Thailand falls to 74th place in EF English Proficiency Index 2019

[Puchaiyank]

Schools are more than ever pushing Chinese in the classrooms...I think they know something we are yet to accept...Thailand and Chinese ties are the wave of the future...????

[Dr Rodrigues Pereira]

From my 30 year or more visiting Indochina on a regular basis, all I can tell that there is an abrupt lack of quality between Thai youngstors and those of the other countries. If you take the hotel examples, try to compare the Oriental in BKK, the Raffles in Phnom Penh, the Governors House in Yangon or the Rex in Saigon ... Two differente worlds. And what strikes me most is the fact that it usen't to be like that ...

 

[30la]

Why learn English?
The "Leader of the Leaders" explained to his people that in a few years the Thai language will be the new "WORLD LANGUAGE"!
And then, foreigners want to come to Thailand, then learn Thai!

[Isaanbiker]

2 hours ago, simon43 said:

In other news, Thailand made huge gains in the Chinese language proficiency index, with even Thai politicians being fluent in such useful phrases as:

 

- Thank-you dear comrade, yes I'll bend over right here

- I'm sorry that my nose is a little brown

- My hovercraft is full of eels

Why would you even start to teach a third, or fourth language, if they can't figure out how to teach them English as a second language?

 

   IMO, the students' English even got worse in the last years. 

 

I've never met a student in 15 years who was able to say whole sentences in Chinese. Nihau, maa.

 

 

[Cabradelmar]

They should focus on the language of the regions new overlord.. China

[transam]

A few years back, I recall the Tourist Police were given 6 months to learn English. What went wrong..They should now all be fluent English speakers...????

[ivor bigun]

I know some Thai ,but not a great deal ,my wife and son ,read write and speak English ,in fact at university ,our son was paid to give English lessons sometimes .

 

[Lamkyong]

2 hours ago, simon43 said:

In other news, Thailand made huge gains in the Chinese language proficiency index, with even Thai politicians being fluent in such useful phrases as:

 

- Thank-you dear comrade, yes I'll bend over right here

- I'm sorry that my nose is a little brown

- My hovercraft is full of eels

 My hovercraft is full of eels????????

[Isaan sailor]

Thais can learn English and speak fluently.  I know, since my wife went from just a few words when I first met her, to complete conversational, writing and reading English--in just six years of marriage to an American.  However, in our village, we are the only full time resident English speakers.  Apparently, the young ladies all know how important this is--since they all now want to find English speaking husbands...

[Assurancetourix]

1 hour ago, nasa123 said:

Look and listen to all these Generals and State employees who hold high positions, most of them pointing out that they have high education from the US and England but cannot speak a word English.

 

One of my uncles retired a few weeks ago.

He was the big boss of health for Udon Thani province .( high civil servant ) 

He has a perfect english 

 

He married his daughter to a Swede who is a builder of houses in his country there are already quite a few years.
We saw each other a few days ago in Udon Thani;
everyone spoke in English;
his daughter is fluent in English and Swedish.

On the other hand, I know a Thai lady who has been an English teacher all her life; she is now 73 or 74 years old; she continues to speak fluently in English and her English is very good.
But it must be said that these cases are rare.
Generally, as you write, the Thai teachers of English are often unable to construct two sentences in this language without making several mistakes, usually forgetting one or more verbs or a personal pronoun.
In fact they build their sentences in English as they do with their language: Thai.

I would like to know how do the Thai teachers who teach German; it must be quite folkloric ...

[DLock]

58 minutes ago, HuskerDo said:

I'm obviously serious. So many Thai bashers on this forum thus they are the ones that decided to move here and still want to live by the rules, customs and culture they left behind in their homeland. Bizarre.

Really? You weren't being sarcastic?

 

This was just about Thailand English proficiency and Thailand slipping 3 years to 74th place.

 

I'm pretty sure there is no study to check Thai language proficiency in "US, Canada, Australia, Germany, etc ".

 

Carry on.

[Assurancetourix]

49 minutes ago, Assurancetourix said:

on the other hand, Thai, as one leaves Thailand, has no use

Apart from, perhaps, to play the fool in a Thai restaurant in New York or Paris;

and no luck..most of them are held by Laotians 

[hotchilli]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand’s English proficiency ranking among non-native English speaking countries has dropped for the third consecutive year to 74th out of a total of 100 countries.

 

And will keep dropping while schools would rather pay low salaries to non-native speakers of English.
My neighbour has two sons at a government school whose "English" teacher comes from Camaroon!

They says no-one in the class even the Thai English assistant teacher can understand a word he says.

Nuff said.

[HHTel]

1 hour ago, HuskerDo said:

And where does the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, etc rank on being able to speak Thai.

 

Rather biased story. 

You can't be serious.  English is the second most used language in the world with almost a billion speakers.  Chinese is first with a little more but mostly in China.

Thai is spoken by less than 70 million and they are almost 100% in Thailand.

You quite rightly point out that no other countries speak Thai so that should be a huge incentive to learn English.  Otherwise, just how can Thailand trade/interact/improve etc.

 

I'm sure you were joking.

[simon43]

47 minutes ago, Lamkyong said:

 My hovercraft is full of eels????????

????

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grA5XmBRC6g

[tominbkk]

1 hour ago, alex8912 said:

I find it hard to believe you live in BKK. I find English good at even my local 7/11’s. 

I live in N. Bangkok....nobody in my area speaks English.  My thai is quite good so it doesn't bother me.  My house is in an upper middle class moo ban and most of the kids speak quite well, also most adults.  

[simon43]

18 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

And will keep dropping while schools would rather pay low salaries to non-native speakers of English.
My neighbour has two sons at a government school whose "English" teacher comes from Camaroon!

They says no-one in the class even the Thai English assistant teacher can understand a word he says.

Nuff said.

Probably comes from the 85% or so of the country where French is the primary language...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Cameroon

 

Are you sure he's not teaching bastardised French to them? ????

[Denim]

When I first came to Thailand in 1979 there were very few native English teachers. There were only a few non state schools offering English language courses by native speakers. The AUA and British council were prominent amongst these.

 

Needles to say Thailand ranked poorly for its English language skills.

 

Then mass tourism became an important part of the Thai economy and it was decided that the problem needed to be addressed. 

 

The solution they arrived at was to get more native English speakers in and try to ensure that every state school had one.

 

More native English teachers arrived and began to teach all over the country.  At first , these teachers were mostly British , American or Australian. But as the wages were not that attractive more and more non native teachers were employed to take up the slack.

 

Fast forward to 2019 and Thailand still ranks poorly in English language skills despite there being more native speakers and second language teachers than before.

 

To assume that teachers or lack of them is the main problem is , in my opinion , an incorrect assumption. 

 

The onus to learn something must come from the student not the teacher. Even the best native English teachers will fail to teach many of the students who fall into their hands. If the students themselves are not very motivated then teaching them is going to be difficult.

 

Just easing the rules and visa requirements and throwing more native teachers into the system will not change things much.

 

The whole attitude and approach needs to be better thought out including a standardized national curriculum for starters.

 

In the end though , with Facebook and Line etc being so dominant as activities , hard to see how studying English can compete. 

[yellowboat]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

followed by the Philippines and Malaysia, which were placed in the high English proficiency group.

Malaysia is where companies will like to look at locating their business.  

 

Why does it keep going down under the junta? Didn't they declare war on non Thai English teachers.  Met lots of Filipinos teaching in the countryside of Thailand.  Wonder how Thailand fares with Chinese proficiency.  They should learn one or the other. 

[thequietman]

3 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

Me, as a teacha, bees cannot unnerstand why. I teash very very much good. This report is accidented:

Kap. ????

[ChakaKhan]

6 minutes ago, thequietman said:

Kap. ????

You Tink too Mutt!!  ????  Jing Jing

[thequietman]

30 minutes ago, ChakaKhan said:

You Tink too Mutt!!  ????  Jing Jing

????

Edited November 7, 2019 by thequietman

[thequietman]

58 minutes ago, Denim said:

Fast forward to 2019 and Thailand still ranks poorly in English language skills despite there being more native speakers and second language teachers than before.

When your uni immediately stops increasingly your salary yearly citing, "New government, new government" and then openly wastes money on sanook activities, then your motivational levels take a dive.

 

They then ask students( who can't & won't speak any English) to assess you every semester! <deleted>! If the students don't like you because:

 

1. Him too serious. Lessons not sanook.

2. Him talk too quickly, need to slow down to my retarded level.

3. Him make tests too hard! Have to study to pass his tests. No good.

 

.... then you don't get renewed! You don't get renewed because you tried to teach them! LOL ????

 

....... and many other nonsense comments, you can see why we just pass them and get them the hell out of our lives. Also, if you fail students, the faculty blames You!

You are judged by the students that you fail!

 

...... and these are only a few of the many issues in the "Thai Education System." ????

Edited November 7, 2019 by thequietman

[Saint Nick]

Disbelievable!

I am shocking!

 

[ChakaKhan]

25 minutes ago, thequietman said:

Kap. Sanook mak mak.

 

I luds de facebooka. Jing, jing. ????

555 Mai pen rai..sabai sabai Gin khao laew?? ????

[nickstav]

I found English proficiency to be quite good in Cambodia, but I've only been to tourist areas. But in those areas I actually thought they were more proficient than Thais.

[nickstav]

1 hour ago, yellowboat said:

Malaysia is where companies will like to look at locating their business.  

 

Why does it keep going down under the junta? Didn't they declare war on non Thai English teachers.  Met lots of Filipinos teaching in the countryside of Thailand.  Wonder how Thailand fares with Chinese proficiency.  They should learn one or the other. 

Not just the countryside, I've met quite a few Filipinos who teach English in Bangkok. They come down to Hua Hin for a weekend at the beach.

[Creasy]

If they weren't so xenophobic , and actually did the whole country a favour and allowed skilled foreign teachers who can speak English. Electricians who can teach them how wire up a house that doesn't zap you or plumbers that could teach them what a p & s trap are and how to vent toilets etc. 

 

But no. Carry on with the blind leading the blind

[cnx101]

5 hours ago, djayz said:

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink" comes to mind. 

There are lots of native speakers teaching here, but, if the general attitude is "put in as little effort as possible" prevails, then they are never going to learn or develop. I'm not just talking about English either. It would be interesting to know if they are also lagging behind in other subjects too. 

They know very little and don't seem to know/care that their heads are empty. 

Worked in a school in Bangkok for a short time a few years ago, like being in the monkey house at the zoo, the kids have no interest just screaming and shouting and playing, I would never ever do this job again.

[spidermike007]

Thailand needs to get it's act together, hire 25,000 foreign, native English speakers, and just suck it up and admit that they have failed miserably, their educational system is hopelessly broken, their kids are not learning much, and they are so far behind the curve, it is astonishing. Man up! Do the right thing! Help your people! For once, do something that actually benefits the common people. 

 

Also, during my trips to Indonesia, I found the locals spoke far better english than most Thais.