Chinese language lessons to be beamed from China
THE TRAIMIT WITTHAYALAI SCHOOL will facilitate the broadcast of Chinese-language lessons from China at several other schools in Bangkok.
The move is a part of the Office of Basic Education Commission’s initiative to provide distance-learning services for Mandarin using the Traimit Witthayalai School’s Chinese Language and Culture Centre as a hub.
“It [the school] has great expertise in such a field,” Obec secretary general Kamol Rodklai said.
The Office of Chinese Language Council International, or HANBAN, has helped the centre with teaching-material development, training and online classes that can be broadcast from China.
“Its standard is thus fully on par with that of HANBAN,” Kamol said.
He described Mandarin as the second most important foreign language after English.
Obec has embraced the distance-learning initiative due to the shortage of Chinese-language teachers in Thailand.
Under the initiative, the Traimit Witthayalai School will first help facilitate the broadcast of Mandarin classes from China at schools in Bangkok’s secondary educational service areas one and two.
“In the next phases, it will expand to Rajaprajanugroh schools and others,” Kamol said.
He said Obec planned to ask HANBAN to send Chinese teachers to Thailand to conduct classes here.
“And we also hope to send our teachers to China so that they can observe the teaching of Mandarin there,” he added.
In a related development, Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the city administration was promoting bilingual courses at its schools.
“To date, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration-run schools have already had 41 Thai -English classes and 14 Thai- Mandarin classes,” he said.
Sukhumbhand added that the BMA had also set its sights on including many other foreign languages such as Japanese, Malay and Arabic in the curriculum.
The BMA runs 438 schools.
