkhamhaeng Uni store. It has very nice books for every age, preschooler learning A,B,C's to uni students. My wife goes there once or twice every few months to get material for her kindergarten classes.

BigRed

don't hold your breath if Thais are anything to go by.

buriramboy

I never knew i was capable of starting such an interesting topic, cheers all for the replies.

jandajoy

Internet ??