MISSING RUNGS: LUANG PRABANG
Golden spires dot the hills of Luang Prabang. For many students, reaching the city is the realisation of long held dreams. Many, however, are distracted by other things that glitter and end up returning to their homes without the skills and knowledge they had originally sought.
6.1 City life for teenagers
Luang Prabang offers a range of diversions. There are food shops, bars, discos, a bowling alley and countless Internet shops. In the evenings, there is even a stretch of road that serves as a drag strip, though most kids are on bicycles. Late at night, I am told you can see young men sitting in the rain playing guitars. They are high on amphetamines.
A student at Teachers Training College says that 30-40% of the students are intent on studying and the rest are “nak laeng” - little gangsters or delinquents. This saga is played out in popular Thai karaoke videos. The poor parents toil in the fields, fuelled by the hopes that their daughter is studying hard in the city, but she ends up coming home pregnant and with a louse of a husband in tow. Some families in Laos don't have a field to toil in because they sell it to pay for their children's education. If studying in Luang Prabang is the dream of so many students, why don't they study?
6.2 Demotivation
Students in Luang Prabang do not necessarily represent the most motivated. Many of the poor rural students cannot afford the costs. 3.5 million kip or $350 US is needed for an entrance fee at Teachers Training College (TTC). The 7 million kip or $700 fee for Souphanouvong University effectively closes the gate to those who are not wealthy, connected or qualified for scholarships. Even those on scholarships can be easily spoiled by an all-expense paid life.
Academic standards at Teachers Training College (TTC) are not rigourous and everyone can graduate. Failing a class means spending three extra weekends of review. Grades and passing marks can be bought. After two years, students have the credentials to teach in a primary school and three years is enough to teach as a secondary school teacher.
There is no outright disrespect, but students are quick to point out their teachers’ lack of knowledge and experience. Students lose the incentive to study when they discover that their teachers are making too many mistakes. Furthermore, the miniscule job market does not offer much incentive to study. Many graduates teach in rural postings because of the scholarship agreements and many are eager to leave after their three-year stint. Unmotivated and unqualified teachers in the countryside continue to perpetuate the desperate migration of students in search of an education.
For those who never intended to study, there may be no help. Motivated students, however, struggle hard to learn and the exceptional students are not difficult to find.
6.3 The exceptional
Boun T is a female second-year student at TTC from Xaignabouri. She is outgoing and is not shy to speak. She seeks help from novices when she doesn’t understand something and prepares questions beforehand. When she has free time, she goes to temples to speak with foreigners.
We are talking and she jumps up to get some writing that she has done for me to correct. She says that she is happy when the paper is covered with red marks because she can use it as a reference. She comments that her Lao teachers only make random corrections and general comments.
When I first meet Boun R, he is reading Faulkner. He checks books out from the Sop temple library and claims to read three books a day. Coming from a small ethnically mixed village, he grew up with several languages, Khamu being his first. Though talented with languages, he was unable to afford paying the school tuition so he has come to Luang Prabang to work in a restaurant. He saves his money in a bank rather than spending it for school fees.
Boun M is also not in school. He learns languages with tourists at the guesthouse he works at. He goes to the bus station to pick up guests and can use Korean, Hebrew and Dutch as well as English. He is one of the best Japanese speakers in town. He says that he learns from foreigners and from self-study with books. I want to know if he is interested in teaching, but he says that he is stingy, not with money but with knowledge and wants to know a language that nobody else knows.
I am surprised that a Hmong student is not only able to pronounce difficult sounds, but can explain the different tongue positions. Many students complain about their teachers’ inability to teach pronunciation, but this student has learned the sounds by reading the descriptions in a phonetics book. He admits that it helps that he speaks Hmong since it is a language that uses many sounds found in English.
These four examples cannot represent a true cross-section of Lao society, but the cases of male and female lowland Lao and Khamu and Hmong men illustrate the diversity of backgrounds and approaches to learning. What is consistent in these cases is that all use strategies found outside of the classroom. They understand the limitations of institutional learning, but have taken the initiative to find resources on their own.
6.4 The not so exceptional
Many average students say they want to learn, but have trouble making progress. They say English is hard and they don't understand the lessons. Boun F is a student at the Teachers Training College (TTC) and considers himself an average student, but he usually gets C+s. He does best in reading class and worst in comprehension class. When there is a listening test, he says that he might as well just give up.
Without a good foundation, many students quickly fall behind and get lost. Boun L, also a TTC student says that one class is called “learning strategies”, but she is not sure what that is supposed to mean. The teacher never explained and she never asked. When I ask for descriptions of what is done in class, she says that they are learning the phonetic system.
One strategy that Boun W lacks is the ability to analyse word order. He comes from T Town to study at TTC and I want him to study hard so that he can save his town. He works part-time to make ends meet and says that he is often too tired to study. He tries hard to communicate, but lacks structural understanding. This is apparent when we work on some writing. Noun-adjective word order reflects Lao word order and he seems to use “is” randomly. We focus on one sentence pattern and work on a number of examples. He says he has never studied this way before as the teacher usually does rough translations without giving structural explanations. As we study, I have to ask him to shut off his mobile phone.
Porn seems to be convinced that she needs to understand phonetics before proceeding to testing her speaking ability. She works at a guesthouse, but is to shy to speak to guests in English. She sticks to a large book that lists words according to consonant and vowel sounds. She depends on the Thai transliterations which cause more confusion, especially with sounds that cannot be phonetically represented in Thai or Lao. She says that her country school in Sam Neua did not give her a good foundation. She is now struggling to catch up in a private school and must study with students much younger than her.
Each of these students tend to depend more on classroom learning than the exceptional students, but are hindered by missing rungs in the English instruction that they receive. They do not know how to find them. Most cannot explain how they learn and have not experimented with learning strategies on their own. In many cases, they are misguided or have reinforced bad habits and in some cases are on the verge of giving up.
The unexceptional cannot be dismissed as stupid and the achievers as naturally gifted. The sociocultural environments must also be considered. Boun J claims that many of the exceptional students are poor, rural and from ethnic backgrounds and that their hardships make them more determined. The temples are filled mostly with ambitious boys from poor rural backgrounds and the Hmong are known to score at the top of the class in school, but most of the rural girls have not made it as far as Luang Prabang.
6.5 The Hmong
Living with three Hmong brothers, I have been able to observe their study habits over the period of a month and can attest to their disciplined study and intensity of learning. Hmong student G is proud that many students from his hometown have excelled in Luang Prabang. One male student earned the second highest scores in the nation. I ask him why he is so determined to learn and he explains that the Hmong generally come from the most remote areas of Laos and want to prove themselves. He also suspects that he is working against a racial bias. His lowland Lao teacher is so incompetent that he wonders if it is on purpose and is a ploy to keep him from learning.
The younger boys in the family have come to Luang Prabang during their summer break to learn English. The father comes to check every week and the mother counsels when she has the chance. The parents are trying to educate all ten of their children. The oldest daughter is coming to town to enrol in nursing school. Hmong student G explains that the Hmong are becoming assimilated and that traditional values are changing. Girls still tend to be valued more for their labour, but are increasingly being encouraged to study. Any uneducated child is a shame to a family. Once the oldest daughter comes to Luang Prabang, however, she will likely be expected to do the cooking and will thus lose considerable time and energy that could otherwise be spent on studying.
6.6 Where are the girls?
Few female students leave the countryside and continue to study. A family that is strapped for resources is likely to spend money on the boy rather than the girl and when considering safety, many families think twice before sending a young daughter far away from home. In ethnic minority villages, girls often marry at 15 or 16 and domestic responsibilities leave little time for study.
Most girls who continue their studies come from district towns or Luang Prabang where families are more likely to have enough money to educate all their children regardless of gender. If a choice is necessary, the wiser investment is to support the child with intellectual talent. Girls who get good grades can also continue studying on government scholarships. In fact, there are more girls than boys at the university and the dorm is filled to capacity. Private schools are full of girls and women of all ages. Female students have a reputation of being better behaved, more attentive and more respectful of school rules. Boun R, admits as a male student that “boys will be boys” meaning that they are more apt to drink and play cards than study.
At the same time, the girls are not at the top of the 2006 class at TTC. Most of the English-speaking guides are men. Both male and female tourists say that they are approached far more often by English speaking boys than girls and two foreign restaurant employers complain of giggly girls without confidence. The common observation is that girls are too shy to speak out in class. Boun M and N are female 2nd year students at TTC who say that they don't dare to speak out. They are afraid of making mistakes, embarrassing themselves and angering the teacher. They say that this is regardless of the gender ratio in the classroom and the nationality and gender of the teacher. They say that they feel the same way in private schools. Only in small groups do they feel comfortable.
Many of the learning spaces in Luang Prabang are gendered. Males dominate the libraries and computer centres. Boun M says that she is intimidated by the novices and is conscious that it is a Buddhist sin to touch them. In a baci ceremony or in the temple, women must never sit in front of a man. No such explicit custom dictates seating in the classroom, but implicit pressures may inhibit girls from speaking out or asking questions. A female student explains that she loses motivation when the foreign teacher scolds her. In another instance, girls and women may be intimidated by sexual bias of another sort. A male foreign teacher says, “I don’t know what the present perfect is, but she’s coming now.” Sexual harassment goes unchecked and unquestioned when students have so few choices.
Gendered roles are decided in other ways as well. Living with three Hmong male students, I can see how roles are gendered by academic promise. The middle brother has been surpassed by his younger brother and is expected to do the cooking and cleaning while the others study. Not only is time taken away from his own studies, he loses motivation when he is aware that the expectations are lower for him. Most families are large and since someone has to do the work it ends up either being the girls, the youngest or those without academic promise.
The middle brother is nonetheless eager to learn and when I give him individual attention, he is pleased by his own progress. Girls too show equal promise. Many are just as inquisitive and outspoken as the average boy. Teaching in a private school for one month, I have found that many of the girls are even more active and outspoken than the boys, in particular, the novices who tend to be shy.
Social spaces must be contested, but in many ways, private schools offer more room for negotiation and opportunity. In my classes, 12 year-olds, novices, college-age female students and soldiers all study together, crammed two to a desk. Children can test their skills according to adult standards, novices have a chance to interact outside of the cloistered monasteries, girls are freed from their domestic spaces and soldiers are humbled by the difficulties of the future progressive tense. The motivated rural student can sometimes surpass the rich urban student and ethnic minorities who are not confident speaking Lao have a chance to excel in English.
Private schools represent the diversity of Laos. On one hand, there are contested struggles over resources and learning spaces. On the other hand, studying English is one chance for anyone of any background to compete on more equal grounds. If students had books, had teachers that knew English and had a chance to use language beyond the mind-numbing exercises of convoluted grammar, students would most likely bloom beyond expectation.
6.7 Luang Prabang: Looking back
The mix of class and ethnicity in Luang Prabang, fuelled by the greater abundance of money and resources, creates a social and political struggle for learning spaces and resources. I have been approached by the full gamut of learning groups and have listened to all their appeals for assistance. Novices deserve help because they are poor and rural. University students deserve a native-English speaker because they are studying at the top institution. Hmong students ask for assistance because they are discriminated against. Middle-class parents are willing to pay for Japanese lessons because they want the competitive edge. Government officials want help because their career track is narrowed without language skills.
Competition over resources and learning spaces can be translated into motivation. Luang Prabang is without a doubt, the premier centre of learning in the north. All people talk about is studying. The Hmong students from the countryside have no TV, radio or skilled person to play their guitar so they study from morning until night.
Many students have unlimited motivation, but appropriate resources and competent instruction are still infuriatingly scarce.
