THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Let’s tap the Web to teach children English

Let’s tap the Web to teach children English

Chiang Rai students show a marked improvement in language skills after a smartphone-based course 

It’s widely believed that full understanding of another country or culture is impossible without knowing its language. But that isn’t the chief reason that knowledge of English is important to Asians or why we should be concerned that Thai students are lagging so far behind in their command of the language. A recent study offers some encouraging news, however. Researchers at two US-based educational institutes found significant improvement in Thai youngsters’ grasp of English as a result of online innovations being utilised.
Their study gauged the English skills of 281 students at two urban Chiang Rai schools before and after they embarked on a learning course using smartphones. The end result was a significant improvement in English speaking and writing abilities among both younger and older students.
The course employed a phone application called Qooco Kids English throughout a 13-week semester. The students were required to use the app on a daily basis, working their way at their own pace through 10 simulation-based lessons, each with various sub-components. The children did considerably better in later tests than they had done at the outset.
The programme’s success appears to confirm the educational benefit of using online technologies. It also underlines the importance of greater access to the Internet since, despite complaints about kids being obsessed with online games, there is no doubt that Thai youth is getting smarter in the process, learning as they play.
While everyone can play a role in promoting online learning, the greater onus falls on the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission. The reason for this is that the cost of making the Internet more accessible remains so strongly tied to the profit margin of big corporations when it should come down to the development of small-scale businesses – and our students. The telecom watchdog, supposedly independent of both corporate influence and government 
pressure, is obliged under its mandate to ensure that radio, television and the Web serve national interests, and 
education is prominent among those interests.
Meanwhile it would be wonderful to see the big telecom companies lending more support to education. In place of their usual strenuous efforts in public relations and marketing, they ought to be spending more time and resources widening the Internet horizon so that all citizens can share in its benefits. And we need to see more government spending on education, with high priority given to ensuring that all students have cheap if not free access to the Net. The potential knowledge they could gain from a wide-angle virtual view of the world should outweigh concerns that they might squander such access in mindless online activities.
For young people, learning a new language should be enjoyable, even natural. New technology only adds to the pleasure. Kids who love music are learning English from songs. Those who play games pick it up from the interface and online dialogue in the gamers’ cosmopolitan chat rooms.
Examining the possibilities from another viewpoint, our educational authorities might have to do some drastic rethinking about recent shifts elsewhere in teaching approaches. Aiming to give children more ways to demonstrate their individual talents, Singapore has begun phasing out classroom grading and is moving away from the traditional focus on conventional subject matter. Most kids today discover their passions online, and what they choose doesn’t necessarily align with their parents’ and teachers’ conventional concepts of what offers a promising future.
Such is the nature of rapid shifts in learning – the embrace of self-education through unlimited online resources chief among them. Teaching our kids English with the help of the Internet appears to be a good, practical start in tapping a global trend. 

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