Thailand's English Skills Lowest In S E A

[nong38]

My Thai wife has just started a 4 year University English course, the term is probably about 6 weeks old and she has several American teachers.

There was no assessment of the students capabilities before the course started, they appear to have been thrown in at the deep end to me. Grammar work is advanced for new students who should not be doing this type of standard until year 2 when they have grasped the basics. I presume that they are learning "American English" because there are basic errors in the spelling and grammar ( , and) that are handed out in reems.

Papers of historical facts are not checked before being handed out ( Saxons built Stonehenge), it seems to me that many of these "teachers" are here for a visa and I would wonder where they aquired their papers to teach from and who gave them the job to teach "English".

It therefore does not surprise me that the skills are low, the system needs looking at not repeated as in the past, the out pouring of reems of paperwork to all students who try to understand an answer given to them by "GOOGLE" and then think they have cracked things when in truth they have learnt a lot of what? Trying to recover things from a memory in some sort of order at a later date will make their head hurt.

It would make more sense to teach them to speak English and understand what they are saying, conversational English and a justa little of writing in a simple format which can be up graded later.

Is the Thai Educational system capable of some small change to make things easier for its students to grapple with another language?

Some words Thais have dificulty saying, so dont be so rigid, find them a like word they can say. It seems not be an option for teachers here as all the papers copied would have to be retyped, sadly.

Edited July 5, 2013 by nong38

[Scott]

It is a good idea before signing up for a University, that you check out the accreditation of the school or at least the program. I doubt very much that the teachers are writing their own material for the classes, especially if it involves historical matters.

At the University level, the students should have completed the prerequisites necessary to enter the program and thus some sort of assessment is usually not done.

[wilcopops]

My Thai wife has just started a 4 year University English course, the term is probably about 6 weeks old and she has several American teachers.

There was no assessment of the students capabilities before the course started, they appear to have been thrown in at the deep end to me. Grammar work is advanced for new students who should not be doing this type of standard until year 2 when they have grasped the basics. I presume that they are learning "American English" because there are basic errors in the spelling and grammar ( , and) that are handed out in reems.

Papers of historical facts are not checked before being handed out ( Saxons built Stonehenge), it seems to me that many of these "teachers" are here for a visa and I would wonder where they aquired their papers to teach from and who gave them the job to teach "English".

It therefore does not surprise me that the skills are low, the system needs looking at not repeated as in the past, the out pouring of reems of paperwork to all students who try to understand an answer given to them by "GOOGLE" and then think they have cracked things when in truth they have learnt a lot of what? Trying to recover things from a memory in some sort of order at a later date will make their head hurt.

It would make more sense to teach them to speak English and understand what they are saying, conversational English and a justa little of writing in a simple format which can be up graded later.

Is the Thai Educational system capable of some small change to make things easier for its students to grapple with another language?

Some words Thais have dificulty saying, so dont be so rigid, find them a like word they can say. It seems not be an option for teachers here as all the papers copied would have to be retyped, sadly.

" I presume that they are learning "American English" because there are basic errors in the spelling and grammar" - this makes me wonder if you have any knowledge of the subject you have chosen to criticise...you seem to have some pretty strong views about the ciriculum and teachers - what is your basis for all this? (the quote above is at best ill-informed but more likely just knee-jerk and bizarre)

Edited July 6, 2013 by Scott

[baboon]

I wonder if you are not making a rod for your own back in trying to comply with the letter of the law on home schooling? In my time, I have seen more than a few youngsters who stopped attending school simply because they didn't feel like going any more. The parents couldn't care less, nor seemingly do the authorities and I am not talking here about remote villages.

Just because there are laws on the books does not necessarily mean there is any interest in compliance or enforcement if money is not changing hands somewhere along the line.

[Thai at Heart]

My mixed marriage (farang wife), home school. They bring in retired teachers for some of it, and handle the rest

[baboon]

Did you apply to the Ministry like the above poster and if so, was the process difficult?

[watcharacters]

Tell us something we did not already know. It also brings to light the fact that no matter how proud you are, you can always be helped if you are willing to be helped.

.

Please reference your post whenever possible.

i''ve no idea to whom your reply is directed.

Thanks

Edited July 6, 2013 by Scott
formatting

[wilcopops]

homeschooling - a nightmare.....and I would have SERIOUS concerns about anyone who thinks it is appropriate in normal circumstances.

[Thai at Heart]

My mixed marriage (farang wife), home school. They bring in retired teachers for some of it, and handle the rest

Should say neighbours. Typo sorry.

[wilcopops]

Home schooling is in my opinion a very dodgy thing to do to kids and I think it often reflects more on the personality of the parents than what is good for the kids.

[Scott]

Posts deleted. Please stay on topic.

[thaicbr]

 

Home schooling is in my opinion a very dodgy thing to do to kids and I think it often reflects more on the personality of the parents than what is good for the kids.

Why?

We are talking Thailand not the west.

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

[soomak]

Amusing to see all the good advice posted by people many of which will never ever speak more than bar girl slang after more than a decade of living here. And I won't exclude myself from that merry group.

Let me just say that an English language educated mass of voters is not in any present or future government's interest, unless they can fully control the Internet.

Furthermore, if all Thais could read the things that are written on this forum, if would be the end of living happily here.

The expats Thai proficiency has nothing to do with the Thai's English (or lack of).

English is the de-facto international language, used for communicating with people from other countries, business, science literature, medical literature and many other purposes.

I could not get to where I am in life without having very good English skills, written as well as spoken, and so would many of my friends or colleges.

[HanSRT10]

Amusing to see all the good advice posted by people many of which will never ever speak more than bar girl slang after more than a decade of living here. And I won't exclude myself from that merry group.

Let me just say that an English language educated mass of voters is not in any present or future government's interest, unless they can fully control the Internet.

Furthermore, if all Thais could read the things that are written on this forum, if would be the end of living happily here.

The expats Thai proficiency has nothing to do with the Thai's English (or lack of).

English is the de-facto international language, used for communicating with people from other countries, business, science literature, medical literature and many other purposes.

I could not get to where I am in life without having very good English skills, written as well as spoken, and so would many of my friends or colleges.

Colleagues ;-)

[klubex99]

Thailand actually have the lowest English skills in the world in my opinion. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but on a global scale, I would expect them to be in the bottom 20. I have been around a lot, and have been surprised at just how widespread our language is spoken, I have been equally shocked at how rare it is to find a Thai that can speak the language at all.

[Noistar]

Thailand actually have the lowest English skills in the world in my opinion. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but on a global scale, I would expect them to be in the bottom 20. I have been around a lot, and have been surprised at just how widespread our language is spoken, I have been equally shocked at how rare it is to find a Thai that can speak the language at all.

I'm always amazed that here in CM, the 'no. 2 city' in Thailand, next to nobody, especially the proliferation of University students, know any English.

If you want a conversation in English with a Thai, go to Pattaya and speak to the bar girls who come from unprivileged backgrounds with a basic education. These people know they need to speak English for their work, and have made the effort to learn it.

The lazy egotistic layabouts in CM epitomize what is worst in Thailand. Get your paper degree (use it in hong-nam for all the use it is).

If you have an English degree (ho ho) wouldn't you be at an advantage if you could actually demonstrate proficiency, rather than clutching the same piece of paper as everyone else?

If only...... in the meantime TIT

Edited July 8, 2013 by Noistar

[Noistar]

Amusing to see all the good advice posted by people many of which will never ever speak more than bar girl slang after more than a decade of living here. And I won't exclude myself from that merry group.

Let me just say that an English language educated mass of voters is not in any present or future government's interest, unless they can fully control the Internet.

Furthermore, if all Thais could read the things that are written on this forum, if would be the end of living happily here.

The expats Thai proficiency has nothing to do with the Thai's English (or lack of).

English is the de-facto international language, used for communicating with people from other countries, business, science literature, medical literature and many other purposes.

I could not get to where I am in life without having very good English skills, written as well as spoken, and so would many of my friends or colleges.

Colleagues ;-)

Probably due to the predictive text!

[wilcopops]

Thailand actually have the lowest English skills in the world in my opinion. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but on a global scale, I would expect them to be in the bottom 20. I have been around a lot, and have been surprised at just how widespread our language is spoken, I have been equally shocked at how rare it is to find a Thai that can speak the language at all.

I'm always amazed that here in CM, the 'no. 2 city' in Thailand, next to nobody, especially the proliferation of University students, know any English.

If you want a conversation in English with a Thai, go to Pattaya and speak to the bar girls who come from unprivileged backgrounds with a basic education. These people know they need to speak English for their work, and have made the effort to learn it.

The lazy egotistic layabouts in CM epitomize what is worst in Thailand. Get your paper degree (use it in hong-nam for all the use it is).

If you have an English degree (ho ho) wouldn't you be at an advantage if you could actually demonstrate proficiency, rather than clutching the same piece of paper as everyone else?

If only...... in the meantime TIT

Thailand actually have the lowest English skills in the world in my opinion. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but on a global scale, I would expect them to be in the bottom 20. I have been around a lot, and have been surprised at just how widespread our language is spoken, I have been equally shocked at how rare it is to find a Thai that can speak the language at all.

I'm always amazed that here in CM, the 'no. 2 city' in Thailand, next to nobody, especially the proliferation of University students, know any English.

If you want a conversation in English with a Thai, go to Pattaya and speak to the bar girls who come from unprivileged backgrounds with a basic education. These people know they need to speak English for their work, and have made the effort to learn it.

The lazy egotistic layabouts in CM epitomize what is worst in Thailand. Get your paper degree (use it in hong-nam for all the use it is).

If you have an English degree (ho ho) wouldn't you be at an advantage if you could actually demonstrate proficiency, rather than clutching the same piece of paper as everyone else?

If only...... in the meantime TIT

more baseless nonsense.

[Bkungbank]

Get more cheap Philipinos teacher ,that's why!

[i claudius]

Our son who was educated and lived in the west speaks perfect english also reads and writes it ,he has been in uni for a year and has already had two job offers from large companys when he leaves ,both say that its his mastery of the English language that they are after,as he would have to deal with people from all around the world ,who use it . so you obviously need english to get on .

[wilcopops]

Our son who was educated and lived in the west speaks perfect english also reads and writes it ,he has been in uni for a year and has already had two job offers from large companys when he leaves ,both say that its his mastery of the English language that they are after,as he would have to deal with people from all around the world ,who use it . so you obviously need english to get on .

most of the people on this site speak English.......doesn't mean they "got on"......

Edited July 8, 2013 by wilcopops

[meand]

More and more so recently, I have noticed FARANG teachers are adopting THAI ways in the discipline department. Yes, I know, it is horrific. This is what I have seen, God help them all. Poor little students, I feel for them. This aint getting better anytime soon, seems to be getting worse.

[Noistar]

Thailand actually have the lowest English skills in the world in my opinion. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but on a global scale, I would expect them to be in the bottom 20. I have been around a lot, and have been surprised at just how widespread our language is spoken, I have been equally shocked at how rare it is to find a Thai that can speak the language at all.

I'm always amazed that here in CM, the 'no. 2 city' in Thailand, next to nobody, especially the proliferation of University students, know any English.

If you want a conversation in English with a Thai, go to Pattaya and speak to the bar girls who come from unprivileged backgrounds with a basic education. These people know they need to speak English for their work, and have made the effort to learn it.

The lazy egotistic layabouts in CM epitomize what is worst in Thailand. Get your paper degree (use it in hong-nam for all the use it is).

If you have an English degree (ho ho) wouldn't you be at an advantage if you could actually demonstrate proficiency, rather than clutching the same piece of paper as everyone else?

If only...... in the meantime TIT

more baseless nonsense.

An interesting opinion. Any actual input or is sniping from the sidelines a sufficient reason to post on this topic.

I quote facts - come here to CM and try communicating, even at a basic level, to the students from the 11+ universities here. Even at the medical University.

Go to Pattaya and compare the difference in ability at communicating in English.

Your sniping is the only baseless crap on this topic.

[Suroo]

When the ASEAN thing happens in 2015 there are going to be an awful lot of thais who will wonder "What the **** happened ?". They have been sheltered too long with the artificial thought that Thailand is the centre of the universe.

This is a misconception. The ASEAN project is not based on the EU model. The expected free movement of labour for instance will not happen for many years after 2015 I believe, certainly not into Thailand. The spirit of ASEAN will be more along the lines of voluntary participation with much more autonomy on the part of the members than in the EU. The difficulty for SEA countries vis a vis introducing english as a linga franca is that the big linguistic/cultural brother on the block is chinese and a common language with local roots would take hold more easily. The region is doing well whereas the western sphere is on the rocks with or without english -depending on which country you focus on. Thais are a practical people- they operate on a need to do basis and they learn on a need to know basis. Hence the level of english in the Pattaya lady bars is higher than in the universities. If prosperity is seen to require more english they will find a way to learn it, it won't be a top down process from any ASEAN initiative.

[Suroo]

Degrees - If you are a native speaker with a degree, it is more likely you are the kind of person who is trained to learn and has a reasonable level of academic ability. Both are useful when teaching. It does NOT guarantee a good teacher.

I also suspect that most posters here are unaware of the theory behind TEFL and its purpose. Actually I reckon that most native English speakers have absolutely NO idea of how their own language functions. It is one of the benefits of being bi or multi-lingual that one is able to see how different languages function.

Lots of posters have vague ideas of "standards" of English "proper" English or "correct" English - most of this belies a profound ignorance of how language works, how teaching it works and how English works

It has to be said that most teacher training in EFL is attained "on the job", but a good one month TEFL is EXTREMELY INTENSIVE - it is generally considered that the best time to do this is directly after you haver doe your degree as if you leave it later your study and info retention skills are diminishing.

As you say, the realisation of how different languages function is a major point.

Europeans especially are exposed to the idiosyncrasies of other European languages. So when a European comes to Thailand it's fairly easy to realise that all Thais are doing is translating Thai to English, without any grasp of language structure - yellow taxi, taxi yellow for example, plus the open the light.

Without exposure to other languages, Thais will be caught in this Thaiglish situation.

I know absolutely nothing about the Chinese language they learn. Is this Chinese in a similar structure to Thai and is therefore more straight-forward for Thais to learn?

No. Chinese is just as hard if not harder for Thais to learn than English. Even the grammatical structure is in some respects more similar to English than Thai. For example, while we say "a red house" the Chinese also say "red house" but the Thais say "house red".

Many languages put the noun first (eg casa blanca- spanish, ben gorm-scot. and irish gaelic,) More logical I think.

[Jay Sata]

The problem in Thailand is poor or non English speakers working as English teachers.

Then of course we have expats with no qualifications trying to teach.

I speak from experience having paid years of English lessons for a son who claims the teachers either don't turn up or arrive for 20 minutes to let the class get on with it.

Like traffic laws and everything else it money in the hand and Mai Pen Rai.

Edited July 8, 2013 by Jay Sata

[Noistar]

When the ASEAN thing happens in 2015 there are going to be an awful lot of thais who will wonder "What the **** happened ?". They have been sheltered too long with the artificial thought that Thailand is the centre of the universe.

This is a misconception. The ASEAN project is not based on the EU model. The expected free movement of labour for instance will not happen for many years after 2015 I believe, certainly not into Thailand. The spirit of ASEAN will be more along the lines of voluntary participation with much more autonomy on the part of the members than in the EU. The difficulty for SEA countries vis a vis introducing english as a linga franca is that the big linguistic/cultural brother on the block is chinese and a common language with local roots would take hold more easily. The region is doing well whereas the western sphere is on the rocks with or without english -depending on which country you focus on. Thais are a practical people- they operate on a need to do basis and they learn on a need to know basis. Hence the level of english in the Pattaya lady bars is higher than in the universities. If prosperity is seen to require more english they will find a way to learn it, it won't be a top down process from any ASEAN initiative.

It's the 'will' to learn English, or for that matter to do anything academic, which is the problem, certainly in CM universities. There are occasional, very occasional, encounters with Thais here who welcome the chance to speak to Farang.

Yes, needs must will be the driving force, but for the lazy University students in CM they will be kicking and screaming to resist it.

As with improvements to anything Thai, Thai culture needs eradicating. This culture is responsible for the inability of Thailand to even want to improve.

Humblest opinion etc.

[Noistar]

Home schooling is in my opinion a very dodgy thing to do to kids and I think it often reflects more on the personality of the parents than what is good for the kids.

Why?

We are talking Thailand not the west.

Sent from my i-mobile i-STYLE Q6

Has the reply to your question got lost?

Maybe it was just a baseless snipe again.

Parents have to make choices about what they feel is best for their children. Education is a major matter, and if recognizing that the local (Thai) education system isn't delivering, parents must make their own call.

There are no right and wrong answers, just personal 'calls' based on the wish to do what's best for one's children. At least there will be a chance to aim high, rather than follow the herd.

[Thai at Heart]

Our son who was educated and lived in the west speaks perfect english also reads and writes it ,he has been in uni for a year and has already had two job offers from large companys when he leaves ,both say that its his mastery of the English language that they are after,as he would have to deal with people from all around the world ,who use it . so you obviously need english to get on .

I have placed two Thai's with good English in Bangkok into international companies within seconds of picking up the phone to friends. They are all desperate for fluent English speakers with degrees and Thai passports.

[Noistar]

Our son who was educated and lived in the west speaks perfect english also reads and writes it ,he has been in uni for a year and has already had two job offers from large companys when he leaves ,both say that its his mastery of the English language that they are after,as he would have to deal with people from all around the world ,who use it . so you obviously need english to get on .

I have placed two Thai's with good English in Bangkok into international companies within seconds of picking up the phone to friends. They are all desperate for fluent English speakers with degrees and Thai passports.

Congratulations on your success

You state the exact point - the ability to speak and otherwise communicate in English, rather than just a piece of paper. If ability was the criterion, rather than the 'degree', perhaps things might slowly begin to change. You can't buy competence, although I'm sure that wont be a barrier!