Bangkok

 

When I visited Bangkok for the first time in a long time, I met Wanchai Chaiyasit, who is my friend and business partner.

He is a veteran of the field, having studied psychology in the U.S. and worked in child education and English language education for many years.

Wanchai believes that English education should start with the development of conversational and communicative skills, and that English education in Thailand lacks this perspective. I thought that Thailand has the same issues as my country.

As a psychologist, he is also interested in changes in children's communication skills themselves.

He points out that in this day and age, people tend to become defensive in order to protect their identities. He believes that a mindset-shift from "defensive" to "cope" is necessary to develop communication skills.

Wanchai explains that the inability to do so is behind not only the division of the world, but also the problem of bullying among children.

When we are attacked by others, instead of immediately trying to defend ourselves, we need to be aware of how we should deal with the issue brought on the table without stressing out over it.

When debating in English, when the discussion becomes a parallel line between winning and losing, we need to shift our awareness from a defensive attitude to a cope mindset in order to understand the background of our opponent's attacks and our own reactions. Then we need to try to share the issues at a higher level.

He has been working in the field of education for many years, always thinking about this kind of human consciousness and trying to apply it to the real educational field. It is great thing that I admire him. Perhaps what is lacking in the current educational field is the attitude like him. In other words, in these days educators are not always aware of these issues and does not try to dig deep into them.

For the first time in a long time, I would like to invite someone like him to conduct a workshop.

Come to think of it, I often participated in workshops on these issues while I was in the U.S., which made me nostalgic.