Pro Language

[bkkjosh]

Has anyone had any experiences (positive/negative) they can share with me in regards to Pro Language?

I have recently been using their services to learn english in my own office in my lunch break. After a perfect first lesson and feeling very encouraged I transfered the required funds (11,300 baht) for a block of 20 lessons. After the first lesson however, things started to go downhill. My teacher started cancelling classes on a regular basis (at least 1 in every 3). My teacher also took many phonecalls during our lessons. In particular she took many calls from a "student" she called johann... so many in fact I believe it was probably just a cover for her talking to her boyfriend. Anyway, after 3 weeks of this I lost a bit more patience and when I called to ask her today when she was coming to the lesson she told me I hadn't confirmed the lesson with her...

I called the language centre and spoke to the manager to explain my situation and the fact that I don't have a lot of free time and she was rude to me. So I guessed it was best to cut my loss instead of getting upset and I terminated our agreement.

If anyone has had a fantastic experience with another language centre/company or an individual that anyone knows of who is quite proficient at teaching thai to foreigners, I would really like to know about them, as I am looking for a new teacher at the moment.

[ProfessorFart]

Sounds rough! Is there anyone else at the Language Centre you could speak too?

11,300 is a fair sum of money to let slip so I wouldn't cut my losses. Even if they don't improve, I'd take the remaining 20 lessons out of spite just to make them go out of their way.

[bkkjosh]

Sounds rough! Is there anyone else at the Language Centre you could speak too?

11,300 is a fair sum of money to let slip so I wouldn't cut my losses. Even if they don't improve, I'd take the remaining 20 lessons out of spite just to make them go out of their way.

I should have mentioned that I have only about 5 lessons left. Its not worth it for me to have her cancel more lessons and have unproductive lessons etc.

[bkkjosh]

Sounds rough! Is there anyone else at the Language Centre you could speak too?

11,300 is a fair sum of money to let slip so I wouldn't cut my losses. Even if they don't improve, I'd take the remaining 20 lessons out of spite just to make them go out of their way.

I should have mentioned that I have only about 5 lessons left. Its not worth it for me to have her cancel more lessons and have unproductive lessons etc.

We are actually trying to get in contact with the owners because the manager I spoke to stonewalled me. Unless I go into the centre... I can't imagine the outcome being very different to be honest.

I'd rather focus on finding someone new who can do the job well.

[Rikker]

I'd say going over the manager's head is the right track. Although it's not exactly the same I've had similar problems in Thailand. A hotel double-charged my mother when she and my siblings came to visit me once, and it wasn't cheap at all--a week's stay for two suites, came to $1200 overcharge, and believe me, they were reluctant to part with it. After dozens of calls, I had to break Thai decorum and make the manager look a bit foolish by calling the owner of the hotel on his personal cell phone to explain how his manager was unable to locate records to show that 44,000 baht had been overcharged to a customer. The manager of course didn't want this, but once I got the owner's name, directory assistance led me to his home phone, and his wife gave me his cell phone number. I spent several months working with the manager, but once I involved the owner it was resolved in about two weeks.

Edited May 15, 2006 by Rikker

[Khutan]

I am sad to hear that you had that problem at Pro Language. I assume we are taling about the office in Times Square on Sukhumvit ?

I was doing the course at Pro Language. I had two teachers and I found them very good, and when they had to cancel they organized another teacher. The one time I turned up when the other members of the class agreed to cancel a class because of a long weekend, the manager sat down with me for the lesson and we talked in Thai and tried a whole lot of different Thai words.

My only complaint of the place was the phonetics was difficult to to understand, and reading the english-Thai words, it was difficult to get the pronounciation correct. I would just go through the book at lesson time and write phoning I could understand better.

I stopped as my work took me to a different customer location. I also want to find a course that also has a section on writing as well as conversational / survival Thai. So at the moment, I am trying to understand letters and words from street signs and number plates. I know its not a great way, but its all I can do until I find the course I want.

I am interested in suggestions.

[GoodHeart]

Very sorry to hear of this frustrating teacher at Pro Language. I have studied there for nearly 6 months over the past 12 and have gotten a lot out of it. I am quite sure my teacher was exceptional, but she recently quit for a salaried position with an international firm. I say exceptional because she held two degress from Chula, spoke English very well, had travelled overseas, came from an upper middle class Thai family, was always good for her word, taught us a lot and cancelled few classes.

She and I hold one another in high regards and remain in occasional contact since our studies together terminated about 10 weeks ago. If the OP would like me to solicit her advise on his behalf I invite him to send me a PM.

I always thought the manager there was capable, competent and genuinely concerned for the educational experiences of the students. And from what I gather, I think he would welcome a private conversation from the OP and remedy the situation with haste.

[RAZZELL]

Very sorry to hear of this frustrating teacher at Pro Language. I have studied there for nearly 6 months over the past 12 and have gotten a lot out of it. I am quite sure my teacher was exceptional, but she recently quit for a salaried position with an international firm. I say exceptional because she held two degress from Chula, spoke English very well, had travelled overseas, came from an upper middle class Thai family, was always good for her word, taught us a lot and cancelled few classes.

She and I hold one another in high regards and remain in occasional contact since our studies together terminated about 10 weeks ago. If the OP would like me to solicit her advise on his behalf I invite him to send me a PM.

I always thought the manager there was capable, competent and genuinely concerned for the educational experiences of the students. And from what I gather, I think he would welcome a private conversation from the OP and remedy the situation with haste.

Goodheart..did you learn Thai...? What was the name of your tutor?

Many thanks

[bkkjosh]

I am sad to hear that you had that problem at Pro Language. I assume we are taling about the office in Times Square on Sukhumvit ?

I was doing the course at Pro Language. I had two teachers and I found them very good, and when they had to cancel they organized another teacher. The one time I turned up when the other members of the class agreed to cancel a class because of a long weekend, the manager sat down with me for the lesson and we talked in Thai and tried a whole lot of different Thai words.

My only complaint of the place was the phonetics was difficult to to understand, and reading the english-Thai words, it was difficult to get the pronounciation correct. I would just go through the book at lesson time and write phoning I could understand better.

I stopped as my work took me to a different customer location. I also want to find a course that also has a section on writing as well as conversational / survival Thai. So at the moment, I am trying to understand letters and words from street signs and number plates. I know its not a great way, but its all I can do until I find the course I want.

I am interested in suggestions.

I was using pro language for private lessons at my office. I am actively seeking out a replacement and have had a few promising teachers already. Hopefully it'll happen the right way this time.

[bkkjosh]

I am sad to hear that you had that problem at Pro Language. I assume we are taling about the office in Times Square on Sukhumvit ?

I was doing the course at Pro Language. I had two teachers and I found them very good, and when they had to cancel they organized another teacher. The one time I turned up when the other members of the class agreed to cancel a class because of a long weekend, the manager sat down with me for the lesson and we talked in Thai and tried a whole lot of different Thai words.

My only complaint of the place was the phonetics was difficult to to understand, and reading the english-Thai words, it was difficult to get the pronounciation correct. I would just go through the book at lesson time and write phoning I could understand better.

I stopped as my work took me to a different customer location. I also want to find a course that also has a section on writing as well as conversational / survival Thai. So at the moment, I am trying to understand letters and words from street signs and number plates. I know its not a great way, but its all I can do until I find the course I want.

I am interested in suggestions.

I was using pro language for private lessons at my office. I am actively seeking out a replacement and have had a few promising teachers already. Hopefully it'll happen the right way this time.

Anyone used Berlitz? I was quoted 75,000 baht for 60 private lessons (in my office) including books/audio tapes. It seems very expensive to me...

[yoot]

Anyone used Berlitz? I was quoted 75,000 baht for 60 private lessons (in my office) including books/audio tapes. It seems very expensive to me...

I used to take both group course and private course at Berlitz many years ago, but English not Thai. In my opinion, from the higher rate I paid, I don't think I got better lessons than other places at all.

[papillon]

I think the main problem with Pro Language (and, perhaps, other schools of this type) is that they don't have a permanent teaching staff. They seem to call in teachers from a list of contacts when there are pupils available. This makes getting a good teacher a very hit-and-miss matter.

As it happened, my own experience of Pro Language when I spent 3 months in Bangkok recently was near perfect. Having taken some Thai lessons in the UK, I had an agenda. I arrived fed up to the teeth with not learning Thai, because I was having to use all my ingenuity juggling half a dozen different romanisation systems. I saw that Pro Language was offering yet another system, so I said quite bluntly that the job they had to do was to get me reading and pronouncing Thai script in 3 months. Oh dear, we usually don't get on to reading and writing until the end of the third conversation course! I intended to take one-to-one lessons and made it clear they would not get my money unless they provided the service I wanted. That concentrated their minds wonderfully! It turned out, in fact, that they have a pretty good Reading and Writing course book, and I followed this simultaneously with a couple of the Conversation course books - concentrating on the Reading and Writing.

I was so lucky in my teacher, a lovely person I could really relate to and who understood what I was up to. Although she had a degree in English, she had never been well enough off to visit an English-speaking country; so her vocabulary and grammar were good, but her pronunciation was sometimes impenetrable. Once we got to know each other (which means, among other things, once she got to understand my ironic English sense of humour!), she was only too happy to make use of the fact that I am a linguist by profession and over the years have taught English as a foreign language in various situations - though not in SE Asia. Learning became a two-way process, with lots of laughter and leg-pulling - at times I became her comically stern teacher - and, for the record, the famous Thai problem of loss of face never came into it. My triumph was to get her to pronounce correctly, over what I think she felt was a rough week, 'wasps' and 'wisps'! (I tested her daily!) In return she was endlessly patient about my problems of memorising and pronunciation. She did a most excellent job.

Of course, we are still in touch, but one of the things she indicated before I left was that it was not certain she would be at Pro Language when I return to Bangkok next year, because she was looking for a full-time appointment somewhere. In other words, she was eeking out an existence on work that 'turned up'.

Having said which, I can see no way, given the nature of PL, that one could guarantee a learning experience there as good as mine. You pays your money and you takes your chance!

Edited June 14, 2006 by papillon

[dgoz]

I had a similar "cancelled lessons" experience with Pro Language. It's strange how they think they can mess you around and still keep your money.

The teacher I had was also average at best.

Im an Electrician. I wonder if they asked me to install some lights for them and then agreed on a price, would they still pay me in full if I only installed some of them. Is this the Thai way?

If so I'll go into business here tomorrow doing half-jobs for full price.

[khonnaarak]

Sorry to hear that . Try P & A language center at Silom which I'm studying for Grade 6 now. , small office but there 're good. I never have a prob. with schedule they are quite flexible. 081-485-1370 or off. no. 02-652-3037.

Cheers.