Confucius Institute in Thailand helps train teachers to meet growing demand for learning Mandarin

Teachers of the Confucius Institute, originally from Tianjin Normal University of China, used their expertise in education to start the training program with Bangkok's Department of Education.

"We have thought of many activities to attract local teachers to keep coming to the classes," said Wen, and every year, 20 outstanding teachers of some 100 teachers in total get the chance to study Mandarin in Tianjin Normal University for a month with full scholarships.

She said Bangkok's Department of Education and the BSRU have given much support to the training program.

Thanita Praewanich, deputy director of Bangkok's Department of Education, praised teachers of the Confucius Institute for their expertise and devotion during a ceremony to mark the end of the training course in this semester late March.

"In five-year time, the training course here has covered 438 schools around Bangkok, and some outstanding local teachers went to China for further study, and became mainstay of our educational system," Thanita said, adding that the training program should go on.

Sutipporn Chotratanasak, Thai dean of the Confucius Institute, said the Confucius Institute even helped the BSRU to become more popular due to the training program and a postgraduate program.

Besides the training program, the Confucius Institute is working with the BSRU and Tianjin Normal University to enroll Thai students for a postgraduate program.

Every year, some 25 Thai students would choose to be in the postgraduate program and they would go to learn in Tianjin Normal University with full scholarships and come back for work, mainly as Mandarin teachers in secondary and primary schools, according to Wen.

"We have enrolled students for the program for three years, and some 94 percent of the first batch of students have found schools and the second batch is doing internship here in our institute," said Wen.

Wang believes training local teachers are very important for the Chinese-language teaching in the long term. "Thais cannot always rely on Chinese to teach them, they have to have their own Mandarin teachers."

"Some schools told us they don't need teachers with master degrees, but I think they will gradually understand a teacher with a master degree can help them improve their Chinese-language teaching significantly," Wang said.