IMO.

90% of thai people is waste of time to study English. Is very difficult, years to learn very well. 

Better just help the one who want study English. 

 

Most thai not need to speak English. Never will need speak to English speaker. Better use the time for useful thing. Make money, learn other skill.

lot of time, no benefit. Never use it. For what? Most my friend can not speak English, not need sure. Learn little bit at school, forget already.

 

I think foreigner who live in Thailand is good idea to study thai language. Many benefit in life. Use it everyday.

Will have better life sure. If live in Thailand and not study Thai you are deaf, mute illiterate. Nobody want friend like that. To difficult. 

 

 

Generally speaking, IMO the foreigner live thailand can speak Thai are more happy. They less frustration in there life. More friend etc. Easy life. Will enjoy. Join the community. 

 

Up to you.

 

 

 

 

8 minutes ago, lemonjelly said:

A step forward would be to get consultants in from The British Council (for example) and create a standardized syllabus using the same text books nationwide that are aimed at everyday conversational English with the  ONET English exam corresponding to this rather than the train wreck we have now of different schools using different teaching media for an exam that often seems to be created by old educators in Bangkok trying to impress their peers by setting questions obviously over the students heads and to top it all, screwing up the answer keys. 

nope ! dont waste time and money on the jokers at the British Council

How can Thailand draw more/better EFL teachers? Simple. Start by paying wages that are on par with Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., and cut the bureaucratic BS that makes it so difficult for teachers to obtain visas and work permits and actually live here legally.

 

Schools and language centres must put up a million THB in registered capital to obtain a single work permit for a foreign teacher, so it's no wonder that many schools are still trying to employ them illegally, or just giving up on it. And gone are the days when teachers could do border runs to stay here long term on the down low, so the schools that can't fund work permits have no options left.

 

Thailand's diminishing English proficiency is the direct result of a cycle of overzealous bureaucracy - with a dash of xenophobia - that has been implemented by the very same government authorities that now want to improve English skills in the kingdom. Without serious wage increases and changes to the immigration and labour laws, I say chok dee!

2 minutes ago, dluek said:

How can Thailand draw more/better EFL teachers? Simple. Start by paying wages that are on par with Vietnam, Taiwan, etc., and cut the bureaucratic BS that makes it so difficult for teachers to obtain visas and work permits and actually live here legally.

 

Schools and language centres must put up a million THB in registered capital to obtain a single work permit for a foreign teacher, so it's no wonder that many schools are still trying to employ them illegally, or just giving up on it. And gone are the days when teachers could do border runs to stay here long term on the down low, so the schools that can't fund work permits have no options left.

 

Thailand's diminishing English proficiency is the direct result of a cycle of overzealous bureaucracy - with a dash of xenophobia - that has been implemented by the very same government authorities that now want to improve English skills in the kingdom. Without serious wage increases and changes to the immigration and labour laws, I say chok dee!

Thailand does nothing serious when it comes to Education, Add it to the list of all the other major issues it is incapable of dealing with in its society.

Don't even know where to going on this one, it's so ridiculous. 

 

My son was born in Singapore and went through a Singaporean elementary school education before we moved to Thailand.

 

So clearly the kid, by virtue of his education, living in Singapore and me, was fluent in both verbal and written English.

 

We put him into, what I thought was the best private school in Khon Kaen, when I would read the 'corrections' to his his English homework, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

It's long road to travel shall we say, before Thailand comes to grips with this issue!

So much of the business world, regardless of the countries involved use the English language.  Airline pilots and various other airline personnel must be fluent in English.  Like it or not, English has become the international language in business dealings.  Thai children who are taught PROPER English will have far more opportunities in gaining suitable employment.  A native English speaker is by far the best person to teach Thai children as among other things they will be introduced to a whole new sentence structure.  A good example of at least one Thai English teacher I know follows.  My daughter was given as homework 10 sentences where the words were intentionally placed in the incorrect order.  I did not see this until she brought her corrected paper home later that week.  All but one sentence was check marked as correct however, only one was even close to being correct.  For Thais to obtain the education they need for their later lives and occupations a NATIVE English speaking teacher is the only choice that should be made.     

 

Good luck with that. Took my daughter a year of intensive courses to get to B2 after finishing M6 in a multilingual school. In Thai schools A1 would be an optimistic goal.

And while they're at it, how about some macro-economics teachers for the government 

I had a Thai friend who did a one year coarse in English when she used to speak with the me she said she felt like she had wasted her money, Im English

2 hours ago, strawpanda said:

I'm a British native speaker of English with an MA in TEFL. I do a lot of academic proofreading for non-native speakers/teachers of English doing MAs, PhDs etc. Some of them are very good, some less so, but there's definitely an important role for native speakers, though they're not going to work for peanuts.

Not as qualified as you, but with a BA, TEFL and having taught part time in Vietnam for 2 years,  I am still adverse to applying for work here.  Reasons: low salaries, poorer conditions and work visa nightmares.  From talking with foreigners who have taught here, their experiences relayed to me are not positive.  Hoping that positive changes are afoot.  But will not be holding my breath!

Just now, aussienam said:

Not as qualified as you, but with a BA, TEFL and having taught part time in Vietnam for 2 years,  I am still adverse to applying for work here.  Reasons: low salaries, poorer conditions and work visa nightmares.  From talking with foreigners who have taught here, their experiences relayed to me are not positive.  Hoping that positive changes are afoot.  But will not be holding my breath!

Stay where you are things will never change here if they do it will be more difficult for you to teach here 

2 hours ago, shadowofacloud said:

This will be a great, indisputable success. Me no have doubt.

 

 

Flood gates from Philippines will no doubt fill the void.... at the right price.

2 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Flood gates from Philippines will no doubt fill the void.... at the right price.

Gets on my nerves they way they speak English 

2 hours ago, strawpanda said:

I'm a British native speaker of English with an MA in TEFL. I do a lot of academic proofreading for non-native speakers/teachers of English doing MAs, PhDs etc. Some of them are very good, some less so, but there's definitely an important role for native speakers, though they're not going to work for peanuts.

Speaking of proofreading, you need a comma after PhDs. ????

 

My background is 20+ years of medical/legal proofreading in the USSA with an MA in Education.

I could have sworn my calendar said 1-April.

I would make a good teacher, I could teach the kids how to Hot wire a Ferrari and how to cut up a 9 Bar

With any foreign language, if you have the opportunity to offer a foreign language by a native of that language as early as possible in the students' lives, ie. from the earliest grade in school, then do so.  Don't keep it until the last year and expect a good return on your investment. English/French/Chinese NATIVE speakers. 

I was approached by one of Professors working in the local University, who asked me if I would be kind enough to teach English.  Whilst I am a native Brit with quite a reasonable level of English Language, I did not fancy starting to work again at the age of 65 years, so declined the kind offer.  The Professor realised that my Thai National Wife had quite a reasonable standard of spoken English, having attended University in Thailand and Australia and asked her to become an English Tutor at the University.  The complication arose in that he expected her to teach Psychology in English, a topic which neither myself or my Wife had any level of competence.  "Not to worry he said to my Wife, you can do it".  He then produced lessons in Psychology, in THAI, which we then had to translate!  It was a complete nightmare and I had great concern that the lessons would leave somewhat to be desired and would the Students be able to achieve a pass in English?  That was solved because not only was my Wife their Tutor, but she was also responsible for marking their test papers and lo and behold they all passed, to my utter surprise.  The fact that they got 50% of their marks merely because they had attended the classes and the pass mark was 60%!  

I would like to work teaching English as well. Not 6 days a week but a few. Perhaps building up to more.

 

People think that I have almost no accent usually.

12 minutes ago, GalaxyMan said:

Speaking of proofreading, you need a comma after PhDs. ????

 

My background is 20+ years of medical/legal proofreading in the USSA with an MA in Education.

Where is the "USSA"?  Careful with picking fault with others' punctuation, grammar or vocabulary.

2 hours ago, Chazar said:

Nigerian English speaker seeks  employment

What qualification certificates would you like me to have?

Good news for hard pressed Nigerians and Kenyans.

2 hours ago, champers said:

BP reporting that the Phillipines Embassy has been consulted with a view to bringing in more Filipino English speakers as teachers.

 

I went to an open day this morning at a fairly expensive Satit Demonstration schools attached to a well known rather good university. One of their aspirations was that all students should communicate in excellent written and spoken English. But English Language wasn't one of their highly focused on core subjects. Just teaching in English and requiring students to use English won't achieve the desired outcome. And as you point out, a noticeable number of teachers were Filipinos.

 

There is this strange idea in Asean countries that people from the Philippines are native English speakers. They aren't.

7 minutes ago, Billthekiwi said:

I would like to work teaching English as well. Not 6 days a week but a few. Perhaps building up to more.

 

People think that I have almost no accent usually.

 

Good grief - you even write with an accent!

3 hours ago, webfact said:

there is every likelihood that budgets will be available to employ more foreign teachers

I'm sure there will be. The question is how much will be left after pockets are filled.

The problem is not lack of teachers it is a lack of a standardized testing and curriculum.  Schools teach but do not teach what is needed like basic reading skills.  Imagine if there was a true testing system based on curricu

lum.

The teaching job will pay 30,000baht per month and the expat teaching English will have to pay 25,000 each month for health insurance good luck in finding a good teacher with the crazy health insurance laws 

46 minutes ago, Yinn said:

IMO.

90% of thai people is waste of time to study English. Is very difficult, years to learn very well. 

Better just help the one who want study English. 

 

Most thai not need to speak English. Never will need speak to English speaker. Better use the time for useful thing. Make money, learn other skill.

lot of time, no benefit. Never use it. For what? Most my friend can not speak English, not need sure. Learn little bit at school, forget already.

 

I think foreigner who live in Thailand is good idea to study thai language. Many benefit in life. Use it everyday.

Will have better life sure. If live in Thailand and not study Thai you are deaf, mute illiterate. Nobody want friend like that. To difficult. 

 

 

Generally speaking, IMO the foreigner live thailand can speak Thai are more happy. They less frustration in there life. More friend etc. Easy life. Will enjoy. Join the community. 

 

Up to you.

 

 

 

 

 

Brilliant satire!

 

A foreigner living in any country will get more out of life by learning the language - don't need to be Einstein to understand that.

 

But this is about Thai people improving their English skill levels, individually and collectively. Which is important if you want a career in: academia, science, medicine, international business, finance, hospitality etc etc etc. 

 

No need to waste their time if they want to farm rice or sell noodles of course.

2 hours ago, realenglish1 said:

Native speakers are from Australia the UK and the USA and Canada People from the Philippines are not native speaking To then English is their second language If you want improved  English then hire people from a native speaking country as listed above otherwise you are only going to learn "Pass the sugar"

Oh come on, after a couple of months they should be able to master the universal Phillipine greeting: "Teecha, eat lunch already now?"

 

I cracked it and I am a mere TEFL mong, in a department otherwise staffed by highly qualified Phillipinos and West Africans! Mind you, I end up teaching maths and science to Pratom as they complained it was too hard!

9 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

Good grief - you even write with an accent!

Lol. Thanks a lot for the critique ..

 

Enjoy the evening.