Acredited school in Pattaya for new settlement visa requirements in English, Where?

[Rob180]

I have to admit that this is the first time I have seen anyone 'complaining' that the English test for the initial visa is too easy!

I guess that the reasoning behind this is to try and ensure that family migrants have a basic understanding of English when they first arrive, which they then must improve upon in order to apply for ILR.

I suspect that the reason why passes are only valid for two years is the theory that if you don't use it, you lose it. That is certainly the case with the French I learned at school!

Edit;

The reason why no one teaches or offers the LitUK test in Thailand is that the rules say it can only be taken in the UK.

You cannot lose something you did not have. By your own admission - my wife probably does not need to attend school - she has been to the UK with me six time, and has spent in total about 3 years there. But, no way can she converse like a Brit and I would not expect this. I repeat,, my conclusion for the A1 qualification is simply to get the A1 qualification so you can apply for a visa, another cost for me whilst the government is seen to be doing something, when really they are doing nothing but making people like me pay more for a settlement visa. If this was not the case the qualification would be harder and worth something in the UK.

I beleive the reason the rules state that life in the UK test can only be taken in the UK is to do the validity of the pass and nothing more. They need to control it, and that does make sense. It is just a shame that my wife can achieve so little here in Thailand, it would be nice if they could do more.that would help them when they got to the UK.

Sir Paul, I agree with your comments that the A1 'barrier' is just a way of increasing the cost of a Settlement Visa and making the whole process harder. Whilst the test itself is 1 financial barrier, it will be a bigger one if the applicant's husband is not in Thailand and she needs to do a Preparation Course first. Furthermore, if the applicant needs to do a 3-4 day course and lives in Udon Thani, K.Kaen or any other city many miles away from Bangkok, that is going to involve at least 4 nights staying in BK in a hotel, travel and other expenses.

My wife did the 3 day Preparation Course at Vantage Siam which I feel made the test more worthwhile as her English definitely improved following this, and she passed. However, the cost of the course, the test, the travel to and from her own city 200 miles away from BK, food expenses, a hotel for 4 nights........it was about £450 all in. In our case, there was no other way to do it and I was just happy she passed, but I think this shows that for many applicants whose partners are not in Thailand and when the applicant doesn't live in Bangkok, the cost of getting the required A1 pass is likely not to just be the 7000 baht test fee.

On a more positive note, my wife enjoyed her 'holiday' in Bangkok and doing and passing the course!

Edited December 1, 2013 by Rob180

[SirPaul]

My wife did the 3 day Preparation Course at Vantage Siam which I feel made the test more worthwhile as her English definitely improved following this, and she passed. However, the cost of the course, the test, the travel to and from her own city 200 miles away from BK, food expenses, a hotel for 4 nights........it was about £450 all in. In our case, there was no other way to do it and I was just happy she passed, but I think this shows that for many applicants whose partners are not in Thailand and when the applicant doesn't live in Bangkok, the cost of getting the required A1 pass is likely not to just be the 7000 baht test fee.

On a more positive note, my wife enjoyed her 'holiday' in Bangkok and doing and passing the course!

My Wife also enjoys things when I have pay for them!! How does a Thai person do any test in English at these prices. If you consider their average daily pay, for the average Thai to take an English test would be equivalent to a Brit paying £1,400.00 to take a basic Thai test that does not even prove you can speak Thai (remember this is A1 standard) If you include all your accomodation and travel costs as well - like a Brit paying £4,500.00 - no wonder your wife enjoyed it - you could have had a cruise on the best cruise ship in the world for this price (or stay Thailand 2 Months without having to go short).

I was hoping the test would be about 2000 bhat at most. Looks like we are being fleeced once again.

Edited January 3, 2014 by SirPaul

[durhamboy]

I've just read this topic for the first time. A few comments :-

1. It has just been established that the 2 year validity does not apply for FLR applications so this should now be a non-issue. See recent posts in related topic.

2. Sir Paul - I agree with many of your sentiments but I slightly disagree about A1 standard being worthless. There are 2 parts of the test that must be passed - Listening and Speaking. Listening is ridiculously easy (and therefore worthless) because it is a multiple choice answer (A, B, C or D) and the passmark is about 12%. Therefore just answering "A" to every question should give you about 25% which is twice the passmark! However the other test is Speaking where the passmark is much higher (c. 40% I think) and is not multiple choice. In fact the questions are in various formats and for some of them the candidate has to READ the question in order to speak the answer. So this part is not easy and therefore the qualification has some value.

3. Be careful about some of the language schools in Pattaya. There are a very large number of them. I don't know anything about the one you mentioned and they may be very good. My wife went to a Language School in Pattaya. Ok it was virtually free so I don't want to name and shame them but it was a complete waste of time. The "teacher" (Spanish lady probably doing it to stay/work in Thailand) just wrote everything on a blackboard in English and Thai so the class just copied it all down - but naturally they just looked at the Thai. After she had been there sometime I wrote the word "dog" and asked her what it was - she had no idea!

I think you said that your wife has spent about 3 years in the UK. Therefore as I advised you in the related topic, do the BULATS test with the 3 days intensive tuition. They really don't teach English as such but they teach the technique to answer the questions. Their success rate is something like 99%.

[SirPaul]

I am grateful and surprised by the above input into this conversation. This conversation started in October 2013 so as durhamboy states there is a lot of new knowledge about the duration and validity of the qualifications obtainable in Thailand.

The assumption that A1 is not difficult was the basis of this conversation, yet now you say the speaking part could be tricky, this surprises me as it is of importance.

As there is a financial gain in re-testing an applicant it would make sense to try and fail them. Free re-tests are not part of the Thailand culture!

In Pattaya there is a school that is acredited for teaching to A1 standard, but not in a three-day course, more like 12 weeks of daily tuitiion giving way to a respectable bill in the process. As the test is aimed at the business community and is not so useful in the UK, 12 week courses for such a test is a bit strong especially when you still have to go to an acredited test centre in Bangkok to sit the actual test .

Your recomendation of the "BULATS test with the 3 days intensive tuition", sounds great and I feel this advice is basically fundamental to most candidates. From another discusson, I think the cost of this is 8000 bhat, please correct me here if I am wrong.

As a footnote my view is...

If the UK government was really interested in people being able to speak and understand basic English the test would be of a higher standard, with a subsidised standardised world-wide pricing policy along with a test specifically designed for the job. Such a test would indicate to every candidate their current standard of English - so even if they passed the test they would know what level they are at (like passes in English exams, grade C was a pass, but B and A were obtainable, along with D & E). This also proves useful as candidiates would know what they need to do to further their skills in English once they get to the UK.

Probably, the cost for the UK government to distribute a world-wide test and have it marked by a central body would prove to be prohibitive. But no worry, why should they? They know they can charge and get away with it (it makes you wonder at times at what price would Brits stop applying for settlement visas - £2000, £5000, or even £10,000?). The cost of the visa application is no longer simply the cost of the application. Do not overlook all your travel expenses, accomodation, all the time and effort getting an A1 pass, A TB test and an accurate and fully completed application. There is one publicized price for the application whilst the hidden costs are esculating and there is no protest to this. I do not mind doing all the necessary things, but why do I have to pay for it all?

One application fee to cover everything - seems fair. But, until such a practice is in place one can soon see that we are not far off from it being a luxury to bring a foreign wife back to the UK - and as most luxurys are only available to 1% of society, the wealthy, what we have here is yet anoher way of the great British free society being controllied beyond measure. In ignorance the masses will simply accept that this is all to help them, just like technology erodes privacy, money and power erodes your ability to choose and the freedom to do it. Human rights will one day only be available to those that can afford it.

What we all need to do with any visa application is to make a log, detailing every single penny spent in connection with the application, from hotels to food along with the amount of time spent on each little thing you do in connection with the application. Only then will we be aware of the "real cost" of obtaining a visa for our loved ones. Of course we won't waiste our time doing this for whilst we can still complain about things, you often are left wondering whether anyone is bothering to listen.

[durhamboy]

The cost of the 3 day course at Vantage/BULATS would be about B8,000 + another B8,000 (or thereabouts) for the test.

I agree with you about all the costs mounting up + you have to show income/savings - you don't have to show that if you marry a UK resident.

Also factor in the costs of applying for FLR, ILR and British citizenship and we are talking a lot of money. I think someone estimated it at £8,500 in total and I wouldn't argue with that figure.

In the "good old days" all you needed to do was get "Patriality" for your foreign wife. You just trotted down to the UK embassy and got the stamp in her passport. I don't think they even charged for it. Actually a man could only get it for his wife so a UK woman marrying a foreign man couldn't bring her husband to the UK. In those days (about 30 odd years ago) women had to live in the man's country. How things have changed.

[theoldgit]

Off topic posts removed.