11-year-olds are afraid of me

It’s the last week of the semester here at Takpittayakhom school. Seniors are excited to move on to the next phase of their life, whether it’s college or the workforce, and all other classes are ready to move up a grade. This also means that a new group of kids will come in as level one students. Takpittayakhom is a secondary school meaning it has students at the equivalent of American middle school and high school levels (ages 12-18). One of the special programs offered at Takpittayakhom is the Mini English Program (MEP) in which the majority of classes are taught in English. This means that the students learn science, math, art, etc. from an English speaking teacher and the entire class is conducted using English. MEP students have a great advantage to practice English so often, and in a scholarly context, so many students want to enroll in this program. MEP is capped at 30 students per grade, so entrance is competitive. The incoming level one students (and/or their parents) all want to get into MEP to gain an advantage for university applications later on. Only students with the best English skills are accepted into the program, and their English skills are partially determined by an interview by Takpittayakhom teachers. Earlier this week my school coordinator asked if I would be available to be an MEP interviewer over the weekend and, seeing as how I had no travel plans, I accepted.

Main building at my school

 

On Saturday 140 grade six students would come to Takpittayakhom for an interview. English teachers were paired up and placed in a room. Students entered the room and sat at our table one by one and were asked a few questions in English. The questions were all very basic. “Tell me about yourself” and “what’s your favorite kind of…” type questions. The kids have studied for a couple years, but their level of English is very low.  Each teacher was given a list of 30 students on a 5 category table. Us teachers were given a score sheet with five categories, fluency, sentence structure, vocabulary, listening, and pronunciation. In each category we were told to score the students between 0 and 5, so that the highest possible score was 25. No problem. Talk to 30 little kids one at a time and then grade their English skills. I was quickly reminded of how nervous Thai students are in front of foreign teachers. Over the past 4 months my current students have become much more comfortable around me and are far less nervous speaking English with me. However, at the beginning of the semester my students would take 5 minutes to answer a question as simple as “What is your name?” even when they had just practiced the same question with their friends. From what I understand in Thai culture it is embarrassing to give an incorrect answer. American mottos like there are no stupid questions and practice makes perfect are lost on my Thai students. Perhaps a more fitting saying for students is It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubts. Luckily after weeks and weeks of being approachable and friendly my students learned that it was okay to say things a little off or guess an answer to one of my questions. Over 16 weeks I made sure to never tease a student for giving a wrong answer and encouraged a lot of talking in class. This meant that I was screwed for the 5 minutes I had with those little 11 year olds I was interviewing. Five minutes alone speaking to a foreigner was the stuff of nightmares for these kids.

Open air hallways. Picture 140 little kids waiting on those benches.

Each interviewee would say good afternoon as they approached my table, followed by a clearly rehearsed sentence telling me how old they are and what school they attend. Typically that first sentence was the only time the kids would be able string together more than six English words consecutively. For the rest of the interview the kids were far too nervous to think or speak clearly. After one student told me his name I asked “What is your favorite sport?” He looked at me for a few seconds, shook his head and then started tearing up. This of course made me feel terrible so I tried consoling the poor kid.

“No no no, its okay! Here example. My favorite sport is football (as I pointed at myself) What is your favorite sport? (pointing at him)”

The distraught kid looked up at me and said “football”, then returned to looking down at the table. The rest of his interview progressed about as smoothly. I would tell him something about myself followed by a question about him. His answers were always one or two words, and generally words that I had already said. After 5 minutes this little guy was emotionally exhausted, and I figured I had tortured him with questions enough so I let him leave. He stood up, bowed to my co-interviewer and I, thanked us and left. Then we had to grade him.

 

“Well, he was cute as hell but couldn’t speak a lick of English” I said to my partner.

“Yeah I feel bad, but his English level is pretty low” she concurred.

The criteria for a score of zero included apprehension, one word answers, and little to no understanding of the posed questions. The criteria for a score of five said the kid should speak consistently and promptly answer questions with a good vocabulary. Clearly he was not a five, but we both did not want to give any students a score of zero. For each of the five categories we scored him at 2.

 

The rest of the kids were just as nervous and often just as slow at answering. The first kid was the only one on the verge of tears, but plenty others looked as comfortable as an eleven year old in a dentist’s chair. I don’t consider myself an intimidating guy, but in these kids’ eyes I was the boogeyman. Me being my sarcastic self, I couldn’t help but think this was all actually pretty funny. I am writing about it after all. One of the funnier moments went like this.

 

“What is your favorite sport?” I asked The Kid

(The Kid looks at me, my partner, the table, the window, the door, the window again, then back at me.)

“…What is your favorite sport?” I repeated.

“Um….” The Kid says while kicking his legs against the table.

“I like football. What sport do you like?”

“….no” he said to me with surprising conviction.

“…Okay.” I guess he’s more of the book type.  “What school subject do you like?”

(The Kid repeats the process of looking around the room.)

“What school subject your favorite?” I asked trying to make it very simple.

“Beautiful” The Kid responds.

I honestly started laughing when The Kid told me this. I wasn’t laughing at his level of English. He can speak about as much English as I can Thai. Plus I have over a decade on him. I was laughing at how bizarre the situation was. I have no knowledge of children’s psychology, I don’t know what traits to look for in successful students, nor am I one of the coordinators of the MEP program. I am an intimidating foreigner that 20 students had to speak with on a Saturday afternoon rather than play with their friends.

 

After my interview with The Kid I tried to make my interviews as fast and pain-free as possible for the students. I asked real basic questions and kept each interview to only about five questions. A couple students were at a pretty good level of English. They could tell me whether or not they had siblings, what they did yesterday, and their favorite food. Since they were a long way from the score of 5 criteria, the highest score my partner and I issued was 3 in any category.

 

After my partner and I completed our interviews and were back in the office comparing scores with the other teachers we came across an alarming realization. Looking over the other teachers’ score cards we saw plenty of 3’s, 4’s and 5’s, with rarely any 1’s. With 5 categories of 5 points apiece the highest score a student could receive was 25. The other teachers actually had a couple students score a 25 and plenty of others scored in the 20’s. It seemed their students’ average score was 18. On the other hand, the average score of my interviewees was 8, with the highest being a 14. What was going on? Were they sending all the “special” applicants to my partner and I?

 

No. Not at all. As it turns out, the other teachers ignored the page listing the criterion for scores. Instead they used a subjective scale of 1-5 with the best students receiving 5’s and the rest of the students somewhat scored on a curve. The other teachers also encountered the same crippling fear from their kids and took the sympathetic route. Somehow every interviewing teacher besides my partner and I knew this. Thus making me the mean, impossible to please teacher.

 

So now my scores are on those poor kids’ records. The MEP staff can see that on Saturday I was probably the worst interviewer the kids could have hoped for. I am sticking around to teach next semester, and I will probably be teaching MEP level 1. I know that I will be seeing 30 of those trembling, adorable little Thai kids every weekday for 5 months. I am confident they will warm to me like the last bunch did. My only concern is that the accepted students will see the results of their interview. I don’t want to be known as the teacher who thought all his students sucked at English.

Avoid this teacher. He’s a real hard-ass.