Cambodia's TOEFL Scores Are 2nd Lowest in ASEAN Countries :(
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 10:38 am
In a country that offers such high salaries and a plethora of fringe benefits for TEFL teachers, this comes as quite a shock to me. Cambodia even manages to attract qualified teachers from the West, and with international schools on every other corner, I would have thought we'd be up there at the top with Singapore and Malaysia.
Totally unacceptable!
Who should we blame for this?
The school owners? The teachers? The trees? The students? AiA? The culture?
Totally unacceptable!
Who should we blame for this?
The school owners? The teachers? The trees? The students? AiA? The culture?
The average TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) score in Thailand last year was among the three lowest for Asean countries, Enconcept E-Academy executive Apitha Wonlopsiri said yesterday.
He said the country's average score was 76 points (it was 74 points last year), but was still among the bottom three, which included Cambodia (69) and Laos (68).
Singapore topped the list with 98 points followed by Malaysia and Philippines (89), Indonesia (82), Myanmar (79) and Vietnam (78).
Apitha called on Thai students to urgently improve their English language skills.
He said the main reasons for the low score included the emphasis on translating English, students lacking clear objectives, a fixed teaching pattern and a fear of failure among students. As a result, he said the academy had introduced the "TOEFL X-CHANGE" tablet, which had eight language-learning applications to allow children to practice English anytime, anywhere.
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Sad to say, I'm not surprised to read this. Some of the problem is that when you put style (face) over substance this is what you get. I have a pal working at a school that recently paid out quite a hefty sum of money to hire models to pose as students for the school fliers. I'm quite positive that there is no way they could have just photographed existing students for free during a regular school day and used the money saved for, well, just about anything else to improve the school.