Tests Test and More Tests

The way this place seems to be driven by tests scores and reports of one sort or another.

Every week we have to do tests of either speaking, reading, listening etc etc as well as that we have to do semester exams. We have to record all these scores into special record sheets to give out overall marks at the end. Unfortunately, like most Thai schools I heard that last year it was a case of everybody passes. I somehow dont think that this will change this year.

You would think that the more money people pay, the more interested they would be in what is actually hapening with the kids but it seems here that it is almost the reverse. Not all the time of course but...... a lot of parents seem to have the attitude of shove money at the problem and no matter what the kid will come out a native speaker. Errrr nope. There is a little thing called atttude. And the one in question is not the teachers. If the kid doesnt want to learn, he wont learn. Full Stop, end of story. No teacher in the world can force a student to learn.

We have a thai guy who is sort of the office manager. Well, thats the title but basically he helps us get stationary, acts as a go between the personell office, thai staff, the photocopier guy etc and us and so on. He is a nice quietly spoken youngish guy maybe mid 20s. But anyway, today he had a message to pass on to one of the guys who joined us this year. He was asking for a copy of the guys old teachers licence. Now it appears that the guy left on less than pleasant terms with his old employer and didnt want to contact them again which is fair enough. But what annoyed me was the way he was speaking to the office manager. He really was quite unecessarily agressive - I dont know what this form is, this isnt mine, I'm not doing that, why are you asking me for this, no way am I doing this. Just very agressive and dismissive. I really wanted to tell him to just chill and leave the guy alone. I mean it wasnt him that was asking for this, he was just the messenger. What is it with some people?