Sumaa and Nisa Thai language schools?

[BT444]

studied at them? are they good?

[CaptHaddock]

After completing the Basic 1, 2 and 3 levels at the Intensive Thai Program at Chulalongkorn I have been studying daily at Sumaa for the past year and a half. I also studied at two other, cheaper schools for a total of two months. In my opinion Sumaa and Chula are the only acceptable Thai language programs in Bangkok. By "acceptable" I mean having standards similar to language study at a US university.

This is not only my opinion. Other students at Sumaa include the ambassadors of the US, UK, Australia, Denmark, and Germany.

If you are serious, don't waste your time with the rest.

Edited January 11, 2014 by CaptHaddock

[BT444]

thanks for the info !

could u tell me more about Sumaa? do they offer both group and private classes? what exactly is good abt Sumaa?

[CaptHaddock]

I believe that Sumaa has small classes (2 or 3 students) at the beginning and intermediate level, but I myself have only taken private lessons. I have two principal teachers each of whom has a BA (Thai language) and MA (Thai language, psychology) from Chulalongkorn. They are both very intelligent and highly motivated. In addition to their considerable knowledge of Thai language and culture, they respond to my interests, for instance, by utilizing current articles and videos on subjects of interest to me and at an appropriate intellectual level. They always correct my speaking and writing errors for grammar, pronunciation, and usage. They give homework assignments and correct them in writing. They research and prepare for lessons and suggest additional reading material. For a while in order to help me develop an ability to participant in conversations with several Thai speakers simultaneousl my principal teacher brought in three or four other teachers or interns for practice conversations. I think that shows a degree of creativity in teaching that is quite exceptional here.

Other, occasional teachers whom I have worked with at Sumaa included one former engineer, whom I appreciated because of my own background in engineering, and two PhDs.

By contrast, my experience at the other two, cheaper schools was that the teachers had been on auto-pilot for years already. They used the same text (which most of the schools use because it is an approved curriculum from the Thai dept of education) and just went over it mechanically in the same way whether in a class or one-on-one. They news stories they used for reading exercises were years old. When I complained about that one teacher replied that the Thai language in the stories hadn't changed since their publication date. There was no way he was going to lift a finger to make the material more relevant or interesting. These teachers corrected my speaking errors much less frequently, including tone errors. They expect very little of their students and, indeed, of themselves. Their own intellectual level was low. Indeed, as an insight into the inbred mediocrity in Thai education those two schools were valuable. In Thailand most teachers seem to view their job as showing up.

Sumaa and Chula are not like that at all. If your goal is fluency, and it should be, you need to have teachers who invest in the same goal.