Thai teachers get a real knowledge boost
NEW LEARNING PROGRAMME WINS PRAISE
Thai teachers get a real knowledge boost
How can a mathematics teacher make her students pay attention enthusiastically to a lesson in a subject many people consider boring, especially when she has not even completed her bachelor's degree in the field?
Nowadays, there are around 400,000 teachers teaching 8.5 million students in primary and secondary schools throughout Thailand under the Office of the Basic Education Commission (OBEC) - and thousands of teachers do not teach directly the subjects they studied in university, according to OBEC's Operations Centre Department.
Phuangphen Sawatdee-mongkol, 51, a teacher at Chumchon Wat Nongree School in Chon Buri's Muang district, is one such teacher.
She says that lately teaching has become more enjoyable for her as the students were paying closer attention. Her Mathayom 1 students are a case in point. They all try to answer every question she asks and work on group activities together to find the correct answers.
Phuangphen says the atmosphere in her class and her students' attitudes have changed since July 2006 when she completed a teacher-training programme provided by the Education Ministry with technical and development support from the World Bank.
"I was trained to use various methods to teach students with different abilities, learned to observe each student's feedback closely to adjust my teaching methods to their needs, and prepared myself, my lesson plans, and instructional media well enough to help my students understand," Phuangphen said.
In addition to Phuangphen, 89 other maths and science teachers from 66 extended educational opportunity schools in Phichit, Chon Buri, Krabi and Ubon Ratchathani participated in the programme.
One of Phuangphen's Mathayom 1 students, Vanchana Inpitak, 13, said the class has made him like mathematics, whereas it had been a very difficult subject for him in the past.
"My teacher helps me to understand maths easily and she is close to all the students," Vanchana said. "I hope to get a B in mathematics this year even though I only got a D last year."
Another student in the class, Warunee Hinghoi, 13, said she enjoyed studying with Phuangphen.
"Some of my friends always copied my homework in the past, but now they only ask me to explain what they don't understand so they can do their homework themselves," Warunee said.
The training programme was organised by first conducting a series of satellite training sessions for 3,000 mathematics and science teachers nationwide. Then in a pilot programme, 90 teachers were chosen from the 3,000 to apply the acquired skills and knowledge in real life, aided by eight mentor teachers provided by OBEC who observed the teachers onsite and helped them review their teaching plans and aids.
OBEC has many projects throughout Thailand focused on improving mathematics and science instruction, according to Benjalug Namfa, director of OBEC's Bureau of Educational Innovation Development.
"The projects that OBEC has established include supporting 1,750 leading schools in the country that have specially trained maths and science teachers; forming 80 special maths and science classrooms in every province to tutor students who want to study advanced topics; translating science instructional media provided by Unesco into Thai; and initiating a pilot project in Phang Nga to teach primary school students modern science and develop science teachers," Benjalug said.
The teacher-training programme supported by the World Bank will be extended next year to mathematics teachers in schools already participating in OBEC's Lab School Project, according to Boonthong Boontawee, the programme's caretaker and supervisor of education for the Bureau of Educational Innovation Development.
As for Phuangphen's Chumchon Wat Nongree School, there are plans to extend training under the programme to more teachers early this year, said school director Prawit Sripinit.
"I don't want such a good programme to stop, so our school has decided to extend it by training other teachers who are now teaching maths and science. We are going to train the rest of them by next semester," Prawit said.
Wannapa Phetdee
The Nation
