Learning Thai

[Canaris]

Long time Thai students in intemediate and above level please describe the best way to learn Thai. Recommendation on specific private teachers and schools from ex-students welcome also. Location Bangkok.

[bmore99]

If I had to do it all over again, I would start by ignoring the transcription and go straight for reading and writing Thai.

For sure a very slow process in the beginning, but a lot faster and better on the long term.

Ben

[MacWalen]

If I had to do it all over again, I would start by ignoring the transcription and go straight for reading and writing Thai.

For sure a very slow process in the beginning, but a lot faster and better on the long term.

Ben

I am glad you say that, sounds exactly like the Walen approach to teaching Thai. We teach Thai scrip right from the beginning.

Walen School

www.thaiwalen.com

[Canaris]

McWalen I looked at your website and have several questions:

1) You have pretty teachers: What are their academic qualifications?

2) You mention in your post that you teach Thai script right from the beginning on,

How do you divide learning to read and write Thaiscript from learning to speak Thai

do you teach 1 hour each in your 2 hour sessions - or -

2 hrs/week for Thaiscript and 2 hrs/week for speaking ?

3) At what point in your 3 levels do you stop teaching Thaiscript and concentrate on speaking only?

4) Do you teach in English or in Thai?

Please advise as soon as possible - Thank you.

[MacWalen]

McWalen I looked at your website and have several questions:

1) You have pretty teachers: What are their academic qualifications?

2) You mention in your post that you teach Thai script right from the beginning on,

How do you divide learning to read and write Thaiscript from learning to speak Thai

do you teach 1 hour each in your 2 hour sessions - or -

2 hrs/week for Thaiscript and 2 hrs/week for speaking ?

3) At what point in your 3 levels do you stop teaching Thaiscript and concentrate on speaking only?

4) Do you teach in English or in Thai?

Please advise as soon as possible - Thank you.

Their academic qualifications are that they know the Thai language a lot better than any of our students. Also they have degrees although not always related to teaching. We train our teachers and if we are not happy with the quality of teaching we replace them till students are satisfied. We also give a guarantee on our lessons so if you feel that a lesson was not worth your money we will look into it and replace those lessons if there was indeed a problem.

We teach speaking and reading at the same time all the time. The best way is to visit our school for a free demonstration and see for yourself how it is done. It works very well. We do not use transliterated Thai at all, it is all 100% Thai.

We do teach speaking and reading throughout, we do not concentrate only on speaking.

We teach only in Thai, but a teacher may use some English words sometimes.

Hope it helps.

Walen School - it works!

www.thaiwalen.com

[Canaris]

Mr Mac Walen

1) As a young man I taught Spanish - my native language - this made me quickly realize that just because I had a degree and spoke Spanish as a native - this did not qualify me as a Language teacher. Therefore what you are saying is - you train your instructors yourself - but they are not teachers. I find the tone of your answer rather arrogant. What are your qualifications as an educator - from what school?

2) Per your Website you imply that "You are definitely able to read and write in Thai using Thai script". In other words - this is incorrect and you do not have a formal method to teach reading and writing Thai script. Merely showing Thai script without giving explanations on the writing system and actual practice does not constitute teaching to read and write Thai.

I am still hoping to get specific recommendations from an ex student on the intermediate or above level for a quality school - for my wife and I. We are here on a 2-4 year assignment. Our 14 year old son will also join us at the end of his school year.

Edited January 25, 2011 by Canaris

[MacWalen]

Mr Mac Walen

1) As a young man I taught Spanish - my native language - this made me quickly realize that just because I had a degree and spoke Spanish as a native - this did not qualify me as a Language teacher. Therefore what you are saying is - you train your instructors yourself - but they are not teachers. I find the tone of your answer rather arrogant. What are your qualifications as an educator - from what school?

2) Per your Website you imply that "You are definitely able to read and write in Thai using Thai script". In other words - this is incorrect and you do not have a formal method to teach reading and writing Thai script. Merely showing Thai script without giving explanations on the writing system and actual practice does not constitute teaching to read and write Thai.

I am still hoping to get specific recommendations from an ex student on the intermediate or above level for a quality school - for my wife and I. We are here on a 2-4 year assignment. Our 14 year old son will also join us at the end of his school year.

It was not my intention to be arrogant, and if that is how you felt I apologize. I do indeed train my teachers and I am good at what I do. There are not many foreigners who can say they train their Thai teachers to teach Thai.

Regarding my qualifications I speak 4 languages and do business in all 4 every day, I have a good understanding how the mind works when it comes to learning languages. I have observed many lessons and taught a few thousand. I've been running a school for 10 years, if you believe that market verifies products we would not be around if we could not find customers interested in our method. We do not sell our school on how similar we are to other schools but rather how different we are. Many of my students, whom I've taught myself, have passed Cambridge exams copies of which I have at my school. What we do really works.

Regarding what constitutes reading Thai. If I give you a book in Thai, and you can read it and understand it you are reading Thai, if you are of a different opinion then we indeed have different definitions of what reading is.

Reading - the action or skill of reading written or printed matter (copied it from my dictionary on my Mac)

As I mentioned earlier, you are welcome to come for a demonstration lesson. Also by all means shop around but we are the only school that right from the beginning teaches in Thai using only Thai script.

Again, I am a very straightforward person so please don't misunderstand it for being rude or arrogant.

Walen School - Direct method works

www.thaiwalen.com

[wolf5370]

I suppose its what you want out of a second language (Thai). If you want an academic foreign language (like taking French at school) then academic grammar (rules for parts of a sentence: pronouns/verbs/noun/adjectives/conjunctions/superlatives/adverbs/prepositions/articles/etc) is really importnant - however if you just want to be able to speak, read and write, then is it completely necessary? Put it like this - I bet you could speak your native tongue, even read and write it, before you knew all that academic language stuff.

So, do you want to learn to speak, read and write as you did your native language, or like you learned high school French/Spanish/German/English (whatever foreign language you did back then) - oh, and how well do you remember that?

I don't think the Walens schools' system is unique or even new - but I do think Walen is the only one applying it Thailand and to Thai. Different people learn in different ways and have different needs - many people swear by the method Walen Schools teach - other prefer more traditional (or even other non-traditional) methods. To each their own - if its not for you, then dismiss it and move on - there is no need to launch an attack on his school or methodology (or teachers) without any evidence that it does not work or that it is some kind of con. I think, given that he offers a free demo, that shows he is confident in his methodology - how many other schools offer the same?

[Canaris]

Parvis please send me a personal message with your contact information

Thank you

[Canaris]

Parvis

I noticed your post was removed, therefore I assume your priviledges have been suspended and you are unable to send me a personal message. You can reach me at the Argentinian Embassy. Just mention your name at the reception - I will leave word.

Thank you