E-Newsletter
June 2008

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New Website Announcement!

Steve Graham is proud to announce the launch of his new website www.steves-english-zone.com on 9th June 2008. The idea behind this project is to help promote the use of the English language; its learning and teaching, by making information readily available for all sectors of the community.

Please feel free to contact me about any areas of English language learning, teaching and management that you care to discuss.

Contact Steve at:

steve@steves-english-zone.com

Or register as a member here.

News Articles

Every month there will be articles concerning all the latest developments in education reforms in the news.

The focus will be on Thailand and S.E. Asia; however, anything that has an impact on education in this region will be analysed and published.

Subjects covered so far include the use of telephone watches to cheat in examinations, free laptop computers for students and the increasing of the retirement age for teachers.

Anyone with news items or comments that they think are relevant are welcome to forward them to me and I will do my best to reply to all correspondence.

Steve Graham

Steve Graham is an English language teacher at the Language Center, Udon Thani Rajabhat University. This university is in the north-east of Thailand; an area which is predominantly agricultural, where English language education is not in the forefront of people’s minds.

As well as teaching English, Steve has been writing a regular weekly column in the Education Section of the Bangkok Post for over a year.

Self Access Center

The main purpose of such a center is to provide the students of Udon Thani Rajabhat University in Thailand with a study resource that can be used independently by themselves whenever they wish. Language study and student autonomy should go hand in hand if a center like this is to be successful.

In addition to reference books, resources include graded readers and CDs, magazines and newspapers, music, language games and activities, SpeaKIT computer software and teaching resources.

Primary School English Language Teachers

The majority of primary school English language teachers in Thailand have not been trained to teach English and hold qualifications in other disciplines such as Thai language, physical education and home economics.

The result is that students do not know how to use English and the English that they do learn is not used in any true life context.

Teachers in the past have relied on teaching grammar as they can rely on a safe set of proven rules in which to hide behind, to cover up their own admitted English language deficiencies.

Papers and Articles

This website contains published papers and articles as well as conference proceedings on various subjects ranging from curriculum development and English for specific purposes to quality assurance and military accounting.

External Quality Assurance: What Effect Does It Have On The EFL Classroom?

This paper looks at work conducted by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (ONESQA) and the influence it has over the way Thai teachers of English approach the teaching of English in Thailand.