I remember 34 years ago meeting a samlor driver in Hua Hin with who I became good mates. He asked me to look over his daughter's English language homework, in which the teacher had set 10 questions. The answers she provided were so bad as to be incomprehensible to an English speaker. I then had a look at the questions the teacher had set, which were also totally incomprehensible to an English speaker. So its a case of the blind leading the blind on that one. At the time there was a total ban on foreigners teaching in State schools, so obviously this included English language teachers. I'm not sure if this still holds true, but it would go some way in explaining why this generation of Thais that cant afford private schooling remain so bad at the language. I also think that there are real pronunciation difficulties for Thais when it comes to speaking English, just a couple of days ago my wife asked me in Thai "lao yoo ttii nie" (sorry not allowed by the mods to write Thai) which left me perplexed as we had just flown from Thailand and I wondered why she wanted to head straight for Laos, but of course it was the bizzy class lounge she was looking for rather than a visit to Vientienne. Its the 'gnge' sound amongst others that I think the Thais find very difficult.