After Pratom 6

[rgs2001uk]

yesterday i visited 2 thai languge schools, unity school in times square, and, piammitr in suk soi 23.

i would say my thai skills are advanced learner, or intermediate.

i know the alphabet, the vowels and the tone rules.

i know the days of the week, months of the year and can tell the time

i read about 50%, my problems tend to be with the endings of certain words, i know about the rule of, if the last letter of a word is the same as the first letter of the second word , it is ommited, eg magiclean, its amazing the crap i read in the toilet,my vocabulary is improving, but i tend not to concentrate on written thai, i can write my full name and address in thai.

i practice talking thai everday whether at the bus stop, asking questions about what bus goes where, etc.

i also practice in supermarkets, talking to girls at the meat counter or vegtable counter etc etc.

last month my wife and i visited the crocodile farm at samut prakan, i asked the girl how much for a farang and a thai to enter, the girl asked me a few questions in thai, where do you live, where do you work how long have you been here, i answered all the questions, the girl then said i would pay thai price as i could speak thai, i thought she was just passing the time of day with me.

i hear about double pricing, i dont know if there is a third price, not farang or thai price, but a farang can speak thai price, many times the woman have told me they gave me such or such for a certain price because i spoke thai to them, i dont know if it was the same as thai price or not.

anyway, at the piammitr school, i spoke to a teacher for about 15 minutes all in thai, general conversation, she also assesed my reading skills, by producing various text books.

she recommended i should start in level 5 of the schools curriculum.

i then went to unity school, i spoke to what i would consider a proper old fashioned teacher, an older woman about 60.

she pulled out a few text books, they blew me away, i thought they were written in russian, it was phonetic language, i didnt have a clue, i was able to translate about 80% of the words from english to thai, 10% i had forgotten and 10% i didnt know.

anyway i got the impression, the unity school were just gearing people up to sit the p6 exam, although i wouldnt have minded being taught by the older teacher, i dont want to go just to practice written thai, reading and speaking i have no problems with, also some of the extra courses didnt interest me, eg buddhism, medical terms, social problems and thai customs.

i have decided to opt for piammitr school starting with level 4, the introduction of written thai, i dont mind doing a month of revision to reinforce, although, again i have no desire to sit the p6 exam.

i know i will never be fluent in thai language, there are just so many nouns to remember, even my wife doesnt know them all, eg, resistor, capacitor, words that arent in everday use, any time i have to go to home pro, i write down in thai what i need, and take it with me, beats having to remember the words for things like a rip saw or panel saw, or undercoat, or primer etc.

i also know i will never memorise all the medical terms or technical terms such as gear selector valve or top dead centre.

anyway my questions are, will i need to pass the p6 exam before i can further my language skills, to the people who have passed the p6 exam, how fluent in thai do you feel and what did you do after passing ?

what courses are there available, after the p6 exam, most of the schools just seem to be gearing up for this exam, but then what?

i dont mind getting a private teacher to take me beyond the p6 and help my skills improve, i dont want to go to bars and talk to bar girls, i also know the conversations i have with the motorcycle taxi drivers arent going to open any doors.

what do the experts out there suggest ?

[mangkorn]

yesterday i visited 2 thai languge schools, unity school in times square, and, piammitr in suk soi 23.

i would say my thai skills are advanced learner, or intermediate.

i know the alphabet, the vowels and the tone rules.

i know the days of the week, months of the year and can tell the time

i read about 50%, my problems tend to be with the endings of certain words, i know about the rule of, if the last letter of a word is the same as the first letter of the second word , it is ommited, eg magiclean, its amazing the crap i read in the toilet,my vocabulary is improving, but i tend not to concentrate on written thai, i can write my full name and address in thai.

i practice talking thai everday whether at the bus stop, asking questions about what bus goes where, etc.

i also practice in supermarkets, talking to girls at the meat counter or vegtable counter etc etc.

last month my wife and i visited the crocodile farm at samut prakan, i asked the girl how much for a farang and a thai to enter, the girl asked me a few questions in thai, where do you live, where do you work how long have you been here, i answered all the questions, the girl then said i would pay thai price as i could speak thai, i thought she was just passing the time of day with me.

i hear about double pricing, i dont know if there is a third price, not farang or thai price, but a farang can speak thai price, many times the woman have told me they gave me such or such for a certain price because i spoke thai to them, i dont know if it was the same as thai price or not.

anyway, at the piammitr school, i spoke to a teacher for about 15 minutes all in thai, general conversation, she also assesed my reading skills, by producing various text books.

she recommended i should start in level 5 of the schools curriculum.

i then went to unity school, i spoke to what i would consider a proper old fashioned teacher, an older woman about 60.

she pulled out a few text books, they blew me away, i thought they were written in russian, it was phonetic language, i didnt have a clue, i was able to translate about 80% of the words from english to thai, 10% i had forgotten and 10% i didnt know.

anyway i got the impression, the unity school were just gearing people up to sit the p6 exam, although i wouldnt have minded being taught by the older teacher, i dont want to go just to practice written thai, reading and speaking i have no problems with, also some of the extra courses didnt interest me, eg buddhism, medical terms, social problems and thai customs.

i have decided to opt for piammitr school starting with level 4, the introduction of written thai, i dont mind doing a month of revision to reinforce, although, again i have no desire to sit the p6 exam.

i know i will never be fluent in thai language, there are just so many nouns to remember, even my wife doesnt know them all, eg, resistor, capacitor, words that arent in everday use, any time i have to go to home pro, i write down in thai what i need, and take it with me, beats having to remember the words for things like a rip saw or panel saw, or undercoat, or primer etc.

i also know i will never memorise all the medical terms or technical terms such as gear selector valve or top dead centre.

anyway my questions are, will i need to pass the p6 exam before i can further my language skills, to the people who have passed the p6 exam, how fluent in thai do you feel and what did you do after passing ?

what courses are there available, after the p6 exam, most of the schools just seem to be gearing up for this exam, but then what?

i dont mind getting a private teacher to take me beyond the p6 and help my skills improve, i dont want to go to bars and talk to bar girls, i also know the conversations i have with the motorcycle taxi drivers arent going to open any doors.

what do the experts out there suggest ?

My take on it: The only reason to take the tests is if you want to challenge yourself in that manner, to see how you stack up against the rest. But when you already know what you want out of your own studying, you should be able to focus on that. In the couple of small schools I studied at, nobody tried to make me do anything I didn't want to do. When I just wanted to talk about politics or history for a couple hours, or bring in my long lists of questions that plagued me, my teachers were quite happy to do so. It also made for much more interesting and easy days for them.

If you know what you want, and what you don't want, you should make that clear from the outset. You are the customer. Or else you can get a private tutor, which might be best, because the teachers are so poorly paid in schools. You might feel better about giving the entire fee to your teacher (if she can get away with freelancing), instead of her getting only a percentage of what you will pay to the school.

If you wish to be in a school, I would recommend Baan Phasathai at Pleonchit BTS station. I don't have any personal stake in it at all; I just know the owner is a good woman, a fine teacher, and the school is small and attentive to personal needs, and is easy to get to.

I have done it both ways, and still do: going to school when time permits, and having an occasional tutor when time is limited. I find that the discipline of having to get to school at a certain hour and be on your game is helpful, while sometimes a tutoring session can get a bit lax if you are feeling lazy. But in the end, the discipline is all up to you. I think the most important thing is to continually make up lists of questions about grammar, usage, vocabulary that I haven't been able to clear up on my own, and then bring those to a teacher.

Spending precious class time writing in Thai can be a waste, since that is something you can do on your own, or as homework to bring in for editing. I want a teacher to teach me, not to sit there watching me write and trying to remember how to spell the words.

[expat_4_life]

Yesterday i visited 2 thai languge schools, unity school in times square, and, piammitr in suk soi 23.

At Unity School, i spoke to what i would consider a proper old fashioned teacher, an older woman about 60. She pulled out a few text books, they blew me away, i thought they were written in russian, it was phonetic language, i didnt have a clue, i was able to translate about 80% of the words from english to thai, 10% i had forgotten and 10% i didnt know. Anyway i got the impression, the unity school were just gearing people up to sit the p6 exam, although i wouldnt have minded being taught by the older teacher,

At Piammitr School, i spoke to a teacher for about 15 minutes all in thai, general conversation, she also assesed my reading skills, by producing various text books. she recommended i should start in level 5 of the schools curriculum. I have decided to opt for piammitr school starting with level 4, the introduction of written thai, i dont mind doing a month of revision to reinforce, although, again i have no desire to sit the p6 exam.

I've attended both of these schools (they both have basically the same curriculum), and recently did 8 months at Piammitr. I'm an intermediate/advanced learner who has passed the P6 test. Personally, I favour classroom study. I'm very self-critical of my Thai language skills, tend to underestimate my own capabilities, take my studies fairly seriously and also view them as a lifetime long project. My Thai is easily as good as or better than most foreigners I meet in Bangkok. I'm fluent enough to be able to conduct all my own personal business in Thai and carry on a decent conversation with just about anyone. Having said that, we all have our little weaknesses, gaps, etc, and it seems there is something to learn from just about anyone.

i know i will never be fluent in thai language

What is a practical measure of fluency anyway?

I, like you, suspect that I'll never reach fluency, well what I consider full fluency, in the Thai Language if for no other reason than I started too late in life. However, I don't let that hinder or inhibit in any way my aiming for exactly that goal. It can be fun, frustrating, tedious, and challenging....but most of all, it is simply practical and immeasurably useful.

I always recommend studying to anyone and everyone I meet that lives here.

i have no desire to sit the p6 exam.

My take on it: The only reason to take the tests is if you want to challenge yourself in that manner, to see how you stack up against the rest.

Initially I had no specific interest in sitting the P6 test either. I finally decided to sit the P6 exam as I found it to be a rather natural learning progression and a goal that is easily set. Certainly you've heard the old axiom, "The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know"? Never was an axiom more true, for me anyway, than when studying Thai. So, I found that the P6 goal gave me focus, definitely a useful learning exercise.

I dont want to go just to practice written thai.

Spending precious class time writing in Thai can be a waste, since that is something you can do on your own, or as homework to bring in for editing. I want a teacher to teach me, not to sit there watching me write and trying to remember how to spell the words.

Not a whole lot of writing during class time, though we did have dictation regularly with the exception of the advanced courses. This was a start of the day activity that normally lasted about 20 minutes. The teachers would collect this on a daily basis and correct it for us. I never considered this a waste, it was not only a written exercise, but a useful listening one too. And in the end, you get homework to practice the words you can't remember how to spell. Spelling is more than simply useful for reading and writing, most of the time if you can't spell it, then remembering how to say it "correctly" is more difficult. This is also a skill necessary for the P6 exam.

With the exception of the P6 preparation course, we never spent time in class writing storys. However, while preparing for the P6 exam, we did it once a week, sort of a mock exam. It was a practical method for the teachers to assess our story writing skills, which is part of the P6 test, and build self-confidence.

What courses are there available, after the p6 exam, most of the schools just seem to be gearing up for this exam, but then what?

Some of the extra courses didnt interest me, eg buddhism, medical terms, social problems and thai customs.

Very true, these schools have a curriculum that is definitely geared towards preparing you for the P6 exam. This is however optional, and you can move on to their more advanced course offerings.

I've done the courses on Thai Customs and the one on Thai Idioms. They didn't interest me much either, but they are also useful. There are plenty of examples in spoken English and Thai, that are loaded with social and religious references and connotations. Both classes offer not only vocabulary, but more importantly an insight, well perhaps only a glimpse, into some of the things that influence the way Thais think and behave.

The Social Problems course is in my opinion one of the best advanced courses on offer at these schools. The format is written storys that address a variety of subjects, Politics, Corruption, Prostitution, Education....etc, etc. They are loaded with vocabulary and class time is spent primarily expressing your own opinions and discussing these issues in a very conversational open/free format, great course.

anyway my questions are, will i need to pass the p6 exam before i can further my language skills, to the people who have passed the p6 exam, how fluent in thai do you feel and what did you do after passing ?

i dont mind getting a private teacher to take me beyond the p6 and help my skills improve, i dont want to go to bars and talk to bar girls, i also know the conversations i have with the motorcycle taxi drivers arent going to open any doors.

what do the experts out there suggest ?

My take on it: The only reason to take the tests is if you want to challenge yourself in that manner, to see how you stack up against the rest. But when you already know what you want out of your own studying, you should be able to focus on that. In the couple of small schools I studied at, nobody tried to make me do anything I didn't want to do. When I just wanted to talk about politics or history for a couple hours, or bring in my long lists of questions that plagued me, my teachers were quite happy to do so. It also made for much more interesting and easy days for them.

If you know what you want, and what you don't want, you should make that clear from the outset. You are the customer. Or else you can get a private tutor, which might be best, because the teachers are so poorly paid in schools. You might feel better about giving the entire fee to your teacher (if she can get away with freelancing), instead of her getting only a percentage of what you will pay to the school.

If you wish to be in a school, I would recommend Baan Phasathai at Pleonchit BTS station. I don't have any personal stake in it at all; I just know the owner is a good woman, a fine teacher, and the school is small and attentive to personal needs, and is easy to get to.

I have done it both ways, and still do: going to school when time permits, and having an occasional tutor when time is limited. I find that the discipline of having to get to school at a certain hour and be on your game is helpful, while sometimes a tutoring session can get a bit lax if you are feeling lazy. But in the end, the discipline is all up to you. I think the most important thing is to continually make up lists of questions about grammar, usage, vocabulary that I haven't been able to clear up on my own, and then bring those to a teacher.

Spending precious class time writing in Thai can be a waste, since that is something you can do on your own, or as homework to bring in for editing. I want a teacher to teach me, not to sit there watching me write and trying to remember how to spell the words.

First thing I did after passing the P6 test was take a break. As I stated previously, I prefer classroom learning, so I've stuck with Piammitr and their advanced courses. Specifically, I studied there for the last 8 months with a couple of other students that I've known for a few years. At our request they sort of put together a variation of their Newspaper Course offering, guess I would have to label it a Current Events course. A very open format using what's in the news to generate classroom discussion. By open format, I mean, we could be discussing anything, a grammar point, vocabulary usage, a story you saw in the news yourself, politics, crime, economics, the headlines, etc.

I find that this type of course offers me the opportunity to utilize/build vocabulary and conversational skills that seem next to impossible to acquire elsewhere.

I'd also be interested in knowing what other type of advanced study options are available, particularly schools that are out there. Has anyone prepared for or taken an M3 or M6 test?

Edited June 7, 2007 by expat_4_life

[rgs2001uk]

mangkorn & expat 4 life

thanks for the replies, expat, i know we have never met, but the reply you gave, was almost like looking at myself in the mirror.

i to, underestimate and am critical of my abilities, i also now it is too easy to slide into a rut without knowing it.

for the past 6 months i have had a great time visiting various parts of thailand, and i unintenionally slid into a comfort zone.

mangkorn, as you said, its the discipline of getting into a regular routine of formal learing i need to take me to the next level.

it is confusing and frustrating at times, i dont hang around bars, so have never actually met people who have been where i am just now to offer advice.

your replies have given me the guidance and reassurance i need to follow in your footsteps.

once again thanks for taking the time to reply