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Post Info TOPIC: Many Lao students are now becoming parrots !!!
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Many Lao students are now becoming parrots !!!
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Lao students are now becoming parrots

Written by Anoulack Khammalavong


If a person says “keo”, the parrot will say “keo” and if the teacher says “Laos is abundant in natural resources”, the students will surely repeat it after them with no words missing.


All students are now preparing for their first semester examinations and all of the students must chant like the monks learning their sermons. Most secondary students are now closing their bedroom doors, reading loudly. They read one line and repeat it. Then they read another line and repeat from the first line. They do that until they remember the whole text or the whole book. Many of them who are lazy to do so have to prepare materials to cheat in the examination.


But why are Lao students being taught to repeat like parrots? Because they do not understand what they have jotted down. The teachers enter the classroom with a textbook in hand or some teachers do not use the book at all as they remember all the words in the book in their minds due to a long period teaching. Most of the teachers write the title of the lesson and explain a few words before starting to dictate. Some of the students have to rush to record and some miss the words dictated. Many of them do not record anything at all, but pretend to jot down in their books since secondary schools are very crowded so teachers cannot observe all of the students. After the two-hour dictation, the time is over and the students have to close their books and have a break before they continue the next lesson with another teacher.


At home, most students do not care what they have recorded, but they have to parrot it out again at the end of each month when the monthly test is held. This kind of test is not very difficult because only tow or three topics were dictated, but many students still seek ways to cheat in the test. However, the semester test is on so many lessons that it overloads a students’ ability to remember them all. The students with a good memory and patience are able to review all the lessons dictated, but they cannot keep those lessons for a long time. They forget them as soon as the test is over.


Is this kind of learning useful? The answer is “not very” because it will lower the level of education among the graduates and slow down the human resource development efforts. These days Lao students are very poor on general knowledge as they have a very poor background of history, geography and general information. Many of them do not know who is their current President.. Many say that are not taught, but when looking at the texts in the course books a lot of information is printed. If the students could record about 30 percent of what they have learned in their mind, the level of Lao human resource development would be much higher.


The teacher-centered learning style has been practiced in Laos for over a century and now the student-centered method is being promoted. However, very few teachers use it and very few of them understand it thoroughly. Some teachers say the lack finances to prepare teaching aids and some say they do not have time to prepare. Many say “kho pen khoi pay (step by step).” Education in the developed countries does not khoi pen khoi pay, it jumps and flies. So why does least developed Laos khoi pen khoi pay?

source: Vientiane Times



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Anonymous

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Yes, no wonder foreigners call us "Lao People Don't Rush- Lao P. D. R." It's really sad to hear. Some of our leaders last time liked to think, to do with Lao style or Lao way - "hed bab Lao Lao". Here is Lao, here is not Europe, here is not America. They don't want to reach world stadard. That's why we cannot improve ourselves, albeit already 32 years after 1975. Fortunately, now we can wake up my nation. Please rush but don't do "hoi pen hoi pay"

Regards,
Lord

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Anonymous

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Yes, we should work hard in order they could us "Lao People Do Rationality" or at leat, "Lao People Do Rush".

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Anonymous

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Yes, we should work hard in order they could call us "Lao People Do Rationality" or at least, "Lao People Do Rush". (One more time it sounds good)

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Guru

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I'm sorry to read this article.. seems there is one more thing to improve in Laos...

But being a good teacher is a very very difficult job. In France, we spend an extensive amount of money for education, but we can angry the educations systems about many things too.... education is far far from being perfect.

So, for Laos, with little financial capabilities, i can imagine...

I hope this culd be improved in the next years.

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http://www.paris-vientiane.fr
Anonymous

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By the way who is Anoulack Khammalavong? Could you give any detail about him? What is his background? Is he an expert of education? Or is he a writer/editor of Vientiane Times? I doubt that he is the writer of Vientiane Times. It seems to me he just give his own opinion, but not like writer or editor. If he is a writer/editor, he should some give some suggestion how to solve the problem, otherwise he has no ethic of journalist or editor. Be careful Mr Anoulack Khammalavong. You should be more responsible and criticize thing when you know the answer. Even in USA the editor cannot criticize without any suggestion. Please learn to live democratic society. People can think that you just write the article for earning something from someone.

Best wishes,
Golden 

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Anonymous

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Mr Anoulack Khammalavong you seem too young to understand our world. You even looked down the teachers from whom you had lerned. Don't be  too clever. Look at the real situation of our teachers first before open your mouth. You seemed to repeat the words of someone. Yes, now we know that there is a need to change the system of teaching, but things will not change over night. The teacher-centered learning style cannot be changed so easily, since this style has been practiced in Laos French colonial time. In fact, it is that bad you imagine, although I accepted that the new style is better. But it is easy for our teachers as they got used to learn and teach like that, unless our government help them, let them go for trainning how to teach in new style. 

Regards,
TSP         

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Anonymous

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After reading this article I could not help myself to laugh out=lol, hahaha. So what do you think Lao government should do? For me it looks like we have to start from scratch, that means from year 1 of Primary school. In Sweden and Finland the 2 top rank country of the world, they run their primary classes quite simple really, the attending hour is usually from 9am to 3pm because young kids are not like older children. In the class children are touch to be involved, like teachers always ask questions and try to get them answer them. Take an example the teacher shows the kids or students the picture of an elephant and ask them ' Do you know what is this?' make them think and try to get them answer the question....
There are ways to teach them how to count the numbers, spelling, reading from beginning. Part of that the students sometime are taken to excursion or teacher take the kids to visit some places and explain things to them. In LAO we only see that young kids just stay in the class all day, rarely we see them go out for excursion. Then we must change the kink of students have to learn lessons by heart. During my school years time back there, I had to know lessons by heart because the teacher asked the students to go up to his/her desk and a kind of repeated the lesson,
If the system of education change from learn by heart to read your text book or lessons just read but make sure you understand the lesson, that is also teachers should have another way to see whether students understood the lesson or chapter they were being tought. That's how things are done in most western countries.

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Anonymous

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It seems easy for some people here to criticise the writer as if they know how a good article should be written. What they don't realise is that this article is a good one precisely because it is inspiring debate and it has motivated them to reply. I have worked with Anoulak for some time in the past and I respect him as one of the best, most provocative journalists in Laos. There are few people with the natural gift of inspiring debate with their writing that Anoulak has. He is masterfully intelligent but it is true that his weakness is that his approach can seem to be a bit immature and confronting to others and has brought him into disagreement with (untrained and rather incompetent) government editors, but I agree with him that these people need to be confronted if there is any hope for the future of Laos. Anoulak has achieved an independent voice that is rarely heard or accepted in Laos. It is sad that some of you people here do not understand the value of such a voice. Too many people in Laos fall in behind the leader and are content to copy and continue to be mediocre parrots. This cannot be said of Anoulak. I congratulate him for another brilliant and much needed piece of writing that has already inspired more of an online debate that most other things written in the impoverished Lao media ever could.

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Anonymous

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Anonymous wrote:

It seems easy for some people here to criticise the writer as if they know how a good article should be written. What they don't realise is that this article is a good one precisely because it is inspiring debate and it has motivated them to reply. I have worked with Anoulak for some time in the past and I respect him as one of the best, most provocative journalists in Laos. There are few people with the natural gift of inspiring debate with their writing that Anoulak has. He is masterfully intelligent but it is true that his weakness is that his approach can seem to be a bit immature and confronting to others and has brought him into disagreement with (untrained and rather incompetent) government editors, but I agree with him that these people need to be confronted if there is any hope for the future of Laos. Anoulak has achieved an independent voice that is rarely heard or accepted in Laos. It is sad that some of you people here do not understand the value of such a voice. Too many people in Laos fall in behind the leader and are content to copy and continue to be mediocre parrots. This cannot be said of Anoulak. I congratulate him for another brilliant and much needed piece of writing that has already inspired more of an online debate that most other things written in the impoverished Lao media ever could.



Please don't make an advertisement. He is a good writer or not let the readers make justment by themself.




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Anonymous

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RE: Many Lao students are now becoming parrots !!!

Anonymous wrote:

It seems easy for some people here to criticise the writer as if they know how a good article should be written. What they don't realise is that this article is a good one precisely because it is inspiring debate and it has motivated them to reply. I have worked with Anoulak for some time in the past and I respect him as one of the best, most provocative journalists in Laos. There are few people with the natural gift of inspiring debate with their writing that Anoulak has. He is masterfully intelligent but it is true that his weakness is that his approach can seem to be a bit immature and confronting to others and has brought him into disagreement with (untrained and rather incompetent) government editors, but I agree with him that these people need to be confronted if there is any hope for the future of Laos. Anoulak has achieved an independent voice that is rarely heard or accepted in Laos. It is sad that some of you people here do not understand the value of such a voice. Too many people in Laos fall in behind the leader and are content to copy and continue to be mediocre parrots. This cannot be said of Anoulak. I congratulate him for another brilliant and much needed piece of writing that has already inspired more of an online debate that most other things written in the impoverished Lao media ever could.



Please don't make an advertisement. He is a good writer or not let the readers make justment by themself.

----------------------------------

How dare you! I have a right to express my opinion, especially because it is based upon experience, and if that experience happens to make me supportive of Anoulak then I have the right to do that. If you read my comment properly you would notice that I had the courage to criticise him as well. I am not stopping anyone from reading his work and expressing their own opinion here. You, on the other hand, ARE AN IDIOT because you cannot even reply to my comment, instead you just try to knock me down with your brainless patronising advice. Go masturbate in a dark room you moron. It is people like you who cause problems in this world. And don't bother replying, I'm not gonna read another pathetic word you write.

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Anonymous

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Yes, It's quite interesting issue. I am glad to hear that in Laos they try to improve the method of teaching, although it's easy said but hard to be done. To get this system done, Laos would need some time so that many things would be required to prepare, not to mention of teachers' ability. Look at invironment in the class in the other topic, I fell sad. I suppose some would even have no books to read, may be they just copy from the black boad. I wonder how would they do with new method of teaching. If asked our poor teachers whether they know how to teach in the new style, I doubt. I also wonder whether our government is concerned about this issue or just tell them let them do.

Regards    

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Anonymous

Date:
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Anonymous wrote:

It seems easy for some people here to criticise the writer as if they know how a good article should be written. What they don't realise is that this article is a good one precisely because it is inspiring debate and it has motivated them to reply. I have worked with Anoulak for some time in the past and I respect him as one of the best, most provocative journalists in Laos. There are few people with the natural gift of inspiring debate with their writing that Anoulak has. He is masterfully intelligent but it is true that his weakness is that his approach can seem to be a bit immature and confronting to others and has brought him into disagreement with (untrained and rather incompetent) government editors, but I agree with him that these people need to be confronted if there is any hope for the future of Laos. Anoulak has achieved an independent voice that is rarely heard or accepted in Laos. It is sad that some of you people here do not understand the value of such a voice. Too many people in Laos fall in behind the leader and are content to copy and continue to be mediocre parrots. This cannot be said of Anoulak. I congratulate him for another brilliant and much needed piece of writing that has already inspired more of an online debate that most other things written in the impoverished Lao media ever could.



Thank you very much to whom who provided the background of Anoulack. I also thought that he does not live in Laos but elsewhere abroad. If our media has improved to such stage, I am really proud of my country. In fact, I also appreciate his ability. I have never seen such article before in Laos. So I wish to see more like this article but with adding more constructive opinion.
Regargs,
TSP   


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Anonymous

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I must disagree with the writer of this article in the paragrah which stated that students did not care or understand whatever they learnt at school, in his he used the word 'recorded'. He said that tests are easy....just like dictation even sounds very strange too me.
I have 2 grand daughters they did so well in their study that the japanese government got them to study in Japan now, so to say that all students are just like parrots I am not sure about it, and again I am not sure he is anything but just a normal person, if he is a qualified journalist then I think he made many mistakes in this articles.
I agree with one person comment when look at the 2 pictures about little kids in their classrooms, they did not even have proper tables....for me I feel pity for the teachers, but again if they the teachers were trained or showned how to teach in a new way, I believe they can, after trainning they can do the job. No doubt. First Lao government particularly The Department of Education must have action. It's too backward, no time for waiting, Lao must run on this issue.

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Anonymous

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I really agree with this person who disagreed with this article saying very bad about Lao education. At first glance, it seemed to me interesting, but when I have gone through seemed to be rubbish. Let take a look some parts what he claimed:
First he claimed: “Most secondary students are now closing their bedroom doors, reading loudly. They read one line and repeat it. Then they read another line and repeat from the first line. They do that until they remember the whole text or the whole book. But why are Lao students being taught to repeat like parrots? It is because they do not understand what they have jotted down”.
From this saying, I wonder how did he do to remember  such subjects like history, geography and general information before examination, if he did not do like these students? Interestingly, how did he know that especially Lao students do not understand what they have jotted down? As far as my experience is concerned understanding the subjects doesn’t mean you will remember the whole subject. That’s why you need to repeat it for several times. I think, if he has a good method let organize seminar to explain to all Lao teachers.
Of course nobody would repeat the subjects like mathematic, physics. These kinds of subjects just need to understand, although some rules you also need to remember.  
Second, he claimed: “Is this kind of learning useful? The answer is “not very” because it will lower the level of education among the graduates and slow down the human resource development efforts”.
I do not understand why now the teacher-centered learning style will lower the level of education. We have used the teacher-centered learning style for over a century already, but why especially now it would become worst and worst. From our President to Doctors, Professors and ordinary people all have studied in this style, but why now it would become too bad????
“To all our Lao teachers, I understand that you work hard for our nation, for our beloved country. If without you, I would not have today. Thank you very much” (TSP)


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Anonymous

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HAPPY LAO TEACHER'S DAY.



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