A Problem Of Teaching Chinese In A Primary And A Secondary School In Northeastern Of Thailand And Its Solutions

Since the beginning of the21st Century, The development of teaching Chinese language in Thailand has grown up rapidly. Thus, Thai schools at all levels one after another have opened Chinese language courses and have attracted nearly eight hundred thousand learners. The number of Thai students in China now has also increased and has ranked fourth for the foreign students studying in China. This vast group of learners has widely aroused Thai scholars’concern on teaching Chinese as a foreign and many of them started to study the situation of learning Chinese of Thai students in Thailand. However, unfortunately most of them only focus on the problems in the central and Southern part of Thailand, which have a strong foundation of Chinese education and economy and have not yet aimed the problem of teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools in North-eastern area.The objective of this research is to study the situation of teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools in North-eastern of Thailand, which including Chinese and non-Chinese Schools, combining the related materials from questionnaires and interviews of Chinese teachers, the analysis of the problems of teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools, and provides some countermeasures and suggestions for the future development of teaching Chinese in target schools.This paper consists of five chapters:the first chapter is the introduction, explains the background, methods and purposes of the research; the second chapter is a brief history and the present situation of teaching Chinese in North-eastern of Thailand; the third chapter is the analysis and the description of the problems gained from the questionnaire survey. The questionnaire contents mainly include the attitudes and the opinions of the students towards Chinese language, teachers and curriculums. The basis of the survey paper is a summary of the existing problems of the students in learning Chinese, the comparative analysis of the curriculums between Chinese and non-Chinese Schools, reveal the common problems of both kinds of schools in the North-eastern of Thailand, and probe into the countermeasures; the fourth chapter is an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools in North-eastern of Thailand. Carry on a comparative analysis of the positive and negative effects of teaching Chinese in terms of the foundation of Chinese education, its resources, the current education policies and the dialect influences to improve the Chinese teaching in Chinese and non-Chinese Schools; the fifth chapter is based on the above analysis to inquire into some suggestions and the prospect of the development of teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools in the North-eastern of Thailand.