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Eric managers practice a group work activity at a seminar on student-centred learning conducted by foreign experts. — Photo courtesy of British Council |
| The mandatory group photo at the conclusion of a seminar. These Eric trainers from one region in the south of Thailand will go back to their classrooms and try new techniques with their students in preparation for cascading training to other classroom teachers. — Photo courtesy of British Council |  |
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These teacher-trainers at Kannasootsuksalai School in Suphan Buri are taking part in the next level of the ERIC training process. The final stage of course, will be in the child-centred classroom where students will benefit from ERIC-style cascade training. — Photo courtesy of Dusadee Swangsri, ERIC manager |
| Click here to look at cascade training in action. |
ERIC stands for English Resource and Instruction Centre, and the 88 centres distributed throughout the whole of Thailand are largely responsible for in-service teacher training of English teachers.
Given the parlous state of the English language in Thailand, it may seem that the ERICs have not been very successful at improving English language education. They are, however, one of the few true success stories in Thai secondary education and deserve wider recognition. In this article, I hope to show how ERICS have helped Thai education and why they are a model for other sections of the Ministry of Education to follow.
Initially eight ERICs were set up in 1984 to provide focal points for the training of English teachers. Originally established as the Key Personnel Project to train upcountry secondary school teachers of English, it developed into PISET (a neat bilingual acronym for Project for Improving Secondary English Teachers). Both aimed to help selected teachers become trainers of other English teachers in their region. Now nearly every province in Thailand has at least one ERIC.
All of these ERICs are located in the larger schools of a province or region. Having decided to set up an ERIC, the Ministry of Education asks the directors of three or four of the biggest schools to decide whether they want to host an ERIC. One advantage of this approach is that the directors of ERIC schools are likely to be supportive of the centre's work, a key factor in the success of ERICs, as we shall see.
Having found a location for an ERIC, the next stage is to staff it. Experienced English teachers at the host school are invited to become ERIC managers. While this means that teachers with real classroom experience are put in charge of training and the other functions of ERICs, it does lead to problems for the ERIC managers themselves.
As Ajarn Sumalee Timcharoen, ERIC manager at Phra Pathom Wittayalai School in Nakhon Pathom says, "Since the higher authorities in the Ministry of Education don't recognise our work, no-one wants to take on the role of ERIC manager. Most managers are not the same person as the head of department causing problems of overlapping work and misinterpretations." More importantly, no allowances are made for the extra workload coming with the position for ERIC managers.
The fact that ERIC managers have to complete all of their ERIC responsibilities on top of a full set of teaching duties has potentially serious implications for their effectiveness, particularly in view of the massive range of functions that ERICs perform.
For example, the relatively small ERIC at Suan Boonyopatham Lamphun School under the management of Ajarn Sureerat Mee-uam provides a wide variety of English teaching services for 17 schools in Lamphun.
As Ajarn Sureerat explains, "For teachers, we have to organise training courses, seminars, and anything else that can help to improve English learning and teaching in our province. We plan together with the heads of department of all the other schools about what training we will run each year.
"We also plan to help students in our province. We have an English language competition every year which can encourage the students to study English. And we run yearly English camps and ask the AFS (American Field Service) students to help us run these.
"In the ERIC itself, we provide media and textbooks that can help students to learn English by themselves, both students from our own school and students from other schools. There is a listening corner and a video corner where students can borrow cassettes to listen to. We also have a games corner and a newspaper and magazine corner."
In addition, ERICs may also design teaching materials for other schools, act as a resource centre for English teachers, organise exhibitions, and facilitate informal self-development projects for teachers.
Although all of these functions are valuable, the key duty of ERICs is to train teachers from other schools. Recent topics for training have included how to design courses and using English as the language of the classroom. This year the content of training focuses on implementing student-centred approaches.
Cascade training
The model followed in organising ERIC training is termed "cascade training". Every year, the British Council, which provides invaluable support for ERICs, and the Ministry of Education identify a key topic for training. A large workshop (usually led by experts from overseas) to prepare all the ERIC managers for training teachers is then organised. Following this workshop, ERIC managers arrange further training workshops for the teachers in schools in their area. In this way, an initial 'stream' of input from the overseas experts is filtered through a Thai viewpoint and passed on to other teachers in a series of smaller workshops. Hence the term cascade training.
There are several reasons why a cascade training model is used. Firstly, the vast number of people involved in English teaching in Thailand precludes direct training of teachers by overseas experts. There are nearly 3,000 government secondary schools in Thailand with over two and a half million students.
To deal with such numbers, the most recent large workshop provided training for over 100 ERIC trainers, each of whom goes on to run their own 5-day workshop for around 50 teachers. In this way, it is hoped that at least one English teacher from every secondary school in Thailand will receive training.
A second reason for using cascade training is to enable the ideas stemming from a Western expert to be adapted to the Thai situation. Instead of teachers blindly following potentially inappropriate Western approaches to teaching English, methods applicable in Thai classrooms can be generated. From the most recent large workshop in Chiang Mai, examples of Thai-designed learner-centred materials can be found at http://www.school.net.th/education/ERICmaterial/, and a report of the workshop is available at http://www.britishcouncil.or.th/en/english/erics.htm.
Similarly, the follow-up training can also be conducted in a way that is most likely to help Thai teachers. ERIC managers, such as Ajarn Sumalee Timcharoen, can conduct the training to meet the real needs of the teachers.
She says, "One thing that teachers like most is the activities that the workshops provide. We know what the teachers need – they want us to demonstrate how to teach students in a learner-centred approach.
"So what I did, and what they like, is that I teach them as students and then we swap roles. They like that, because they act it out. They can look back and see what was going on, and their attitudes towards student-centred learning become much clearer. They are familiar with student-centred learning but they don't really understand it. They have to see it more than listen about it, and they have to talk about it."
A third and very important reason for using cascade training is to make innovations in English teaching acceptable to the teachers themselves. If teachers gain new ideas from other teachers who work in positions similar to their own, they are more likely to accept them. A by-product of this is the decentralisation of teaching expertise across Thailand, whereby every province in the country has effective teacher trainers.
As Dr Phithack Nilnopkoon, head of the Academic Supervision Section which oversees ERICs at the Ministry of Education says, "The most important aspect of ERICs is forming networks, so that effective teachers can help whole areas, not just their own school. These people can help teachers in their province to develop. Before this, teachers had to come to Bangkok or to universities for training. But now they can be trained by someone like them, someone who is their friend. In fact, the ERIC managers are now better trainers than the supervisors based in Bangkok."
Significant achievements despite obstacles
All of the progress that ERICs have made, however, has not been without problems. As we have seen, ERIC managers are even more overworked than most secondary school teachers. These workload problems are frequently exacerbated by budget problems.
As with nearly all educational projects these days, money is a big problem for ERICs. The project has been fortunate in receiving valuable long-term support from the British Council, but again, the sheer quantity of training required needs a very large budget. Although the Ministry of Education tries to provide money to support the training, nearly one hundred training workshops, each involving around 50 participants, does not come cheap.
The high cost of the training usually means that ERICs do not have money left over for other expenses such as buying books or organising English camps. When ERICs were first set up, the British Council provided teaching and learning materials, but now ERICs are generally dependent on the generosity of their school directors for upgrading resources. Where a director is supportive of the work of the ERIC, this does not present a problem, but such support is not always forthcoming.
Dr Phithack explains some of the problems that can occur, "When they change the school director, sometimes the new director has no experience of ERICs. Some directors don't understand the purpose of ERICs, so they don't give much support and don't provide any money. Also, they don't understand why ERIC managers have to go to join seminars and workshops every year. The directors may want other teachers to go instead, but the other teachers aren't responsible for the follow-up training courses."
One further problem facing ERICs is the unpredictable nature of some of their work. The Ministry of Education is infamous for making proposals for changes in education, which, they say, have to be implemented immediately. This puts pressure on ERICs as Ajarn Sureerat explains.
"At the present time we're in the process of educational reform and some policies from the government come to us presented as emergency cases. This makes me feel serious and nervous because we have to run training urgently. I can do this, but we have to invite other teachers to come for this urgent training. It may be a very busy time for these teachers with marking or organising activities for their students."
Despite these problems, ERICs are one of the few models of success in the Thai educational system.
The training workshops that ERICs run are well received by teachers, with the teachers frequently requesting ERICs to run extra training. The workshops provide useful input for teachers, a chance to meet other teachers to discuss problems and share solutions, and a support network to encourage teachers to continue striving for a good education for their students. This support and input is especially important for isolated upcountry teachers.
The ERICs are also a model of decentralisation in educational reform. Instead of relying on the Ministry in Bangkok to organise and run all teacher training, training initiatives often originate with the teachers who need the training, and the training is conducted by teachers who have a clear understanding of the real challenges in upcountry secondary schools.
With the growing need for effective reform in Thai education following the National Education Act of 1999, the ERICs are a model of tripartite cooperation between the British Council, the Ministry of Education, and the schools which host the centres.
Thailand has been fortunate in receiving the support it has from the British Council. This support has not been one-off, involving throwing a lot of money at a problem in the hope that it will disappear – a short-sighted approach which rarely leads to any meaningful change. Instead, the support has been very long-term, and, because of this, has resulted in sure foundations for the further development of English language teaching in Thailand in the future.
This success of the ERICs has repercussions for other aspects of Thai education. Using the ERICs as a model, the Ministry of Education is setting up nationwide training centres for other subjects.
Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, such a move reinforces the picture that the ERICs are one of the great success stories in Thai education.
terryfrd@ksc15.th.com |
