THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Letting down the language

Letting down the language

Thai kids at Bangkok's international schools risk getting 'lost in translation'

Bangkok’s international schools pack a surprise for first-time visitors, and it’s not short skirts or vulgar language, which are in fact nowhere to be found. The surprise is how little Thai is spoken and how poorly – by the Thai students. 

Most Thai student attending international schools can speak English reasonably well, but their Thai vocabulary and grammar is worryingly bad. 
While Bangkok is proud to have 75 entries on the International Schools Association’s list of local institutes, there’s no cause for celebration in the fact that so many of the Thais enrolled mispronounce Thai words and can’t write the language properly. 
The problem alarms teachers and parents not so much because the youngsters fumble the pronunciation of mahassajarn and sassatrajarn but because the students are Thai and ought to know better. They’ve been hearing the language since they were born, after all. 
It’s become evident that these schools’ native Thai students are now speaking Thai less fluently than their second or third languages. 
The surprise in the situation is mitigated somewhat by the fact that Thais make up only about a fifth of the student population at many of the international schools, such as Bangkok Patana, so they’re constantly surrounded by people who speak Thai little, if at all.
The timetable of a typical Thai secondary student at a leading interntional school, for example, might amount to just four periods per week, totalling less than three hours. And in the IGCSE (secondary-level examinations) the Thai language is not considered a key subject and is thus less important in the eyes of the students. 
Asked why she and her fellow Thai students often find Thai so hard to master, 15-year-old Pakpinya at a well-known international school says the alphabet is difficult. “And I speak English with my friends and sisters and I’ve never been to a Thai school, so my whole life has been spent speaking English,” she says. “I listen to English songs and watch English TV, so I don’t really get to practise any Thai.”
Leela, 14, offers a similar explanation. “My Thai friends have been educated the British way since kindergarten and get the minimal amount of Thai at school each week, so they haven’t had the same education that Thai schools give Thai students.
“Besides, I have foreign friends who only speak English, so I don’t really get to speak Thai that often,” she says.
The prevailing Western influence in music, films, literature and the news media means international students are, for example, more inclined to prefer musicians like Drake and Blessthefall over Thailand’s Room 39. 
The fundamental rule at the international schools is that English must be spoken at all times except during Thai-language lessons, so it’s easy to neglect the native tongue. Pakpinya admits that some of the Thai students struggle with their Thai-language assignments, to the extent that they use Google Translator, an online service that’s far from accurate in Thai. Thai proverbs are a complete riddle to them. 
Patcharee, another 15-year-old international school student, fails to understand her fellow students’ difficulty. “If you speak Thai on a daily basis with your family, then speaking Thai fluently and accurately isn’t very hard,” she says.
Pajongwart Poonkaew, who teaches Thai at Triam Udom Sueksa School, points out that the international schools usually only convey the basics of the native language. “So when the students move on to Thai schools and try to speak fluently, it can be very hard for them.” 
Well-known Thai-language lecturer Kijamanoch “Kru Lilly” Rojanasap has a suggestion. “It’s essential to incorporate Thai into your daily life, whether it be through music, movies, books or whatever,” she says. 
“It’s very important that parents speak Thai to their children so that they can be fluent, because it’s shocking that some Thai students nowadays can’t speak Thai clearly or read or write at all.” 
In her 10-plus years as a teacher of the language she’s encountered several Eurasian and Thai students who failed the subject because they weren’t using Thai in their daily lives. And yet students at the international schools can take advantage of Thai tutoring schools specifically established to tackle this issue, such as the Kru Too Centre, Kumon and Bilingual.
Nana Boonorm, a 14-year-old attending Ruam Rudee International School, agrees that Thai has to be part of everyday life. She’s able to write in Thai accurately and efficiently. 
“Thai workbooks can be really boring, so teenagers should listen to Thai music and pick up the lyrics, and read Thai comic books,” Nana says. “They should use Thai on the social networks like Instagram or even Facebook.” 
Nana says her friends who play Thai video games tend to speak and read Thai better than those who only speak Thai with their families. She credits this to the games’ interactive features. You can enjoy using the language and improve your command of it.
Nevertheless, she believes Thai youngsters who have been overseas since childhood will naturally struggle with Thai. It must seem foreign to them, she says. Nana reckons it’s good that Thai youth embraces other cultures and English in general, but they should maintain their “Thai roots and don’t forget you’re Thai”.
Just how solid their attachment remains to those roots might save them from becoming “lost in translation” when dealing with their mother tongue. As difficult as it is for foreigners in Thailand to get beyond the basics of the Thai language, these native children, a minority in their own Bangkok schools, are at risk of getting lost as well.
 
 
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