Mr Somtam

Bla bla bla

Too lazy to go to 7-11, unbelievable...

Just a quick point about Thais not needing to use English

I remember having to learn many subjects to pass exams to progress to Sixth form, then University and I haven't used much of the knowledge acquired since. However it equipped me with the ability to acquire knowledge for my betterment. Hence teaching here in a foreign country.

Learning is a process of being able to acquire skills and use information beneficial for entering the work force and showing self-discipline and task completion. OK Thais may not use English directly day to day but have to show they are capable of task completion and skill acquisition to benefit the country.

My view is that qualified native teachers and more accountability by management (read no corruption) would have a considerable impact on results in English acquisition,

JGV

Why must it always be native speakers? In the Netherlands all teachers are Dutch, I am sure they speak and write better English than a lot of the TEFL brigade over here... Most teachers I've had I am sure you could drop somewhere in the UK and no one could tell they were not natives. Perfect accents.

Why are so many ex pats living here so negative about everything they can get their hands on? OR is it only those who voice their grumblings here on Thai Visa?

I live in a village. With Thai people. They don't get sarcasm and/or criticism. That's why I am often negative or cynical on this forum. I have no other way of venting my opinions. Ever tried to talk about negative aspects of Thailand with a Thai person? Can get you killed!

8 pages of posts without a moderator's comment or warning......perhaps a tv record?......some excellent posts like jumpers and some very valid points......bottom line for me as a volunteer teacher in a small village in central Thailand is what one poster has quoted......better to light a single candle than curse the darkness.....

Of course. The sad thing is the powers that be just don't want the masses to get smart. They might revolt!

LOL, but really it's sad. In a real country he would havebeen fired, fined and had to return all the STOLEN money...

Hey you! Me tea chah angkit!

Huh? What?

No sa peek angkit nah?

Huh?

Its bad when I am English and i help my son with his homework. Then the next day his Thai - English teacher says no good. This bad... I feel like going to school and teaching the teacher bloody English.

Are they really teaching my son crap...Yes they are. And 2 are English men( 1 thai ) working at the school, I wonder if they can count to 3????

I encountered the same problem with my daughter. I share your feeling of helplessness.

Here in the village it is said that I can't speak English (I speak Thai with everybody) because some university graduate doesn't have a clue what I am talking about when I speak English to her. SHE has the diploma so I must suck at it... Whatever...

Thailand, don't worry about !

Your neighbours are Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Even if their economies are growing more rapidly than yours, it will still take decades for them to catch up with you, and that's on the GDP per person level !!

No they won't.

This is not just in thailand.

I remember seeing a lot of non-English speaking Asians at graduation day with their new Bachelor of Engineering degree who were the same ones who consistently got 20% or 30% in tests. Unfortunately, nowdays many western universities themselves are happy to pass failing Asian students who pay the big bucks for tuition.

Not in the Netherlands though. Failing is failing. Period.

Love is love.

Business is business.

They don't mix well.

Make a cup of tea.

Sit down and relax.

Drink tea.

Laugh really hard at yourself.

Make the right decision, you already know what that is.

Our son educated much of his life in the UK, and now a student in university in Bkk,,is paid to teach English,in his spare time at the university,unbelievable the reason is that his English is better than the teachers

My nearly six Y.O. son is now the translator for the school he attends, he is used to translate for any English exchange students, visitor etc who visit the school -- great experience for him .

Oh my god! A six year old more fluent than all the teachers...

What is perhaps most painful for Thais is that people from Myanmar probably speak better English. Oh! They were colonized by the UK. Too bad.

And Thailand was Japan's ally, but they don't teach that in Thai schools of course...

Thailand may learn from that tiny little country called Holland where most educated people speak at least 3 languages. They found out a long time ago that the only way to get ahead and make some money trading by speaking your heighbour's language,

Hey that's my tiny little country! And yes, I speak Dutch, English, a little German, a little French and some Thai. That 's 5 languages for ya!

I think your avatar might like my special sausage

Typical Thai bashing thread.

I've employed over 100 graduates here, many with perfect English, some with poorer English.

To say they all "can't give a shit about learning" is absolute nonsense.

There are many very smart people here who would have done well at any school.

Those are the ones that learn despite the system...

But still, why is it that Thais don't read? How can you learn (any subject but especially languages) without reading? I mean we had to read literature in English, German and French in school. Then you can really get the feel of the language.

I see homework here and it's always "fill in the gap" and stuff like that, no real progress in it. I think if you just read a lot and watch movies, listen to music in a foreign language you will learn much more naturally than when you only do the textbook excercises...

And please STOP using Thai in English class. Explain the basic instructions to the students in Thai ONCE and then English (French/German/Chinese) ONLY! You can't learn without immersion. Impossible. I can speak Thai (a little) because I never speak English here in the village, nobody would understand anyway. I am listening to Thai and speaking Thai 24/7, that's why I learn. I only turn to my wife in Dutch when I absolutely have to, most of the time I use my "baby Thai" in combination with body language, pointing etc. etc. But Thai students are waaaay too shy to do stuff like that. Always "Good morning" "I'm fine thank you". Do they even know what they are saying?

And to the people who don't need English in their job or life: it can be fun to learn something new, and a skill too. Maybe now you want to be a ricefarmer or tuk-tuk driver. But when you change your mind later on you have this skill called "being able to learn" already...

students cant fail a degree, is this correct? whats the point of having one then? it would mean nothing apart from student managed to pay for course for four years

For most universities and schools this is true.

A Thai university graduate in English has never read a book and can't put one sentence together when spoken to. When I was 16 I was reading Shakespeare in school...

Well, why on earth would one write the English pronunciation for the word? Surely an oral exam is a better option.

But then how would one cheat?

Cheating at an ORAL exam , hmmmm,

I live on the beach. The OP pictures are real. You may add to this occasional yet regular oil spills.

One does not have to be a Sherlock Holmes to understand that all this garbage is not generated by tourists.

Thais really love their country to death.

Agreed, Thais love their country, so do many foreigners. And agree again, the majority of this stinking disgusting garbage situation is inbound from the sea. That would be a tuff problem to solve.

But the problem is here and always will be. In the long term interest of Thailand's all important tourist industry, somebody needs to take the bull by the horns and deal with this. Daily (early morning) cleanups are required, 365 days a year. This should be a municipal responsibility, just as it is in many other countries. But if the municipalities refuse to deal with the problem, perhaps every beach should consider a volunteer network. Local merchants may even kick in some gratuitous food and water or other incentives.

Beach communities could then advertise "the cleanest beach in Thailand". There could be contests as an added incentive to really make "your beach community" the cleanest. A concept like this could have legs (no pun intended). It may even spread inland. Please somebody ..... start the ball rolling.

Foot note: Having spent considerable time in Ao Nang and Hua Hin, the beaches were very clean, especially Hua Hin.

Most Thais are compltely happy sipping their beer/whisky on a big pile of smelly rubbish. They have mental filters in their brain, they really do not see or smell anything. Don't you know this? How many minutes have you been here?

If an expat chooses to neglect his health, that's up to him.

It don't matter how healthy you are or how much care you take, everyone is vulnerable to accidents.

Since when is an accident a pre-existing condition?

Since when are all pre-existing conditions caused by neglecting one's health.

You call that lots of waste? I have seen much worse on several very busy beaches around Thailand. Picking up garbage does NOT bring in tourist money so why do it? The stupid tourists come there anyway and have nowhere else to go so it makes no difference.

Until it's all over social media and in newspapers ofcourse...

Then a campaign will be launched by TAT, and everything will be solved in the normal 3 months. I don't see a problem really.

>/sarcasm off

If this continues tourism in these places will feel the full force of social media in action really quickly. It works like this:

Person X goes to a beach in Thailand and finds it a disgusting smelly. polluted rathole.

Person X then shares his findings with his 100+ friends on Facebook/twitter/Instagram and what have you.

A lot of those friends will share it to THEIR friends and so in no time tens of thousands of people will have read that this beach is filthy and they will have no appetite to go there.

These people when booking their holiday travels will go to other destinations than these stinking open gutters.

Tourism in these gutters will go down the drain, together witk the crap that is going there already.

Kow Chai Mai Khrab?

Person X is probably the one that litters most.

And the one who sees his own turds from the hotel toilet again while swimming...

I really should check marked prices against actual more often when I go shopping, but I honestly can't be bothered. I saw a news piece years ago about retailers in the USA and random check of marked prices against actual price rung up at the reg revealed huge discrepancies. I don't recall exactly, but it was something like 20-30% incorrect (always higher, of course). I do check occasionally when something is marked down significantly and it's almost always correct. But I confess that I'm not nearly as vigilant as the OP.

The grocery store i shopped at in the USA gave the item for free if you caught the register ringing up the wrong price so I got in the habit of doing it there. I see it on occasion here but if it is only a few baht I don't say anything. One time at makro it rang up 1,000 baht instead of 100 baht. Now I keep track of everything a I shop so I catch mistakes right away when the total amount does not match what I have figured out in advance.

I should do that but most of the time I'm just too lazy...

Went to slowball house once. Needed 15 meters of electrical wire for my welding machine. The guy seriously asked if I could buy 22 meters because the 7 meters left on the roll were so difficult to sell. Just smiled and said mai aow khrab... Moron...

Life seems to be going on as normal for me and everyone I know.

Except for people who want to speak about politics...