English School For Wife

[Soju]

I want to enroll my wife in an English course to improve her English. What's the range of the cost? And what's a good price to pay for a good quality school? I'm not interested in paying top dollar for some school just because it's famous if I can find an equally good school for much less. Any recommendations on schools?

Thanks

[Carmine6]

My girlfriend takes classes at both Ramkhamhaeng University for her degree and at one of the nearby language schools. The courses at Ramkhamhaeng are very cheap, around 200 baht plus books and some enrollment fees. Your wife would have to sign up for some degree program but wouldn't really have to take other classes.

There are lots of language schools near the campus and they are more expensive, but still very cheap. For an English class with just 3 students that met 3 times per week for 3 months, it was around 4,000 baht. For a class with more students in it, the cost was 2,600 baht. She's had a mix of native English speakers and non-native speakers. She said in the harder classes it was better having someone who spoke Thai as well since one teacher couldn't explain things that the students didn't understand.

I looked at some of the books for her reading comprehension and business English classes and they were surprisingly hard. I would think many American high school students would have trouble on the test. As far as I know, the language school did not have a final exam, but you could only miss 3 classes. Otherwise, they wouldn't let you take the next class in the series.

[Phil Conners]

You don't specify the objective so I'll assume you just mean it literally like that, to improve her English.

Most farangs here, including English speakers, seem more often than not to speak "bargirl English" to any Thai here. Some even get so used to it they use it between themselves.

Snap out of it. Do everybody a favor and speak normal English to everybody. They learn from what they hear, very fast.

[Backpack_thailand]

Whilst applauding you for trying to improve your wife's knowledge, I would just like to point out that you also will have a MASSIVE input into the levels of success.

It's easy for us to think "OK, put the missus through school, keep her out of my way" but she will be dying for you to help her practice, she needs a friendly face to speak with and not be scared of sounding silly.

I tried it with my wife and eventually we ended up with me teaching her at home as the standard of teaching was terrible and she was embarrased standing up in front of people (face!). Thankfully now we have a local expat teacher who does "pii set" after school hours and is a friend of mine.

Your wife needs to be committed and so do you and I wish you the best of luck. It's worth it in the long run, a real sense of achievment for you both...!!! Unlike my step-daughter who has lessons every Thurs and Fri night and when she's done the books stay on the shelf for the next 6 days! Mrs.Backpack now speaks reasonable English though and has a real sense of self pride.

One thing I found which really helped us (and is also good fun), try to ween her off the Thai soaps on the TV. If you have UBC or cable try to watch more films or programs in English with Thai subtitles. It may sound silly but as she progresses on she will be able to identify the sounds with the text.

It will also give her the sense of "normal", conversational English, not the annoying 'Thailish" you hear so often.

But I stress, you must both be committed 100%.

Keep us updated on how you're getting on.

[Soju]

Backpack, thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, my wife lives in Thailand and I live in Korea and our time together is quite limited. That's why I want her to try to improve her English on her own in Thailand. If I was living there, I wouldn't hesitate to teach her myself. I still do on a limited basis, but it's slow going and I want to speed up the process.

Thanks