Job Discussion Forums

[IanN]

Hi all,

I'm a teacher in Spain and one of my students would like to go to Thailand to study English. Her reasoning for this is that she has been to the UK many times to study but because of the number of Spanish people in the UK she always ends up speaking more Spanish than English. It seems reasonable that she will have to speak English in Thailand and she also wants to visit the country.

She has asked if I could get some opinions on this plan and any recommendations of schools to attend. She would prefer a British English teacher but isn't too fussy. Some ideas of costs, both for the course and accomodation would be welcome as well.

I look forward to your views and to pass them on to her.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[roguegrafix]

Maybe I'm being cynical, but I don't think Thailand is very apt for such a plan. She would end up speaking more Thai than English and bad English at that. Thai is the predominant language outside the classroom. Maybe she could consider other countries where English is more common in the general society such as the Philippines or perhaps Malaysia (?) or Singapore.

[IanN]

Thanks for your comments. I'll suggest the other countries to her. Except the Phillipines anyway as Spanish is a semi-official language.

I'm not so sure she would speak more Thai as she doesn't speak any but has B2 level English.

I'm also not sure why she wants to study in Thailand so much. I think that it is that she wants to visit the country.

She isn't looking for long term, just the summer holidays from her university course.

[roguegrafix]

Hold on about the Philippines. I'm not so sure Spanish is very popular there. When I was there it was Tagalog and American English -- really good English spoken by locals. I didn't hear anyone speaking Spanish apart from the place names. We get a lot of Filipino English teachers here in Thailand and their English is WAY better than 99% of the Thai English teachers. You might want to check out the Philippines board. Good luck.

[roguegrafix]

On second thoughts: if your student just travelled the guest houses in Thailand, she'd pick up some good English. I'm told Lao and Cambodia speak pretty good English in the tourist areas � out of necessity.

[btsmrtfan]

[PattyFlipper]

Virtually any other S.E. Asian nation, with the possible exception of East Timor, will have better English skills and wider/broader use of the language than Thailand. Thailand is just about the LAST place I would recommend anyone go to learn English (or anything else, for that matter).

Unless the OP's student wishes to acquaint herself with English of the ellomisterwhatyournamewhereyoucomeflomyouwantgoparadiehaveloomupstaironlyninehundredbahtyougonowmister variety, her time would be far more productively spent in either the Philippines or Malaysia. Even Cambodia would be better.