3 hours ago, BobbyL said:

It was a great scene to hear him communicate with the two British divers. Not so good when out of 12 kids he was the only one he could speak basic stuff and he is Burmese. 

 

Thailand is generations away from having a proficient English speaking nation. 

euh correction, not burmese but hilltribe which is a big difference. burmese are bpama. hilltribe'rs have different languages and customs. it's like calling a spanish a portugese. many of those hill tribes boys were actually stateless and live HERE and have gone to school HERE too. if he spoke good english he has learned it here somewhere from someone and surely not in some remote border area of shan state ?

9 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

Yes the teachers are from the Philippines and the boy is from Myanmar.says it all really.

i have worked in myanmar and english is not that widely spoken as often suggested here. in the cities OK but off the beaten track surely not. the educational system has been extremely poor to non-existent for decades and remote hilltribes barely speak Burmese let alone English. however, UNI-kids in general speak good english compared to the Thai who are a complete shame to be honest. their accent is a disaster, their grammar is a disasters, their fear to speak caused by the FACE-farce is a disaster...

6 hours ago, davehowden said:

" There are two Filipino teachers to teach English ", well yes, sort of !!

A cheap, bigoted, racist shot.

 

I know English teachers from various ASEAN countries (Thailand, many from Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam) who are as competent as good teachers from UK, US, NZ, Australia etc. I have also come across more than a few native English speaking hires who have little competence or even interest in teaching. 

 

With the official language of the Philippines, Tugalog, being the native language of only about 30% of the population many of the rest are somewhat reluctant to learn / use it, with the political and cultural baggage it carries. English, once the language of the colonial power, has now become neutral, and the preferred lingua franca of many in the country. Many, if not most, Philippine folk are at least competently communicative in English, and quite a few  are as fluent as any native speaker.

 

Interesting that the polyglot in the soccer team is not Thai, but a Burmese lad who has Philippine and Chinese teachers.

3 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

I think Thailand is second from bottom in the region in terms of English language proficiency. The lack of importance in learning it was highlighted last year when the PM stated that Thai could replace English as the world's lingua franca.

The first boy to speak to the rescue teams (and the only one who can speak English) is from a hilltribe and was born in Burma.

He's a Shan.  In CM all my friends are Shan and I find them very much brighter, intelligent etc. than most Thai people.

3 hours ago, BobbyL said:

It was a great scene to hear him communicate with the two British divers. Not so good when out of 12 kids he was the only one he could speak basic stuff and he is Burmese. 

 

Thailand is generations away from having a proficient English speaking nation. 

I really hope that this wonderful little chap will be an inspiration to all Thai kids up and down the land - encouraging them to learn how to speak English. It literally can help save your life!

6 minutes ago, Gillyflower said:

He's a Shan.  In CM all my friends are Shan and I find them very much brighter, intelligent etc. than most Thai people.

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

3 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

Maybe in the future it may change from English to Chinese as the common World language ,as English replaced French in the past.

4 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

Well, your wife has got a point: the great Prayut has already spoken of the day when Thai will become the world language!

"One of the team, 14-year-old Adul Sam-on, a Mathayom 2 student at Ban Wiangphan School, was heard asking the foreigners questions and helped translate for his friends."

That was ONE of the students speaking English. Obviously, his interest in learning English was not fostered by the school he attended, but something instilled in him in his personal/home life. Otherwise all the students would have been conversing in English. 

Perhaps (but I doubt it) the education ministry will finally implement an adequate, universal foreign language skills curriculum , along with critical thinking.

Do i see a future general in that OP photo?

6 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

The answer is that no one has to learn English.

 

However given that English is the most widespread language in the world it is more useful to learn than Thai (which I do speak reasonably fluently, but it is all but useless outside Thailand).

Might have been more useful if they had learnt to swim too!


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6 hours ago, davehowden said:

" There are two Filipino teachers to teach English ", well yes, sort of !!

There are many highly skilled Filipino English teachers here in Vietnam and the highest qualified, by a large margin, ESL teacher I've met, in 12 years of teaching, was also Filipino.

There is a very good reason why English is taught so badly if at all. It is government policy, and anything that tends to improve the situation is to be strenuously discouraged. Treat the indigenous like mushrooms, difficult if they can understand the international media.

25 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

classic thai way of looking at things... and some people marry these folks ?

34 minutes ago, Gillyflower said:

He's a Shan.  In CM all my friends are Shan and I find them very much brighter, intelligent etc. than most Thai people.

not only shan, basically all etnics in myanmar explaining why even MON's and KAREN's and BURMESE quickly learn Thai language, knowing it's a good thing to speak that language too. thai are lazy and self-centered beings as they are taught to be like that from early age. they look down on their neighbours and look down on the west. the will to EVOLVE in myanmar or laos is 10x stronger than here because thai have all they need: cheap chinese consumer goods, 24/7 7/11, internet and rice. when i was working in myeik and dawei there were plenty of THAI businessmen there only speaking thai. zero english, zero burmese. their staff were locals who spoke thai. the funny thing was the staff was much more witty then the bosses and laughed with the utter incompetence of the hand that feeds them ?

44 minutes ago, happy chappie said:

My wife said to me one time,why does everyone in the world have to learn English and not Thai.lol.

A language doesn't spread in five minutes; Thai language is spoken only in Thailand, English began with colonisation then USA which  invented so many things and exported them all over the world : better English than Chinese ( but as said above, things can change in the future ; in two centuries , which language ? ) 

Just now, Aforek said:

A language doesn't spread in five minutes; Thai language is spoken only in Thailand, English began with colonisation then USA which  invented so many things and exported them all over the world : better English than Chinese ( but as said above, things can change in the future ; in two centuries , which language ? ) 

The way things are going in the uk the English language will be forbidden to be taught or spoke under sharia law by the end of the century.

1 hour ago, anto said:

Maybe in the future it may change from English to Chinese as the common World language ,as English replaced French in the past.

Nope !  I've met a lot of Chinese in recent weeks and they say English is far more important to learn than Chinese because it's the number one International language.  They know that most of the World is not interested in learning Chinese.

5 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

I think Thailand is second from bottom in the region in terms of English language proficiency. The lack of importance in learning it was highlighted last year when the PM stated that Thai could replace English as the world's lingua franca.

The first boy to speak to the rescue teams (and the only one who can speak English) is from a hilltribe and was born in Burma.

I can remember about 20 years ago the then Thai PM Choen-Lee-Pie, said the Thai people speak too much English, should concentrate on speaking Thai.

That was then, things have not changed much, and I do not think they will.

45 minutes ago, aloha23 said:

classic thai way of looking at things... and some people marry these folks ?

I married one 12 years ago and when i met her three years before that she could already speak very passable English, better in fact than some of my English friends.

 

I would add that she did not learn English at Government Schools, where she says the Teachers not only lacked any interest in teaching English but showed no interest or awareness of a World outside of Thailand.   Indeed; until she was 11 years old she thought Thailand was 'The World'  because nobody from her Family or School had ever indicated that there was any other 'World'.    Then one day an old Monk visited the School and showed the Children an Atlas and pictures of his travels to other Countries.  Being a very excited 11 year old she rushed home later to explain to her Dad what she had learned that day but his response was a complete lack of interest, just replying...''Go help your Mother at the Market ''.    From that day forward my Wife was determined to learn all she could about the outside World and to take every opportunity to learn English and Travel 'The Real World'.   In doing so she has freed herself from the constraints of a Country led by a succession of  Moronic Thieves that have no interest in moving the country forward.

7 minutes ago, kickstart said:

I can remember about 20 years ago the then Thai PM Choen-Lee-Pie

You can't remember very well. You have both his first name and surname wrong and then mysteriously joined them together with a hyphen whilst splitting the surname with a hyphen.

 

10 years ago, the standard of English on Thaivisa was much higher. I don't hold out much hope of improvement.

3 minutes ago, trainman34014 said:

I married one 12 years ago and when i met her three years before that she could already speak very passable English, better in fact than some of my English friends.

 

I would add that she did not learn English at Government Schools, where she says the Teachers not only lacked any interest in teaching English but showed no interest or awareness of a World outside of Thailand.   Indeed; until she was 11 years old she thought Thailand was 'The World'  because nobody from her Family or School had ever indicated that there was any other 'World'.    Then one day an old Monk visited the School and showed the Children an Atlas and pictures of his travels to other Countries.  Being a very excited 11 year old she rushed home later to explain to her Dad what she had learned that day but his response was a complete lack of interest, just replying...''Go help your Mother at the Market ''.    From that day forward my Wife was determined to learn all she could about the outside World and to take every opportunity to learn English and Travel 'The Real World'.   In doing so she has freed herself from the constraints of a Country led by a succession of  Moronic Thieves that have no interest in moving the country forward.

Sounds like Ireland where i grew up in the 60s .World History and Geography and Foreign languages or Religion other than Catholism  were not promoted 

52 minutes ago, Aforek said:

A language doesn't spread in five minutes; Thai language is spoken only in Thailand, English began with colonisation then USA which  invented so many things and exported them all over the world : better English than Chinese ( but as said above, things can change in the future ; in two centuries , which language ? ) 

if i were young i would learn CHINESE & SPANISH. now i speak and read 4 languages (3 fluent) and can speak thai (enough for daily chats/life, not enough to discuss the big bang or the complexities of belgian federalism ;-))

16 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

You can't remember very well. You have both his first name and surname wrong and then mysteriously joined them together with a hyphen whilst splitting the surname with a hyphen.

 

10 years ago, the standard of English on Thaivisa was much higher. I don't hold out much hope of improvement.

10 years ago the standard of TV in general was higher.

7 minutes ago, aloha23 said:

if i were young i would learn CHINESE & SPANISH. now i speak and read 4 languages (3 fluent) and can speak thai (enough for daily chats/life, not enough to discuss the big bang or the complexities of belgian federalism ;-))

Very good ! I just said " English better than Chinese " because, for the whole world, Chinese is much more difficult than English, it doesn't mean that English has a better value than Chinese 

34 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

You can't remember very well. You have both his first name and surname wrong and then mysteriously joined them together with a hyphen whilst splitting the surname with a hyphen.

 

10 years ago, the standard of English on Thaivisa was much higher. I don't hold out much hope of improvement.

The main thing is the man TRIED to get it right after 20 years.so I'll give him 99% for trying and it would of been a 100% if he got the name right.

2 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Divers don't speak much of any language underwater, it's all eye movements, body contact, hand signals and (probably primarily in this instance) tugs on lines and tethers... the universal language of divers.

The water is very murky...they can't see anything.

A grammar police post has been removed as well as the replies.  A troll post getting into politics has been removed. 

2 hours ago, aloha23 said:

classic thai way of looking at things... and some people marry these folks ?

 

And your problem with some people, like me for instance, is what exactly?