Prolanguage I Chiang Mai (my Experience)

[bobthedog]

Here is my review of the Prolanguage School in CM:

I have learned Thai on and off, for the last two-three years. I am somewhere between beginner and intermediate.

Going to Chiang Mai this Summer, I decided to continue my Thai learning with private tuition. I only had about 3 weeks in CM, so it had to be intensive, meaning I would be willing to spend around 30-40 hours per week learning with 1-on-1 teaching.

There are not that many schools to chosse between in CM, so my choice was Pro Language. I liked that their teaching material went from level beginner to advanced (see their website for more details). That is, they have the levels Beginner I/II, Intermediate I/II and Advanced I/II. Each module is estimated to 20 hrs. I decided on beginner II, Intermediate I+II and if I had the time Advanced I/II. I emailed my plans to Pro Language in CM, and they confirmed they had a teacher ready for me.

I arrived at the school on a Tuesday, but the teachers they had, were already fully booked for other classes. So the teacher could only teach 3-4 hours per day. Not what I had hoped for. She cancelled some classes the week after though so I could get a 30 hour schedule.

So I started with the Beginner II book. I like their books, they seem well thought through, and the grammar is explained in an easy to understand way. There are quite a few editorial errors in the books though, especially in the dialogues where text is missing here and there. But not a big problem.

Finishing Beginner II, and moving on to intermediate level, I was a bit surprised to see, that there seemed to be only one book for this level, covering just the topics for Intermediate I. No book for Intermediate II, as described on their website, or at least my teacher was not aware of it!

So how about the teacher. Overall I was so-so, with her teaching. She was good at explaining things, but also liked small talk about her personal life (sometimes for up to 20 minutes), which I believe had no relevans in class. She always spoke in English, which would be okay if she explains some difficult grammar or so, but in all other cases I would prefer her speak thai (afterall I came there to learn Thai not English). So I pointed this to her several times, but after about 30 seconds she would switch back to speaking English.

Typically the teacher would be late for my class (5-10 minutes), also after lunch break. Paying by the hour, this is not okay.

When I finished the intermediate book, I thought it would be time to continue with the advanced book(s). At this time I had about one week left of vacation. The teacher handed me a book called grammatical points, and insisted this was advanced. But I insisted on the advanced program, of which they advertise on their website. She seemed quite annoyed about this, and told me they only had the advanced book on a computer file. So she would have to go print it first. This she did, which took about 20 minutes (which I payed for), returning with some pages that I did not recognise as being part of their book series, and contained, in my oppinion, none of the subjects, that is advertised on their website. Well, I did not want to waste more time, so I just had a go with it. This last week of learning, the teacher had other classes, so she only had about 2 hours for me per day.

The personel working in the reception are very kind. They are always very nice to chat with, and wanted me to have a good time.

So all in all, I am not really satisfied with my time with ProLanguage CM. Maybe I should have tried som other teacher, but I did not have lots of time on my hands to try different teachers.

[THAIPHUKET]

would be highly interesting to hear about other's experiences in this OR any other school.

[kriswillems]

I went to Pro Language in Pattaya for 1 month.

It was the best course I had ever followed in Pattaya, but it was still far below the level of some schools in BKK.

I also felt that the book I got at Pro-Language was below my level.

The teacher was good in the beginning.

But after a few lessons she moved to "free talking" (in Thai).

I think don't like to talk about a subject, if there's no text for background reading available.

All the other schools I had visited in Pattaya were really very bad:

- they had only one or two books or no books all

- the teachers were just were people that could talk Thai and English, without any knowledge about teaching

- they never prepared their lessons.

- they didn't have any experience teaching students with a level higher than beginners level.

- one school, AUA, looked OK, but had only beginner courses.

Pattaya is not the place to be if you're looking for a good language school (that can lift you to P.6 level in 6 months time).

Edited August 3, 2009 by kriswillems

[SoftWater]

I had one-on-one tutorial lessons at AAA Pasawes Thai Language school in ChitLom, Bangkok.

I studied two courses with them, each course is a booklet with 20 chapters or lessons. Since I had already taught myself up to about advanced beginner / pre-intermediate level (inc' reading and writing), after a quick level test they started me on Level 3.1 Reading and Writing and after that i did 3.11 Reading and Writing.

I had two different teachers. The school's policy is to make sure you don't have the same teacher for more than one course so that you get a variety of input and style. I found both extremely well-prepared and knowledgable. Neither of them ever spoke any English to me (= good point, IMO), they were always on time and mostly always taught over the time I had booked (another good point).

The materials were very good, particularly in 3.11, because they are conversation dialogues covering lots of idioms, phrases and sentence patterns that I'd never come across before.

The price was also reasonable - 400bht/hour in air-con classroom. I think i had to pay 200baht for the material.

My only complaints about the material is I would have liked to buy audio for the dialogues, but the school manager was quick to give me some reason why this was not good for my learning. The reason didn't really make sense; i suspect they just thougth it would impact their customer intake in some way.

all in all, i wouldn't hesitate to recommend this school. The only reason my thai is still far from satisfactory is i didn't keep going there!

[kriswillems]

I went there (AAA Pasawes Thai Language school in ChitLom) for 1 month too. They use the union method. I think it's a good school.

Edited August 5, 2009 by kriswillems

[keo]

Pro Language sounds shit!

how much did you pay for the pleasure, and how many hours did you study?

[keo]

So how about the teacher. Overall I was so-so, with her teaching. She was good at explaining things, but also liked small talk about her personal life (sometimes for up to 20 minutes), which I believe had no relevans in class. She always spoke in English, which would be okay if she explains some difficult grammar or so, but in all other cases I would prefer her speak thai (afterall I came there to learn Thai not English). So I pointed this to her several times, but after about 30 seconds she would switch back to speaking English.

:D

I had a teacher at Payap who was very similar. Thankfully I got moved after the first week!

[bobthedog]

Pro Language sounds shit!

how much did you pay for the pleasure, and how many hours did you study?

400 baht/hour and studied there about 45 hours.

Edited August 7, 2009 by bobthedog