Thailand ranks 62nd out of 70 in English skills

[trogers]

I guess it is easier to be first on the list, bottom up...

[Fookhaht]

That is not actually a bad score when you consider how English is taught here.

I'm more surprised there are 8 countries ranked lower in English proficiency than Thailand.

M.O.E. officials: "Whew, thank Buddha, someone was worse than us..."

[djayz]

Doesn't surprise me at all...

[iBike]

VIetnam and Indonesia rank above Philippines?

[waldroj]

Don't be too concerned, India (formally the Jewel in the Crown) didn't score that well either (see http://www.ef.co.th/epi/)!

[tgeezer]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

And where would you rank? "Must of"? You might mean "must have" or "must've" if you prefer. Sorry for going all grammar police on you, but you're not one to judge others' proficiency in English.

This is a Thai bashing topic not English bashing, we are allowed to innit?

[jerojero]

They no understand Thailand. Cannot be correct.

[upena]

Wait two months when AEC 2015 starts and listen to the wailing and crying from Thais that foreigners with English and Chinese skills stole Thais' jobs.

[futsukayoi]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

They should have paid someone to be pushed back up the ranking, someone was penny pinching here,

On a more serious note, Thais don't think that acquiring another language is necessary or important

as 90% of them will never ever will have to use another language in their life time...

than come the natural ability to learn foreign language, something the Thais are greatly lacking.....

There are a significant proportion of Thais who speak a second language fluently (e.g. Lao, Khmer or a Chinese dialect). Living on Koh Samui my experience is that many Thais want to improve their English but the education system, rather than their willingness or ability, is letting them down. In fact I find it is the foreigners here who dismay. Very few make any real effort to pick up more than a few basic Thai phrases despite living here and expect Thais in their own country to communicate with them in English.

[DrTuner]

Wait two months when AEC 2015 starts and listen to the wailing and crying from Thais that foreigners with English and Chinese skills stole Thais' jobs.

AEC will bring absolutely nothing but more useless press releases. Any attempts at free movement of labour will be shot down by intuducing local regulations, such as obligatory fluency in Thai language.

[Bobobirdiebuddy]

I lived for a number of years in Japan and now I have lived here some 16 years and from what I have seen, Thais are better in actually using English than the Japanese. Perhaps in standardized tests, the Japanese (and many nations where the educational system is more rigorous than in Thailand) do better but in everyday communication, many Thais do OK. Taxi drivers, people in shops, some police have some basic communication skills.

And a great part of this can be attributed to tourism - rudimentary English skill equals income.

[DP25]

Given that the participants in the survey were self-selecting, the results are meaningless. It could be that only the very best English students in the likes of Sweden and the Netherlands were tested.

In other words, pointless self-promotion for a language school chain.

Yes, but that is clearly not the case with Sweden and the Netherlands. Almost everyone under 50 speaks near fluent English.

The fact that participants were self selecting means that Thailand is probably ranked higher than it should be, and the gap between Thailand and other countries is even greater than the results would indicate. The type of Thais who are going to be interested in learning at this language school and are willing to sit through the test are going to be significantly better at English than average. In many European countries most people are good at English already and the average young person on the street could do well on this test. Here English proficiency it is a rare and valuable skill and even the Thai English teachers are total garbage at English.

[TheKnave]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

...said the pot to the kettle.

There is no such construct as "must of". You might have said, " must've", had you meant, "must have".

Astounding how many rock-chuckers live in glass houses.

[ikke]

Lucky they surveyed students from the English course , if they were to survey around bars , they would have learned new language has been developed with phrases such as my friend you

Agree, but that is Tenglish......

[ikke]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

They should have paid someone to be pushed back up the ranking, someone was penny pinching here,

On a more serious note, Thais don't think that acquiring another language is necessary or important

as 90% of them will never ever will have to use another language in their life time...

than come the natural ability to learn foreign language, something the Thais are greatly lacking.....

There are a significant proportion of Thais who speak a second language fluently (e.g. Lao, Khmer or a Chinese dialect). Living on Koh Samui my experience is that many Thais want to improve their English but the education system, rather than their willingness or ability, is letting them down. In fact I find it is the foreigners here who dismay. Very few make any real effort to pick up more than a few basic Thai phrases despite living here and expect Thais in their own country to communicate with them in English.

That's not the point of the OP, but i agree 100% if its about communication the English have a lot to learn, the majority of native English people do speak ONLY one language.....

[Just1Voice]

If you have a Master's Degree in a foreign language, you should be able to read, write and speak that language fluently. Yet, I have met at least a dozen Thai who have Master's in English that are unable to have an understandable conversation in English. Two of my neighbors, a husband and wife, mid 30's, both with Master's in English from Chula. Their speaking skills are about par with a 12 year old N.E.S.

Part of the reason for this is that Thai schools stress grammar, and only pay scant attention to verbal communication. A few years back I signed up for Thai language courses at the YMCA here in Chiang Mai. I was told that because of the demand, they were opening a special class. Only 6 people in the class, all in mid to late 50's, with "best English speaker teacher." Oh, really? We spent half of our time in class looking at one another trying to figure out what the hell the teacher was saying. Needless to say, once that class was completed, I never bothered to go back.

[duckmandon]

I was in Malaysia last week & the locals speak English very well. They also do a lot of things better than the Thais. How well some nations progress when others just keep going backwards.

[empireboy]

Mai bpen li khrap

[Dixie Normus]

VIetnam and Indonesia rank above Philippines?

I would have the Philippines ranked quite highly compared to other Asian countries but for some reason they didn't include them in their sur​vey

I was also surprised that South Korea and Vietnam were higher than Hong Kong

[AlQaholic]

Among those countries ranked higher than Thailand are Azerbaijan, Iran, Morocco, Yemen among others......and I thought those countries didn't have a school system due to all the conflicts in those areas or religious reasons (I thought Madras was for the ignorant and stupid to learn the Koran and only that)......

[Fairynuff]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

And where would you rank? "Must of"? You might mean "must have" or "must've" if you prefer. Sorry for going all grammar police on you, but you're not one to judge others' proficiency in English.

He was pulling YOU'RE leg but YOUR to stupid to realise.

[puukao]

IF you are an English teacher, you MUST give back your 20,000 baht monthly salary!!! Shame on you!!! lol.

I am shocked that the ranking is so low, since every other thread is, "I don't have a degree, hate teaching, but want to live in Thailand" or "Yo yo, i aint got skillz yo but i fake resume and can i get job teaching while hung over? word."

Again, take responsibility you "teachers"!!!! I would teach, but I require 200,000 baht a month.

Remember, when teams lose the coach is fired. So don't go blaming the system and their parents!!!!

Edited November 4, 2015 by puukao

[puukao]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

And where would you rank? "Must of"? You might mean "must have" or "must've" if you prefer. Sorry for going all grammar police on you, but you're not one to judge others' proficiency in English.

He was pulling YOU'RE leg but YOUR to stupid to realise.

You LOOSE

[Thian]

But .... Many thai I know in E-San can speak fluently chinese from Taiwan or japanese or Korean because they were there to work for many years .

When I was a trucker all over Europe I went many times to Netherland, ;

in this country when they have english movies on TV they are in english, not dubbing in dutch ;

In France ( I'm french ) we have the same problem as in Thailand; all the movies are dubbing ;

you cannot learn a foreign language like that !

Good answer konying; they speak english like they speak thai: without verbs : " where you from ?

So in France you still don't have the BBC, Discovery Channels or any other foreign english channels?

The french just refuse to learn english and because of my english they think i'm american or english so they all tried to cheat me with change money.

But i also can speak french and sure know the euro's.

But i also learned english from the tv and covered the subtitling with a piece of cardboard. The Jerry Springer show was perfect for that and i also learned a lot about americans that way Just Google for it and you can see those shows.

But i miss India in the list, they must be above Malaysia i would think.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Thian

[noitom]

Depending where, the USA would have a poor rank as well.

[zakk9]

Among those countries ranked higher than Thailand are Azerbaijan, Iran, Morocco, Yemen among others......and I thought those countries didn't have a school system due to all the conflicts in those areas or religious reasons (I thought Madras was for the ignorant and stupid to learn the Koran and only that)......

If you had gotten your information from other sources than Fox News, you would have found that many Middle East countries (including Iraq and Libya before they were bombed to pieces by western nations) have excellent schools and universities, not least Iran, which is a highly developed nation in many areas.

[diehard60]

first you got to have people that are qualified to teach English and Thailand has very very few. Especially out in the rural areas, as the teachers there (most of them) do not even understand when you greet them in English. They definitely can not hold a conversation on the everyday level. But they say they can teach. hahahaha

[jacky54]

They are number one for using candy crush, line and fb, so not all bad news

[simonuk]

they must of cheated to rank that well ...

They should have paid someone to be pushed back up the ranking, someone was penny pinching here,

On a more serious note, Thais don't think that acquiring another language is necessary or important

as 90% of them will never ever will have to use another language in their life time...

than come the natural ability to learn foreign language, something the Thais are greatly lacking.....

How can you say the Thais as an entire nation or race lack the natural ability to learn languages ???

My nazi sense is tingling here...

As a side note I have very little natural ability re learning languages but through hard work i am comfortable in 4 languages...

[i claudius]

To be honest if you live in Nakon Nowhere growing rice ,there is very little use in learning a language ,but if you want to get on in life ,especially now Asean is starting , much as the French may hate it , English is the language of the world , with Chinese going to be needed soon maybe as well.