Torneyboy Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Our son has been told today his English is so poor ,along with writing and reading he must leave the main stream high school!. He started year 7(high School) six weeks ago after arriving in Sydney to finish primary school (with Zero English from Thailand) in April 2004. He will attend one on one lessons in (IEC) intensive English classes till end of this year. Then start year 8....a year behind....the others. He is a bright boy but this is going to put him way back leading up to the important exams in year 10 etc.... Long road ahead now.. we thought we were on track before high school..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted March 20, 2006 Report Share Posted March 20, 2006 Good luck, it's not easy, I had a friend years ago who's parents moved from Hong Kong when she was about 4, she was a bit of a runaway, spoke awefull English, then forgot most of her Cantonese, One day she suddenly realised she spoke no language at all well, Chinese and English was broken, woke her up to learning better language skills. Ironically she went back to Hong Kong and became a minor celebrity for movies and TV DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OCgringo Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 well at least they care enough to notice and do something about it , if it was here in California they would probably just let him slide , cost less tolet him do bad then give him special treatment , hopefully he will see that this is a good thing in the end OC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 our daughter came here ( calif) when she was 14, had a little english in thailand before, here she got put in an els class ( english as a second language) all the other students in the class were spanish speaking. she still has s few "tinglish words" to this day that have a definite mexican tone. but, to note how well she did, she was a paid tutor for anot her thai student after she graduated from hs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaad Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 TB, As mentioned above, the good thing is that you know exactly where your boy's at.. my suggestion would be to completely cut off the Thai lingo at home (I assume that's what he speaks with you and mom) in order to improve his weaker English. The boy needs practice and lots of it. He's not a baby anymore so make it clear that he's not getting anywhere if he doesn't significantly improve the local language. I suggest that you keep testing him as well. Ask him about his day, about his ideas regarding whatever, his plans for the evening, opinion on this or that, or open one of his Thai comic books (I'm sure he has a few) and ask him to translate it for you just keep him talking. As I see it that's the only way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted March 21, 2006 Report Share Posted March 21, 2006 Good idea Zaad, something I force myself to do with darlek, it helpedd. TB, best of luck! DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adams167 Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Zaad said:TB, my suggestion would be to completely cut off the Thai lingo at home (I assume that's what he speaks with you and mom) in order to improve his weaker English. Not sure I'd agree with that. Certainly you, as a Native English speaker, should only speak English to your son. However, I assume your wife is Thai and, if so, it's a fair bet she speakls quite accented and ungrammatical English; forcing your son to listen to that will quite possibly confuse him and inhibit his progress in learning "proper" English pronunciation, syntax etc.. Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Disagree, it will help everyone, I am slack, but when I force everyone to speak English it does help them a lot DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zaad Posted March 23, 2006 Report Share Posted March 23, 2006 Adams167, However, I assume your wife is Thai and, if so, it's a fair bet she speakls quite accented and ungrammatical English; I've met both of them and the above isn't the case. Even if it were, the OP mentioned his boy's English as being "so poor", so I'd say get the boy to speak grammatically correct first. Then work on his reading + comprehension skills.. the proper pronunciation would be step 2 or 3. Problem is that the boy will find a way to communicate with his mom or talk to dad via his mom (in Thai) because he feels more confident doing so..which in turn affects his English ..it's easier as they say, but kids have no clue that the easiest way ain't always the best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torneyboy Posted March 24, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2006 Zaad said:TB, As mentioned above, the good thing is that you know exactly where your boy's at.. my suggestion would be to completely cut off the Thai lingo at home (I assume that's what he speaks with you and mom) in order to improve his weaker English. The boy needs practice and lots of it. He's not a baby anymore so make it clear that he's not getting anywhere if he doesn't significantly improve the local language. I suggest that you keep testing him as well. Ask him about his day, about his ideas regarding whatever, his plans for the evening, opinion on this or that, or open one of his Thai comic books (I'm sure he has a few) and ask him to translate it for you just keep him talking. As I see it that's the only way. Hi Zaad As always you are correct....trouble is we have way to many Thais in our home and Thai is it....however my wife is now trying to help...so i live in hope ..but they talk in Thai ...as is easy for them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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