Advanced Modules At Union, Unity, Tla Etc

[Kier]

Hi there,

As many of you are probably aware, there are several language schools in Bangkok teaching the course content developed by Union (eg. Unity and TLA). I have completed the regular course from level 1 through to 6 and am considering studying some of the advanced modules when I return to Bangkok in the near future.

I'm pretty sure that I will study the module on Social Problems as this sounds very interesting to me (apparently topics covered include prostitution, drugs and divorce), but I'm not sure about the others.

I am interested in the modules on Newspapers (1 & 2). However I'm not really one to read newspapers. The reason that I would choose to study this module is for the extra vocab etc which I would gain as a result.

The second module I am interested in is Thai Culture/Social Customs.

I was wondering if any of you have studied any of the advanced modules, particularly those listed, and if so could you please let me know your experiences with them, and of course most importantly, how much they benefitted you.

The reason I ask is that if I am going to study several modules then I will enrol in advance in order that I can get a student visa.

[withnail]

At UTL I studied Social Problems Thai Culture and Newspapers 2

Social Problems was good as you'll get lots of practice arguing in Thai. The teacher/school had a pretty good attitude towards this and at the beginning of the unit she told us that it was only one person's account and that we were just there to practise not and not to get upset about anything. We picked subjects that we were interested in and discussed those in particular. Saying that there were one or two occasions when I got a bit pissed off with some of the opinions though.

Thai Culture was fairly interesting as it's the kind of things Thais talk about a lot. From what I remember it was quite vocab heavy though and I probably don't remember most of it now.

I did Newspapers 2, not 1, because one of the guys in my group had already done 1. He said that it was not that great as it was a book of pretty old articles. With 2 they just get them off the net on a day by day basis. This was OK as we could suggest topics, but meant that the teacher was often in unfamiliar territory.

As you probably know the units will only run if people select them so your choices are sometimes limited and there was always the possibility that there wouldn't be one or I'd have had to redo something, but to be honest they were all useful.

Edited December 11, 2008 by withnail

[VoIP]

Hi Kier, I can only comment based on my own experiences at UTL:

They will want you to start with the "social problems" module, which can be fun. As there are more topics in the syllabus than there are course days, a selection needs to be made, so the students can pick a number of topics they are interested in. The success of the course depends also on who the other students are, and the teacher of course.

About the other modules, it depends how many students are enrolling, a few are needed to 'open' a module. I would say they are all useful! The newspaper modules, the first one handles a selection of pre-chosen articles, while the second module actually uses articles from the newspaper of the moment.

However, it is not so that the newspaper module will get you to instantly be able to read newspapers. Just like in every module you learn a lot of vocabulary and keep improving. Certain typical abbreviations and words used in newspapers are also handy to learn.

I think you cannot go wrong, whatever module you take it will be useful if you are in a good group and get along well with each other and the teacher. I also 'doubled' some modules which was quite fun, the second time you are more familiar with the topic and vocabulary but you still learn a lot!

(I have studied Thai in a number of language schools, and ended up at UTL which was the formula that worked best for me -intensive Thai language study in group.)

[Kier]

Thank you both for your replies.

You've pretty much confirmed what I expected; that any of the modules are worth doing for the vocab and speaking practice.

It really amazes me how they managed to develop such a good system in general. Although I'm by no means fluent, I never dreamed that I would be able to learn so much in such a short space of time.

As for the modules being vocab heavy, why am I not surprised. I remember at times coming home during the regular levels and counting nearly 50 new words to try and learn per day, as well as numerous new sentence patterns. I think I really benefitted from taking a break between level 4 and 5 to revise all of the old vocab, and just to kind of really overlearn the alphabet, as I found I retained far more vocab than others which had gone straight through. That said I've definitely lost alot of the vocab now as I find I just don't use it. But then I hardly need to know the names for things I don't even know in English.

Thanks again