Thailand ranked 55th in English proficiency: 60-nation ranking

[webfact]

Thailand ranked 55th in English proficiency
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- In a 60-nation ranking released last week, the Education First Institute put Thailand 55th on the English Proficiency Index.

The ranking was based on the results of an Internet-based English Proficiency test taken by 750,000 people from 60 countries. All respondents were of working age.

Dr Krissanapong Kirtikara, a vice chair of Thailand's Quality Warning Foundation, mentioned the ranking at an academic seminar yesterday.

According to him, Malaysia ranks 11th, Singapore 12th and India 21st.

Test takers from Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, Taiwan and |China ranked 22nd, 24th, 25th, 26th, 28th, 33rd and 34th |respectively, according to the institute.

"Reports show that people with greater English proficiency have higher income," Krissanapong said.

He also emphasised the need for Thailand to improve its English-teaching standards in order to boost competitiveness ahead of the launch of the Asean Economic Community.

-- The Nation 2013-11-20

[CelticBhoy]

They got 55th spot out of 60 coz 5 countries didn't participate . . . .

[Somtamnication]

Ouch. Vietnam is better. That will irk Thais to learn better English. NOT!

Unless you can claim, with proof, that Cambodians and the bad evil Burmese can speak better English, thereby forcing Thais to lose face, nothing will happen.

[petedk]

I don't want to be too cynical but I wonder how many of the Thais got away with cheating.

I think in almost every exam I give I see or catch at least one or two students trying to cheat. Sad but true.

[smileplur]

Having lived in South Korea, I can tell you that this poll and many like it are meaningless. Spoken English used by people who are "working age" is virtually non-existent in South Korea. Seoul may have higher standards than the rest of the country; however, that is to be expected from a cosmopolitan capital city. In my experience, Bangkok's residents have much better spoken English than their Seoul counterparts!

[leggo]

Only one or two????!!,

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 2 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[MaxLee]

They need something to get an international attention you can't help. As if any teacher would come to Thailand and help,...

[NongKhaiKid]

I really am shocked

As Thai students find when they study overseas and the government etc. finds when they deal with international organisations it's not so easy to ' arrange ' a better grade.

[JoeThePoster]

But no one else can say these 4 magic words better - You buy me cola.

[NongKhaiKid]

But no one else can say these 4 magic words better - You buy me cola.

I'm afraid you've just opened the door to many and varied alternatives.

[Bender]

if they had made this survey amongs thai in soi cowboy/nana, Thailand would have ranked number one,

yes number ONE, even very far above country like Australia, Uk, Usa.

... a friend told me so

[AryanicAristocrat]

Lol! And to think that these "missing links" want Thailand to be the centre for AEC. Dream on.

[selftaopath]

Yeaaaaa .... welllllllll who didn't know that. Teachers are paid well. and act like "rock stars" but unfortunately they can only act - not teach. Thai people/children deserve better.

[AyG]

Meaningless survey. It doesn't reflect on the English proficiency within the country - only the proficiency of people who choose to take the test. People who know they're useless at English won't even bother. One possible interpretation of the results would be "people in Thailand think they're much better at English than they really are; people from Malaysia know they're not very good, so only the most able bothered to take the test".

[teatree]

Having lived in South Korea, I can tell you that this poll and many like it are meaningless. Spoken English used by people who are "working age" is virtually non-existent in South Korea. Seoul may have higher standards than the rest of the country; however, that is to be expected from a cosmopolitan capital city. In my experience, Bangkok's residents have much better spoken English than their Seoul counterparts!

I agree. The general level of spoken English of the population as a whole is not too bad in Thailand and the ranking would be much higher if this were being tested.

Academic English (IELTS TOEFL etc) is a different story and I can well believe Thailand being at the bottom. A lot of it is cultural - these tests usually require giving strong opinions and analysing data, both things Thais are just not used to doing.

[pinkpanther99]

I recently visited Japan and was quite surprised about how little English seemed to be spoken. It isn't only Thailand that struggles with English.

[lemoncake]

Well, at least the hub of English proficiency is out of the question.

One hub Thailand will have to miss out on.

More seriously though, it is somewhat worrying that a country with such a high tourism numbers lacks English skills

But then again, look at current PM, who after living and studying masters in US, still can not string few words together, doubt masters in USA were ran in Thai

[lemoncake]

I recently visited Japan and was quite surprised about how little English seemed to be spoken. It isn't only Thailand that struggles with English.

In some parts of UK, not only they struggle with it, but also torture and murder the language

[ramrod711]

Thailand should definitely put Chalerm to work, remember when ALL the tourist police were going to speak english in 6 months?

I'm sure they are all proficient now, nobody in government would lie.

Edited November 20, 2013 by ramrod711

[theduderule]

2 better than last year.. good job.

[cooked]

I wonder where the average Thai Visa user would come in an English proficiency test?

[seminomadic]

And so, "to improve its English-teaching standards," the sh!theads in charge of such things will suddenly decided "well, to teach English here, you must have an MA in ELT or SLA..... all other teachers OUT" when tertiary-level classes have 40-50 students..... rather than hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes.

Of course, such a new rule would force consolidation of classes into 80-90 students to be taught by one teacher with an ELT MA (irrespective of experience)..... but 'hey! look, everybody! all of our classes are taught by highly qualified teachers! never mind that they get ZERO individual attention and every single aspect of assessment is multiple choice!'

Because that's the kind of decision the sh!theads in this country always make. Watch.

Edited November 20, 2013 by seminomadic

[lemoncake]

I wonder where the average Thai Visa user would come in an English proficiency test?

define average?

[PaullyW]

Having lived in South Korea, I can tell you that this poll and many like it are meaningless. Spoken English used by people who are "working age" is virtually non-existent in South Korea. Seoul may have higher standards than the rest of the country; however, that is to be expected from a cosmopolitan capital city. In my experience, Bangkok's residents have much better spoken English than their Seoul counterparts!

I too have lived in Korea - Seoul and Pusan, and I disagree. Koreans are generally far better English speakers. Couple of my Korean workmates even told me stories of a popular procedure to cut a piece of their tongues in order to assist with better pronunciation of English. There might be more people in Thailand (given its heavy reliance on tourism, and specifically bar-girl/massage-girl, etc sex tourism) who can put together a basic "hi mister, where you go?", but for Koreans who do proclaim to speak English, Koreans are far and away MUCH better speakers on an order of magnitude.

You can't even find decent Thai speakers of English in the Thai media. They are all taught the same mistakes across this country. Not true of Korea, at all.

[PaullyW]

I recently visited Japan and was quite surprised about how little English seemed to be spoken. It isn't only Thailand that struggles with English.

Again, this is being looked at the wrong way. Japan does not have a very large population of English speakers because ... they do not need them. Evidence is their huge success in almost all fields of interest to forming a strong, modern economy. It is NOT popular in Japan to study English from grade school - like it is in Thailand.

If, however, you encounter Japanese who do speak English (usually Japanese who have studied overseas in an English speaking country), you may find they outclass their Thai counterparts who have been learning English since very young age. You can't compare the East Asians to the Thais in this way. China, Japan, Korea - have tremendously strong economies by comparison and do not rely heavily (up to 25%) on tourism revenue.

[coma]

I wouldn't take this to the bank.

[mijan24]

Some posters have made some very good points about the validity of a test of this nature.

In reality English in Thailand is not good and it will not improve whilst they have the everyone will pass system and fail to realise the importance of everyday interaction (in english) between students and the teacher (read here "students" between each other and teacher with their students).

In my experience many Thais (all ages) thirst for knowlege and practice of "english" and without being condecending it behoves on us "native speakers" to help where and when we can.

Interestingpoint is that some who have responded have left out - prepositions etc and are writing as they speak back in their burros which in many cases is understandable but not correct english, so if you wish to cast aspersions check your own backyard first.

[Scott]

A post criticizing another poster's use of English has been deleted. The topic isn't about other posters, it's about the ranking of Thailand in this survey.

[Spare]

I recently visited Japan and was quite surprised about how little English seemed to be spoken. It isn't only Thailand that struggles with English.

Again, this is being looked at the wrong way. Japan does not have a very large population of English speakers because ... they do not need them. Evidence is their huge success in almost all fields of interest to forming a strong, modern economy. It is NOT popular in Japan to study English from grade school - like it is in Thailand.

If, however, you encounter Japanese who do speak English (usually Japanese who have studied overseas in an English speaking country), you may find they outclass their Thai counterparts who have been learning English since very young age. You can't compare the East Asians to the Thais in this way. China, Japan, Korea - have tremendously strong economies by comparison and do not rely heavily (up to 25%) on tourism revenue.

Sama same. Unless you are a bar-girl in Nana or Cowboy, a typical Thai on the street don't need to know a word of English. Just like in Japan.

[Lupatria]

Oh my Buddha- what happened to Kazakhstan?