Xangsamhua

Mason45

If you served in Vietnam you should be applying to DVA not CL - the rules are different there.

Hope everyone has contacted their federal member b y now When they intended to cut off the former widow's pension just over 1,000 objections to Mp's stopped the change.

Thanks for the reminder. I've just written to Arch Bevis, Member for Brisbane, as a result.

I don't really get the relevance of the post. It'd be like saying the united states shouldn't celebrate the 4th of july because the current government is somewhat corrupt. Or better yet, that the united states shouldn't celebrate Valentines Day because there are people who aren't in love.

I think the children like Children's Day. Stephen simply noted the hypocrisy that can accompany official events on days like this. I think Americans should celebrate the 4th of July and acknowledge the achievements of their history. The day shouldn't be used to boost the present government, though, or serve as self-promotion for politicians. Valentine's Day's harmless. Today's Australia Day. Australians can celebrate and honour their country today without forgetting that the past carries the weight of wrongs done also. Even in our sins we can still identify the good and resolve to do better.

Thank you very much, everyone, for your excellent advice. I'll note down the recommendations and head off to the bookshops. I was interested in the Mary Haas recommendation. It was so well regarded when I was here on my first stint 37 years ago, but I thought it might now be superseded.

Incidentally, a dictionary I have found helpful, though I've not used it a lot, is the Lao-Thai-English Dictionary (2543) published by the Humanities Department of Kasetsart University. We bought it at Se-Ed a couple of years ago for THB350.

Best wishes to all.

Xangsamhua

Can anyone recommend a good hard cover Thai-English and English-Thai dictionary that goes beyond the Sor Setthabhut level? I'm looking for something I can put on a shelf.

Cheers

Xangsamhua

Can drivers often ask why I speak Thai with a Lao accent. That's where I started and it's hard to speak Thai like the central Thais do. Years ago people from Issan or Laos tried to hide their Lao when they came to BKK. That doesn't happen any more. A good thing, too.

Hello everyone.I was adopted from Thailand when i was 4 months old and i have been brought up and raised in Australia.My thai name given to me by my birth mother, and which is now my middle name is NAPAPORN.Does anyone know what it means please????thanks

napa = sky

porn = gift

a gift from the sky?

I've been playing with the search engine on that site (http://uniranks.unifiedself.com/search.html)

It's interesting to compare the number of results returned by different searches for countries.

Thailand: 8

Singapore: 37

Indonesia: 3

Philippines: 2

Korea: 34

Korea, North: 0

North Korea: 0

Taiwan: 23

Malaysia: 13

Argentina, 11

India: 26

Myanmar: 0

Cambodia: 0

Laos: 0

Vietnam: 0

Brunei: 0

From this, it appears that Thailand has not been as bad in university education as other south-east asian countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Brunei). The only other south-east asian country it has been far behind is Singapore.

Thailand, I'm afraid, is a long way behind Malaysia, too, if you take into account the population difference (Thailand 65 million; Malaysia 25 million - fewer universities in the latter). I'm surprised about Vietnam.

Well done. Hope the book sells up a storm.

Mason45

"If the Aust Department of Immigration in Bangkok weren't so anti Thai women then maybe we would go back to Australia to live thus solving the problem."

Can't agree with this comment, my wife is Thai and we didn't have any problems, other than collecting all the necessary paperwork required to apply for a visa - granted within about 4 weeks of applying and later (2years) converted to a permanent residency visa 2 weeks after submitting the paper work.

If you have a legal marrriage and can show it is not a marriage of convenience for the sake of a visa there is no reason why your wife wouldn't be granted a visa.

Artisi, how old were you and your wife when she applied for a spouse visa, as we get older do you think age can be a factor, whether a spouse visa is issued or not. I'm 63 yo now and my wife is 52 yo, we were legally married in Bangkok, on previous hoilday visa applications the Australian Embassy staff always demanded that we produce our wedding photos and when I told them that we never had a Buddhist Wedding or a party that follows consequently there's no photos they got rather stroppy, I thought a wedding certificate was accepted in every country of the World, why do I have to prove my relationship even though I'm legally married. Proof of relationship was really brought about by Buddhist weddings which are really defacto by foreign law where there's no documents or legal binding. I think it maybe better for us to sell up and buy a smaller property in Bangkok, apply for a spouse visa and if succesfull live in Australia for 7 months and Thailand 5 months every year, then I won't have any OAP problems.

You'd think so, wouldn't you, though with the amount of skepticism in DIMA (or whatever it's called now), one wonders. Is your wedding certificate an Australian one?

Thanks Lao Po. Yes, the numbers may be questioned, and I can't remember where I got the 250 million figure from, but it was bandied about a couple of years ago on the net. However, I see the figure of 300 million currently studying English in the PRC cited on the following site, and it seems a respectable source: http://www.teacher.org.cn/doc/ucedu200608/ucedu20060813.pdf

I guess the question is whether everyone's simply citing secondary sources and an urban legend's getting round or whether someone has actually officially totted up all the numbers. Still, if there are 23 million students on university campuses and you then add all the kids doing English in school plus all the people studying at night and on weekends, and language classes run by the PLA and government agencies, etc. in China, it will add up.

On the matter of how seriously English is taken in China vis-a-vis Thailand, I heard a chap from the British Council at a conference here three years ago saying that in China they'd started seriously boosting resources for teaching and learning English "10 years ago" (i.e. 1995). Thailand is falling further and further behind. I can't see the situation improving except for those who are already in a good position to improve their English here and/or abroad. The will just isn't really there.

Cheers.

Xangsamhua

Your link caused me a lot of problems with Firefox and when I tried to reach them through Google the same happened and I had to restart again; I hope you understand I won't try again

However the number of 300 Million people -currently- studying English is for several reasons incorrect and far beyond the truth I think. The main reasons are money (expensive) and time (hard and long working hours). It would count for some 25% of the total population. It's still virtually impossible to speak English to anyone in the streets or shops, even in the large cities.

In comparison, more people in LOS speak -a little- English (percentage wise) than in China and that's because of the tourism since decades, but that's Thinglish rather than -studied- English.

LaoPo

The abstract and a couple of selected paragraphs for the source are below.

I think we all acknowledge that there are lots of students of English in China, regardless of what the actual figure is. The original point was that English is definitely the acknowledged international language around the world, in China as well, though most probably agree that Mandarin Chinese would be a useful language to have as well.

Actually, the 300 million figure looks a bit suss to me if the author's figures for the number of teachers of English are correct. He/She says there are 800,000 English teachers in the PRC. That would mean that for 300 million learners there are 375 students to every teacher, which seems rather a lot to me.

"Lies, damned lies and statistics"??

Aug. 2006, Volume 3, No.8 (Serial No.21) US-China Education Review, ISSN1548-6613, USA

How about learning them (Thai's) Chinese?

Would it not make more sense?

Yes, Chinese is important, too, and perhaps easier to learn for Thai students. However, while Chinese is important in the region, so is English. Whether doing business with the Nanyang Chinese in Singapore, the Philippines or Vietnam, English is likely to be as helpful as Mandarin Chinese, and probably more so. A couple of years ago it was estimated that the number of people outside China learning Mandarin as a second language was about 20 million. At the same time the number of people in China alone learning English was about 250 million.

Chinese would be the logical third language for Thailand for dealing with the outside world. As more resources should be put into English, so they should go into Chinese as well, but English will open more doors.

Of course, all this implies a serious attempt to use education as a vehicle for change and advancement. While education is used primarily as a vehicle for containment and control, these developments won't occur and certainly won't be extended to the common people. The emergence of an analytical and critical approach to education IMHO won't come about as the result of planning, only by some unforeseen upheaval or, perhaps, by osmosis (by 2595, as Peace Blondie suggests).

I agree with most of what you said but the number of Chinese studying English is far out...far out.

What you probably read (or meant) is that this number of Chinese -ever- studied English at one point in their lives. So, it's a total number.

This is an excerpt from an article of 2006 and maybe the number increased since then:

"The ministry's statistics suggested that the current number of students enrolled on Chinese campuses amounted to 23 million, which is the world's largest group of foreign language learners."

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200603/2...327_253675.html

Of course that number (23M) has to be increased, and I think considerably, because there are many..many private institutions/evening schools teaching English, apart from the campuses. Also, many Chinese primary schools hire English teachers (not even qualified ones...) to boost their image but at the same time, the knowledge of the children. Many parents are very proud of their kids, starting to speak/read/write English, especially amongst the growing middle class.

They recognize the importance of English for the future of their children.....is that the same amongst Thai middle class ?

LaoPo

Thanks Lao Po. Yes, the numbers may be questioned, and I can't remember where I got the 250 million figure from, but it was bandied about a couple of years ago on the net. However, I see the figure of 300 million currently studying English in the PRC cited on the following site, and it seems a respectable source: http://www.teacher.org.cn/doc/ucedu200608/ucedu20060813.pdf

I guess the question is whether everyone's simply citing secondary sources and an urban legend's getting round or whether someone has actually officially totted up all the numbers. Still, if there are 23 million students on university campuses and you then add all the kids doing English in school plus all the people studying at night and on weekends, and language classes run by the PLA and government agencies, etc. in China, it will add up.

On the matter of how seriously English is taken in China vis-a-vis Thailand, I heard a chap from the British Council at a conference here three years ago saying that in China they'd started seriously boosting resources for teaching and learning English "10 years ago" (i.e. 1995). Thailand is falling further and further behind. I can't see the situation improving except for those who are already in a good position to improve their English here and/or abroad. The will just isn't really there.

Cheers.

Xangsamhua

Great post PeaceBlondie.

Changing a mindset and a lazy one at that is very tough indeed.

TEFLMike

Try the technique of putting them in groups and getting the group to come up with ideas or answers instead of the old someone put their hand up method. Ensure that the other groups have to respond in some way to the ideas or answers of other groups or they'll just stop paying attention. You might get some better results like this.

Just an idea (and not even mine) but I've used it often enough.

Good idea, Briggsy. Students can work together and save face at the same time.

How about learning them (Thai's) Chinese?

Would it not make more sense?

Yes, Chinese is important, too, and perhaps easier to learn for Thai students. However, while Chinese is important in the region, so is English. Whether doing business with the Nanyang Chinese in Singapore, the Philippines or Vietnam, English is likely to be as helpful as Mandarin Chinese, and probably more so. A couple of years ago it was estimated that the number of people outside China learning Mandarin as a second language was about 20 million. At the same time the number of people in China alone learning English was about 250 million.

Chinese would be the logical third language for Thailand for dealing with the outside world. As more resources should be put into English, so they should go into Chinese as well, but English will open more doors.

Of course, all this implies a serious attempt to use education as a vehicle for change and advancement. While education is used primarily as a vehicle for containment and control, these developments won't occur and certainly won't be extended to the common people. The emergence of an analytical and critical approach to education IMHO won't come about as the result of planning, only by some unforeseen upheaval or, perhaps, by osmosis (by 2595, as Peace Blondie suggests).

Two "EDUCATION" articles this week:

1. In one of them a high-so man from India said the only way for India, out of poverty, is Education, education and education. There are still 350 Million people in India living off less than 1 US Dollar per day...

2. In another article it was mentioned: "After China, (PM of the UK) Mr Brown heads to India where he will announce plans to train 750,000 English teachers there over the next five years"

From BBC.

If only the new Thai Government would stand still for a mere 5 minutes to give this news a thought.....

If Thailand would cooperate also with countries like the UK, USA, Australia and/or New Zealand and create a plan....to train some 43.000* new English teachers in the next 5 years it would give Thailand an enormous boost into the future.

The cash is there but is the Government & Elite willing to invest to educate their people ?

* Thailand has some 17.4 % (65M) of the Indian population of 1.130.000.000.

Yes yes...I know.......TIT, but if nobody writes about it, who will ?

LaoPo

"The cash is there but is the Government & Elite willing to invest to educate their people?"

It seems not. There are conferences and resolutions passed, but nothing much happens after that, at least in regard to training Thai teachers of English. It must be recognized that the task is much more difficult here than in India where there is a much larger pool of English-speaking "trainers" to draw on. Nevertheless, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

The term 'lady' when referring to a Thai female is of course a very loose term. The are some Thai females who do deserve the title, but the majority certainly do not.

I for one will be interested to learn how you arrive at that conclusion.

Pretty iffy term all round, I think, unless the 'lady' in question is either a gentlewoman, mistress of a household or female version of a lord. Feminists sometimes react against the "gentlewoman" -woman of gentle manners - definition. They think it implies submissiveness. When I hear guys talk about their "lady", I assume it means their live-in girlfriend. It doesn't worry me.

Remember Celine Dion/Jennifer Rush: "I am your lady and you are my man"?

Xangsamhua. It used to be, I don't know about now. Residence in regard to the aged pension was 10 years in the country (for the most part) prior to the 65 birthday. Paying taxes in the country while overseas is not residence. Residence is the body in the country.

Thank you. Looks like I'll just have to go with the flow. Que sera, sera.

But I think I might go direct to Hobart to sort it out.

A few days later she called back to tell me my request for a review was successful and I was to be classified as a full time resident and the 2 year period didn't apply.

I've been away from Oz for six years but have continued paying tax as a "resident". Does that mean I'll be regarded as a resident when I go to Centrelink in a year or so to inquire about the Age Pension, hence avoiding the two-year issue?

About 20 years ago, I came here for the first time, quite young and visiting a friend from back home whose father had remarried with a thai lady from a good family, although, she was quite a bit younger.

We never did anything out of the ordinary - meaning no naughty stuff - strictly touristy stuff for a month. I remember i came with about $4000 and spent it all, and even though I thought it was cheap at the time, depending on where you went, it was also quite expensive. Remember, no naughty stuff, and most of my accommodation was free except for a few hotels in chiang mai, and pattaya - maybe a total of 1 week paid accommodation and the rest free - we stayed at relatives of his step mom who had family everywhere. Even in Pattaya, we stayed at a resort club she was a member of so it was discounted and it was near the southern part of the beach where there was absolutley nothing except some shacks on the beach and this one resort that thais' were members of.

My friend who was fully western took me to Patpong for sightseeing and we got wisked upstairs to a club in the afternoon where we were promised no charge for the show and 30 baht per drink. We ordered two drinks and as we sat at the bar, we could see them washing - let me rephrase that - just dipping dirty mugs into a bucket of water and filling them with beer - so we did not touch our drinks. There were two other groups there - a married middleage couple and two aussie blokes. The girls were all over us and the blokes asking for drinks and rubbing up against us, and we were like no, whereas the ausssies where hands everywhere. When the show, which was interesting and also showed a guy and girl having sex on stage was over, the aussies asked for their bill and freaked. Apparently, everyone was being charged 600 baht for the show (i can;t remember if it was per person or not). When the aussies were screaming for the cops, the staff slid the steel entrance door shut and put a pad lock on it. My friend, who spoke fluent thai, said that his stepmother was good friends of one of the nai emperers of bangkok and we were asked to just pay for the beer and wisked out a back door. I believe the marreid couple paid for their padded bill. I have no idea what happened to the aussies, but my friend said calling the cops would only make it worse as they were a part of this and there would be more money to pay.

In pattaya, on the bus, an indian guy had $800 bucks taken from his suticase and he suspected the staff.

On my way back from chiang mai with my friend and a group of girls (all accountants at a department store) who were friends of his that he met through his stepmon, we stopped at a roadside place that can only be described as a really run down shack for lunch. When the food came the rice was full of small black bugs I was picking out of the rice, but the others were just eating. I subseqently got very sick upon my return to bangers and was out for a few days.

I took everyone to pizza hut (i think - I just remember it being a major pizza chain) and paid and it was no different than ordering back home but at the time, I think the bill was the equivalent of a months pay for a thai. My friend said it was a major treat for them as they very rarely ever went to a place like that. And these girls were from well to do families - although not rich.

I remember walking around a small shopping mall in bangers and how everyone was staring at me.

Went to Oriental Hotel for tea and I remember the staff almost lying down to take our orders as they were trying to get lower than us sitting in low cushioned sofa style chairs.

Driving across bangers took hours and traffic was so bad that is was a full day affair just to go across the city for lunch and back. Once our taxi driver got a flat and since he was such an old guy and he was having a hard time, I changed the tire for him and people around us were quite amused.

All in all a great experience for someone who was quite young, early twenties.

If I can make a comparison from then and today,

At the the time I said to my friend that I found the thai people catering to tourists to be not so nice - and only nice if you are doing business with them - and it has gotten much worse and more main stream . Although the general population is still for the most part nice, they have the same affliction that affects most countries as their GDP rises - a much more negative attitude much in line with many western countries - just a natural progression on the way to development - a shame as the attitudes of yore were really the extra ingredient in making LOS that much more attractive - still nice i think - but just that much less so.

The working ladies have changed very much. The girls seems much more mainstream these days - meaning a lot of average girls who would never have worked in the industry in the past are now working in the industry. They don;t really do it because they need the money, but just that they want more, faster, and easier (i guess from their perspective). Seems like a lot of college girls working part time or sometimes full time and just registered to get any degree. Easy come, easy go - buying nice clothes and new phones. I think it is much harder living here when you see the likes of Paragon everywhere and young kids with all kinds of new gadgets. Nobody wants to be left behind and this is making wanting to keep up with the Jones even more difficult and more competive.

LOS has changed a lot in the 20 or so years i have been coming here - for the most part better i think, but also more mainstream with all the associated benefits and problems. Bangers is truly an international city with a lot to do, and travelling around the city, or the country is now a breeze, but also the attitudes have become much more hard and indifferent and sometimes hostile, especially among those struggling with low paying jobs who see us with resentment.

Thanks Shochu. Very interesting posting. Did all the people who ate the bugs with their rice stay free from sickness?

The two farangs in suits were probably Mormons used to be quite a few around years ago, i think the government ended up banning them from the country.

No, they're still around. You see them quite often in Bangkok. They've just removed the jacket.

Well, there could be two reasons.

1. The student/teaching level isn't high enough to bother; and

2. Since the exams have to be officially marked away from the school, it means that things are super-transparent- which is not what most Thais paying for private schools are paying for.

"S"

Tut, tut...such cynicism. Actually, I had a look at the details of the IB and the process for applying recently. I think it would be difficult for even the best resourced private bilingual school to manage, though perhaps they could if they charged high enough fees for the IB program and put a lot of money and effort into meeting IBO's requirements. MoE will accept IB as equivalent to Thai senior studies on application from the school.

I did see one university satit school advertise IB on their website, but there's no indication that they're doing it, and their name's not on the IBO list for Thailand. Maybe they're in the application process.

Congratulations, "S", on having hit the 6000 mark.

Try DK Today, down past the Indra Regent, last soi before you get to Sri Ayudhya Rd. There are more details and maps at http://www.dktoday.net/onlineshop/content/view/12/28/. Scroll down for the English version.

I haven't been there for a long time, but hopefully they're still there. They still come round to schools.

It seems that dealing with the Hobart office direct is the way to go for correct advice and a sympathetic hearing. Am I right?

If you're going to be based in Bangkok, the Mercy Centre in Khlong Toey can use volunteers. Run by Fr Joe Maier's Human Development Foundation, they look after AIDS victims, homeless kids, provide schooling, community development, etc. in Bangkok's most notorious slum area.

Scott: "Aussieland, sorry to hear the bitterness in you."

I do aplolgise to all of you, especially the ones I communicated with on a more regular basis whilst living in the land of s. I am an arrogant asshol_e, so I do apologise.

My bitterness come from my present situation. Everything has gone perfect with my wife and my return to Australia. The problem is that I am now forced between two options. I really want a degree, but I don't need one; however, I have already started the degree and I never start anything I don't finish, so quiting now would be against the way I do things. That's not the big issue anyway. The problem is that I paid all my fees up front, I mean the tuition fees for the entire degree, thousands of dollars, and that was fine. Now, the problem is, I have the option to buy out the other people who own part of the property I partly own 1/3 of. Since I spent most of the cash I have access to, I lack the funds to show a decent deposit to the bank to get the load to buy out these other two people. I really love this place and it is a good deal, so good, I'd proably make a lot more money out of this that I would make from the degree.

See, I really want the degree, it would be a great accomplishment for me. But to let this chance to own this property outright is very hard as well. Not many people would hrow away a chance like this just to persue the wish for a degree. What would ya'll do?

Refund fees and buy the property, or continue with studying that is already paid for?

Get the refund and buy the property. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. After all, you might never get to finish the degree for some unforeseen reason, but you'll still have the property.

The degrees that Open Universities Australia offer are degrees identicle to those that on-campus student get from the relevant universities. That is why there are not that many degrees to choose from. They only provide degrees that you could actually obtain without the need to physically attend university. That is a reason you can not get education related degrees, because most education degrees require prac work that distance students can't participate in. Open uni just provides a more felixble and affordable mode of studying. The bachelor of Arts I'm doing, through the open uni will be a Macquarie Uni degree. If you do the degree on campus at Mq uni, you fees are about three or four times as much, you have to fit in with their schedule, and so on. I get four semesters per year where as the on-campus students only get two. So really, I only have to study half the number of classes per semester to do the same study load PA. That's why i chose to get the same degre through the open universities. At the end of the day, I will get the same degree and the same recognition and to top it off, I will attend the same grad ceremony as the on-campus students. They might say, my degree is better because I attended campus. I will say, good for you, but I have the exact same degree, I paid about a fourth of the tuition fees as you, and, I managed to earn a decent salary and take out a mortgage all while attending uni. Who do you think will be really better off in the long run?

As for delivery mode. You have to by textbooks from the uni book shop or order online. You have electronic access to the university's library (no need to physically go to the library). You need to either purschase course readers or download them. There are many weekly readings to go through. You need to participate in weekly online discussions, if you don't, you loose marks. You get sent a lecture CD in the mail. Essays are the same, you submit and do them just like on-campus students. Exams are either online and timed, once you hit begin, the timer starts counting. Or, exams are sent to an approved exam handler for the uni and you then actually need to go somewhere physically to do the exam. It's hardly an online degree. In fact, there is more effort required to get a degre through open uni Australia that on-campus students in Thai universities need to put in (an ex-thai studnet doing an OUA degree told me). I actually think a degree from a Thai uni is more like an online degree, because in Thailand "pay your fee, get your degree". LOL

Do farangs in Thailand really think Almeda university is real? I remember seeing so much mail from Almeda uni in my appartment building in Bangkok. Seriously.......

Thanks for the explanation, AS. Good point about an external/distance mode degree having to be one that can be done that way; hence a pre-service education degree that requires a practicum could only be partly done by distance mode or online. However, postgraduate Education Studies could, in some cases (e.g. Educational Administration).

However, you're still associating Australian university online studies (as offered by Macquarie, Australian Catholic University, University of Southern Queensland, etc.) with the kind of life experience degree offered by Almeda, etc. in the States, where you "pay your fee, get your degree", as you say. I've done Australian postgraduate uni courses via all modes - attendance, distance mode (print materials) and online. They've all been equally weighted, provide the same testamur and transcript and have all been equally demanding. And yes, you get to go to the same graduation ceremony if you want to.