Saturday 4:45 - 5:35 PM
TTI, 403
How Do We Redescribe What Our Students Are Talking About In Thai
Culture?
Peter Hooper
Assumption University
This paper will address the question "What role does the English language
learning process have in modern Thai culture?". To assist in this
process, we start with simple observations concerning student interaction
and topic of choice in their speech and then work inwards to an informed
view of what is happening.
Thai society has moved from a predominantly rural based society to an
urban one in a remarkably short period of time. Neils Mulder is an
author who has written about this shift and included an examination of
the role school texts have played in these kinds of individual Thai culture
crafts.
Beyond what Mulder has to say we can see our students crafting themselves.
By combining what is observed with what others are saying about Thai culture
and the modern individual, we may be able to both understand better our
students and our own roles as teachers in the society in which we are working
and living.
As teachers and educators, the models we have been brought up on may
seem ill equipped to help us now. This gap between what we learnt
in the past and what we want to do now needs our attention. The project
of understanding can't be understood as finished or easily achieved and
yet we want to try our best.
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