Table Of ContentTeaching Writing in Rural Thailand:
Considering New Perspectives
Glenn Toh
This article reportsonapracticalwritingworkshopfor Thai teachersofEnglish
in arural Thai setting. The teachers wereparticipants inaCertificate in TEFL
course sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA
and taught by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization,
Regional Language Centre (SEAMEO RELC). Thegenre approach to teaching
writingisproposedasawayofhelpingteacherslookbeyondstructuralelements
like vocabulary, punctuation, and spelling. The socialfunctions and language
choices ofthree importantgenres ofwriting, Description, Anecdote, and News
Item, areexaminedin thearticle. The principlesandpracticesmaybegeneraliz
able to similar situations, that is, places where English is taught as aforeign
language.
Background
EnglishhasbeentaughtinThailandsincethemid-1800swhenKingRamaIV
hired Americanmissionaries toteachthe royalchildren. In 1870KingRama
V founded a school to teach English and other "modem" subjects, also to
royal children. The first school for the common people was established in
1878(Sukamolson,1998).
AlthoughtheteachingofEnglishinThailandfound itsbeginningswithin
theportals ofhigh places, ithas notbeenlimited to thenobility. Masavisut,
Sukwiwat,and Wongmontha(1986) tellofhowinThailand,
EnglishhasbeenusedbypeopleofalllevelsofThaisociety-business
people,academics,governmentleaders,taxidrivers,andbargirlstoful
filtheirownobjectiveswhethertheybetoobtaintechnicalknowledge,
participateininternationalcommunication,competeininternational
trade,developthetourismindustry,orsimplytoimprovethefamily's
economicwell-being. (p.197)
RujikietgumjornandPojananon(1993),however,pointoutthatthelanguage
stillcarriessnobvalue,particularlyinurbanareas,inthat"studentsinurban
schoolsambitiouslyattendEnglishclassesbothinandoutofschoolsbecause
it indicates the prestige of the family" (p. 3). Their observation confirms
Janyasupab's(1984)observationthatEnglishwaslearnedwiththebeliefthat
it would give candidates a better chance of being admitted "to the most
prestigioushighschoolsandcolleges" (p. 1).
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However,inrural areas,Rujikietgumjornand Pojananon(1993) describe
palpable difficulties faced by teachers of English among the rural poor. In
contrastwithurbanareas, RujikietgumjornandPojananontellofthe lackof
qualifiedteachers,informationonappropriatemethods,appropriatemateri
als,andteachingaidsasmajorproblems.Textbooksareeitherinappropriate
for the level at which they are being used, too teacher-centered, or not
sufficiently current in approach. Moreover, substantive information on the
teachingofEnglishinThailand's rural areas is yettobe readily available in
major English-language teaching (ELT) journals published in Thailand.
Meaningfulreferences toELTinruralschoolsarehard tofind eveninPasaa:
AJournalofLanguageTeachingandLearninginThailand,whichclaimstobethe
oldestprofessionaljournalinEnglishteachinginThailand.AsurveyofPasaa
from 1995 to 1998 reveals that out of a total of 43 articles, none gives any
treatmenttoELTinruralThaiclassrooms. The EnglishTeacher, theotherELT
journalpublishedinThailand,issimilarlysilent.
Problems
Thus to understand betterthe problems concerningthe teachingand learn
ingofwritingskills inEnglish, a surveywas done amongMatayom1and 2
(first- and second-year high school) teachers in rural districts in Surin
Province in Thailand, where I conducted a workshop on the teaching of
writingaspartofaCertificateinTEFLprogramfundedbyCIDAandtaught
by staff from SEAMEO RELC. Each province in Thailand has a central or
Muangdistrict,whichisconsideredtheurbanarea;areasoutsidetheMuang
districtareconsideredrural.SurinisinThailand'snortheast,whereaverage
incomes are the lowest in the country. The teachers surveyed were chosen
because of their seniority and also because they were more experienced in
teachingEnglishcomparedwithothersintheirschools;eachhadatleastfive
yearsofEnglishteachingexperience.
The survey sought to find out what teachers perceived to be the main
problemsfacedbyThaistudentswhengivenawritingtask.Theresponsesof
the teachers focused mainly on the structural and mechanical problems in
writing. The following is a summary ofthe teachers' responses (see teacher
responsesintheAppendix).
1. learnershaveproblemswithgrammar;
2. learnershavelimitedvocabulary;
3. learnershaveproblemswithpunctuation;
4. learnershaveproblemswithspelling;
5. learnershaveproblemsphrasingorexpressingwhattheywanttosay.
The teachers' preoccupation with grammar, punctuation, spelling, and vo
cabularysuggeststhatlanguageisviewedverymuchasstructureandnotas
meaning or communication. Thus mastery of writing skills is equated with
masteryoftheintricaciesoftraditionalgrammar,knowingwhenandhowto
102 GLENNTOH
punctuate sentences, having a good knowledge of vocabulary, and being
abletospell.Thiscanbeseenfromstatementssuchas"Grammarstructureis
notcorrect," "They cannot spell words correctly," "They cannotuse gram
marandstructureofthesentencescorrectly,""Theywriteapassagethatisso
shortbecausetheycouldnotfind thewordstowrite."
OfferingTeachers New Perspectives
The teachers' responses very much vindicate Rujikietgumjorn and
Pojananon's(1993)concernabouttheneed toofferteachersmethodsthatare
more current. The teachers at the workshop were invited to consider some
freshperspectivesconcerningtheteachingofwriting.
The main objectives of the workshop were for teachers: (a) to view and
understand writing as communication rather than as structure; (b) to teach
learners to write different types of texts or genres; and (c) to impress on
learnersthateachgenreservedasocialandcommunicativepurpose.
Withtheseobjectivesinmind,itwasdecided thatthetrainingworkshop,
whichwasheldattheprovincialeducationheadquarters,shouldhelpteach
ers focus ontwo importantconcepts: (a) thesocialfunctions ofthree impor
tantgenresofwriting,and (b) thelanguagechoicesofthesegenres.
SocialFunction
During the workshop the teachers were asked to consider genie theory to
teachwritingtotheirstudents.Theteacherswereintroducedtothenotionof
genre and the social functions ofdifferent genres ofwriting (Gerot & Wig
nell, 1995).This was done through group work, eachgroup ofthree orfour
beinggivenanexampleofdescriptivewriting,ananecdote,andanewsitem.
These are the genres teachers at the lower secondary level would need to
teach.
Passage1
Genre:DecriptiveWriting
SocialFunction: todescribeaperson, place,orobject
Bangkok
BangkokisthecapitalofThailand.Itisabigcity.Millionsofpeoplelive
inBangkok.Itisaverycrowdedplace.Therearemanycars,factories,
banks,andshoppingcenters.
Bangkokhasmanyplacesofinterest.Theyarethefamous ChaoPhraya
River, thebusyFloatingMarket,andbeautifulhistoricalbuildingslike
theancientGrandPalace.Italsohasmanyfirstclasshotels.Tourists
from allovertheworldvisitBangkok.Theycomeforsightseeingand
alsotoshopforniceclothesandsouvenirs.
Bangkokiscertainlyoneofthemoreinterestingandexcitingcitiesin
theworld.
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Passage2
Genre:Anecdote
Social Function: To share an account of an unusual or interesting incident
withothers
A Snakeat School
Letme tellyouaboutthetime Isawasnakeatschool. Itwastowards
theendofthe daywhenallmyfriendshadalreadyleft.Iwasgoingto
thetoiletup onthesecondfloorofthebuilding.Ithadbeenrainingall
dayandIcouldseethatthericefields aroundtheschoolwereflooded.
AsIwalked upthestairs,Itoldmyselftobecareful,becausethesteps
wereslippery.Allofasudden,Isawsomethingslitherupthelanding.I
tookasecondlookand thereitwas,afour-footlongpython.Itwas
green,andhadyellowmarkingsonit.Immediately,Iran downstairs,
screamingforhelp.TherewasnoonearoundexceptforKhunSomsri,
thesportsteacher. Shewentup thestaircase,butfoundnopython.It
musthaveescaped.Itwasveryfrighteningforme,and infuture, Iwill
bemorecarefulaboutgoinganywherealone.
Passage3
Genre:NewsItem
Social Function: To informpeople aboutevents ofinterestwhichhave hap
penedrecently
Illegal SoftwareSeizedbyPolice
"Thaipolicehaveseizedcomputersoftwareworthalmost2millionbaht
from acompanyaccusedofusingpiratedcomputerprograms," acom
puterindustryalliancesaidyesterday. "Policeconfiscatedthesoftware
and52computersafterreceivingcomplaintsthatthecompanydidnot
havelicensesforallitssoftware,"theEnterpriseComputerAlliance
(ECA)said.ECA,whosemembersincludewell-knownsoftware
makers,praisedtheThaipolicefortheireffortstostoppiracy.
"Themessagefrom thisraid isclear.Companiesshoulduselegal
software,"saidECAVice-President,JohnLukeinastatement. "Don't
jeopardizeyourcompany'soperationswithillegalsoftware."
ECAreportedthatnoneofthecompany'sofficialshavebeenarrested,
butcriminalinvestigationsarecontinuing.
The teachers were asked to look at each piece and find answers to the
followingleadquestions: .
Ofwhatuseisthispieceofwriting?
Whendopeoplewritepiecessuchas thisone?
Whydopeoplewritesuchpieces?
Whoarethepeoplewhoaremostlikelytowritesuchpieces?
104 GLENNTOH
Whatiscommunicatedthroughsuchpiecesofwriting?
Throughtheaboveexerciseteachersweremadeawareofthesocialfunc
tionofvariousgenresofwriting.
Language Choice
Teachingwritinginvolvesmakingstudentsawareoflanguagechoice.Justas
texts perform specific functions, the language resources of which texts are
madealsoperformspecificfunctions. Bothtextsandwordsaremadetowork
ordoajob.
This stage of the workshop followed logically from the previous one,
except that this time the teachers' attention was drawn to the functional
natureoflanguageinthemakingofmeaning.
To illustrate what was meant by language choices, the passages were
analyzed on overhead transparency using colored pens. It was explained
that the verb choices were different in the passages. At this point simple
terminology used by systemic functional linguists was introduced. Thus
Passage I,DescriptiveWriting, wasmadeup mainlyofrelational processes
(is,are,has),whichexpressastateorattributeofbeingorexisting.Ontheother
hand, Passage 2, Anecdote, was made up of verbal processes (tell, scream),
which signal that something was being said, and behavioral processes (go,
see, walk, leave), whichsignalbehavior. The onlytimes whenPassage2used
relationalprocesseswere whenitswitched to a descriptionofthe python
"Itwasgreen,andhadyellowmarkings,"andwhenthewriter'sfeelingswere
described-"It was very frightening for me and in future, I will be more
carefulaboutgoinganywherealone."
In Passage 3, News Item, it was pointed out that verbal processes (say,
praise,report)similarlyoccurredwhensomethingwasbeingspoken.Material
processeswerealsopresent.Thesecapturedthenatureofthephysicalaction
takingplace or,inthe wordsofGerotandWignell(1995),how "someentity
physically does something ... to some otherentity" (p. 55). Thus the police
seizeand confiscatethesoftware,andarrestsuspects.Materialprocesseswere
noticeablyabsentinPassage I,DescriptiveWriting.
The use of different types of processes was highlighted as being an in
stance ofhow language choices are open to each writer. Different kinds of
passages would be characterized by different choices (Gerot & Wignell,
1995).Soasa student-writerworked onwritingdifferentkinds ofpassages,
he or she would have to make word choices, as different types of words
performed different functions. Descriptive passages are characterized by a
predominance ofrelational processes, anecdotes bya predominance ofver
balandbehavioralprocesses,andnewsitemsbymaterialandverbalproces
ses.
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Use ofSystemic Functional Terminology
There was no reservation about introducing the terminology or meta-lan
guage of systemic functional linguists to the teachers. Such terminology
would for them have been the sort of "new knowledge," the "scientific"
terminology expected ofsuchworkshops. These would be understood and
committed to memory. I observed that the Thai teachers had a way of
translating new terms into their own language, and this would help them
internalize the concepts. Often one could see a Thai phrase painstakingly
penciledbetweenlinesorinthemarginofthemodules,probablyasanaidto
comprehension or memory. Thus the main concern was not whether there
would be resistance to such terminology, but whether they would find
classroomapplications.
ClassroomApplication
Asisalwaysimportantwithworkshopsforteachers,theparticipantsneeded
to walk away armed with classroom applications for what had been
presented.Thisis where the "curriculumcycle"becomesuseful(Callaghan,
Knapp, & Noble, 1993). The curriculum cycle proposes four practical steps
that classroom teachers can follow when planning their writing program.
They arefield construction, modeling, joint construction, and independent con
struction.
Field construction is when both teachers and pupils gather content. For
example, if the pupils are going to write a descriptive piece about their
provincialcapital,theywillneedtogathersomeinformationabouttheplace
duringfieldconstruction. Exactlyhowmuchtimeisspentonfield construc
tionislefttotheteacher'sdiscretion.Withalessfamiliartopicfieldconstruc
tionwilltakelonger.
The stage after field construction is modeling. This is where the teacher
uses a model passage,highlights (orelicits from the pupils) thesocialfunc
tion ofsuch apassage, and points outcharacteristiclanguagechoices to the
pupils.Forexample,theteachercouldusePassageI,DescriptiveWriting,as
amodelofa description. Coloredpensareoftenuseful. Intheabsenceofan
overhead projector the teacher can use the blackboard or a large piece of
newsprintwiththemodeltextwrittenonit.
Aftermodelingtheteacherdoesajointconstructionexercisewiththeclass.
This is where the teacheracts as scribe, andbothteacherand pupilsjointly
compose a description, for example, of their provincial capital. This, once
again,canbedoneontheoverheadprojector,blackboard, ornewsprint.
Finally,thepupilscanworkontheir individualpieces ofwriting.Thisis
theindependentconstructionstage.Pupilscould,forinstance,beaskedtowrite
adescriptionoftheirtownorvillage.
106 GLENNTOH
Conclusion
The teachers in this workshop bear heavy responsibilities in their
workplaces.Theyhavetosuperviseotherteachersintheirschool,andsome
times district. They also have the unenviable job of teaching a foreign lan
guageinasituationwhere teachingmaterialsand teachingaidsarefarfrom
adequate.Thisiscompoundedbythefact thattheirworksituationsareoften
lessappreciatedthanthoseoftheircounterpartsinurbancenters.Theirhard
workoftengoesunrecognizedandunsung.Itishopedthatthisarticlegoesa
littleway toaddress suchan imbalance.Finally, itshould benoted thatthis
inserviceprogram,likeothersuchprogramssponsoredbyCIDAand taught
bySEAMEORELe, wascarried outnotwithaviewtoprescribingtoteach
ers a list of "must-do's," butin a spiritofenablingthem to considernewer
teaching methods as being complementary to existing ones, and with the
view to making their work with their pupils more meaningful, productive,
and, Ihope,gratifying.Itmustproveeminentlyworthwhilefortrainersand
sponsors ofsuchworkshopsjusttosee the sparkle in theeyes ofthose who
begin to see the usefulness or potential of a new idea. Students in the
classroomscanonlystandtobenefit.
The Author
Glenn Toh has worked on CIDA and SEAMEO language teacher-training and government
languageproficiencyprojectssince1995.HehastaughtinThailand,Laos,Vietnam,Singapore,
Brunei,DaresSalaam,andAustraliaandmaintainsakeeninterestindevelopmentsinELTin
Indo-China.Hehaswrittenarticlesonlanguageandculture,theteachingofreadingandwriting,
ESP,andothertopicsforSoutheastAsianandinternationaljournals.
References
Callaghan,M.,Knapp,P.,&Noble,G.,(1993).Genreinpractice.InB.Cope&M.Kalantzis
(Eds.),Thepowersofliteracy:Agenreapproachtoteachingwriting(pp.179~202).London&
Washington:FalmerPress.
Gerot,L.,&Wignell,P.(1995).Makingsenseoffunctionalgrammar.Sydney:Antipodean
EducationalEnterprises.
Janyasupab,T.(1984).Aproposalofaquestionnairetosurveytheproblemsofprimaryschoolteachers
intheimplementationofthenewEnglishlanguagesyllabusinThailand.UnpublishedResearch
Report.Singapore:SoutheastAsianMinistersofEducationOrganisation,Regional
LanguageCentre.
Masavisut,N.,Sukwiwat,M.,& Wongmontha,S.(1986).ThepoweroftheEnglishlanguagein
Thaimedia.WorldEnglishes,5(2-3),197-207.
Rujikietngumjorn,S.,&POjananon,O.(1993).ProblemsofEnglishlanguageteachingintherural
primaryschoolsinthenortheasternpartofThailand:AcasestudyinKhonKaenandKalasin.
UnpublishedResearchProject.Singapore:SoutheastAsianMinistersofEducation
Organisation,RegionalLanguageCentre.
Sukamolson,S.,(1998).EnglishlanguageeducationpolicyinThailand.AsianEnglishes1(1),
68-91.
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Appendix
Teacher1:Theirbackgroundknowledgeisinadequate.Thewritingofgram
mar structure is not correct. The problems of spelling words and using
punctuationarenotcorrect.
Teacher 2: The problem about writing is the students do not know how to
writeand whattheywriteabout. Therefore,before1letthestudentswrite,1
would like to talk about what do they write and how do they write. For
example, 1asked them to write about the animal. 1wrote the name of the
animalontheboard, "TheElephant."First1askedthemabouttheelephant,
"Whatdoyouthinkabouttheelephant?"Thestudentsanswer:biganimals,
have fourlegs,bigears,smalleyes,eatleaves, eatbananas,eatbamboo, live
intheforest, liveinthezoo, playfootball,pickup things,pullalog.
Teacher 3: My students have the problems about written English because
they cannotspell the words orvocabularies thatthey hearfrom the teacher
orfrom soundofthetapeandtheydonotknowthemeaningofthetext. For
example: "1 am sick" becomes "1 am six." The other students in the weak
groups live too far away from the good environment, and they do not
interesttheir life.The grammaris notsogood.1use tohelp mystudentsby
taking their vocabularies and make them to spell the words everyday, 10
wordsperday. Thewordsareaboutthefamily, theirschool. Forexample,if
1want them to know aboutobjects in the curriculum, 1need to teach them
about the words that they must know about the objects; 1must teach them
aboutthesentences.
Teacher4: The students cannotwrite free writing. Theybeginto write con
trolled writing. The students cannotunderstand vocabulary, grammar pat
tern,contentandtopic.
Teacher5:TIleywantto knowgrammar,theyalwayshavemistakeingram
mar. Theyalways forgot full stop, commaand questionmarkinthe senten
cestheywrite.Theycannotwritetherightwordintherightsituation.
Teacher 6: Students cannot write correctly, especially spelling the vocabu
laries.Sotheytakealotoftimetowritebecauseitisdifficultforthem. When
1correcttheir writing,1find that there are a lotofmistakes in their writing
andtheycannotfind outtheirownmistakes.
Teacher 7: Mostly, the students want to know the grammar. 1found that
writing always have mistakes in grammar. They forget the punctuation
marksinthesentences.Theyalwaysforgettoputfullstops,questionmarks
andothers.Lastly,theycannotfindtherightwordsintheirwritingandthey
cannotarrangethewordsinthecorrectplaces.
Teacher8: Itis very oftenthat1canseemystudentshavingsomeproblems
inwriting. Mostly,1sawthey wanted to know grammaticalpoints. 1found
thattheirwritingalwayshavesomemistakesingrammar.Anotherproblem
108 GLENNTOH
is punctuation. They always forgot to put full stop, question marks in the
sentencestheywrote.
Teacher9: My students' needs in writtenEnglishare grammar, theirknow
ledge about tense is quite bad. They feel bored when they learn grammar.
Maybe they are confused with the way we use in correcting their writing
work. Somecorrecteverymistakeandsomeusesymbolsforcorrecting.The
nextarea theyneed is vocabulary. Theycannotfind a rightword toexplain
whatthey want to write. The last one is they donothave enough detailfor
writing.
Teacher10:Mystudents'problems ofwritingare they donotknow how to
write and they do not know what they would write. That is because our
students are weak in structure oflanguage. They cannotconstruct the sen
tences. In fact, they have the ideas in their mind. Ifthey do not know the
structures and the vocabulary, they willnotbe able towrite outthe senten
ces.Sotheyneed tohavemodelsofwriting.Teachersneedtoteachthemthe
structures,sentencebysentenceonand on.
Teacher11:Theproblemsmystudentsfacewhentheywriteare:theycannot
useconnectors correctly;they cannotspellwordscorrectly;theycannotuse
grammarandstructureofthesentencescorrectly;theywriteapassagethatis
so short because the could not find the words to write; the topics were
difficultfor them towrite;they did notgo throughthe mainidea ofwriting
when they write a passage; sometimes, they getbored because they do not
wanttowrite.
Teacher12:Thestudentscouldnotspellthewordscorrectly.Theycouldnot
writethevocabularycorrectly.Sometopicsaredifficulttowrite.
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