• Dam
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My Tears
Trying to perfect the imperfect.
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Tuesday , September 25 , 2007
Is English a must for Thai ?
Posted by Dam , Reader : 1006 , 00:35:17  
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It is disheartening to read School Daze blog. And it is very true that in the end of the day, Thais still are in the losing end.

It is time to look at the O-Net Test paper. If the test paper has a change, of which, it seems to be not at the moment., then there will be some changes in the teachers' qualities.

The bottom line is the government effort. How many Thais will need to converse in English in the daily activities?

Promoting a learning subject will need efforts from many quarters for example, the government, private sectors and as well as radio stations.

Is that wrong that Thais do not command good English language ?

Now, the question lies on who would need the language ? Not all the Europeans can speak good  English too. The evidences can be seen from the toruists in Thailand.

If the government can be more open to conduct different language tests in the O -Net, like Chinese, French, Melayu ( for the southern part) Japanese etc. There will be more Thai talents able to contribute to the nation growth.

Now, English seems to be the only subject be tested in the higher level. Looking at the south neighbours, how many language tests that a kid can take. But, at the same time, no all are language talents.

The prblems lie in the wrong implementation of native speaker project. It should train the local teachers first before starting the project. All teachers should have O Level English before they can take the job.

Just imagine a kid learn a language at school and after school, especially during the school holidays, he/she might not able to listen to the sound. To the learner, how and what his feeling is. Try it and see.


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comment 10
Dam date : 25/09/2007 time : 20.11
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/system

Khun Piset, i did come across of all kinds of translation machine, but, no ill feeling, the translation of voice or what so ever will be obslete one day.

Education is for the future generation. But not today. As for your sunset days, you have to consider the deficiecy in hearing etc that old age brings in. I volunteered for the old age home in the past and have heard lots of such stories.

Well, if the Chinese government does not lay down the condition of graduating with a band 4 ( whatever it use or not, as you have commented it before ) and the rush to get green cards in the States. It would be that many to learn English. There is always a cause and effect but not because it is an internatinal language. Who entitled English an International language.

My comment reply earlier did not appear and wrote such a lengthy. But alas now my eyes are painful long hours of reading.

But it again depends on the circles and how far one travel in China. I am sure your 17 years or maybe more may not have met all levels of people, or all walks of life.

However, my short stay impressed me that Esperanto is taking up the place.

Fo the language in the websites, it depends on what language you key in, if you key in Hindu, all the websites in Hindi will come up. It is hard to count how many and wiki is going all language include Esperanto. http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%88efpa%C4%9Do

You earn a living upon English language thus your strong stand on it it understood.
comment 9
Piset date : 25/09/2007 time : 16.50
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/mahwatthai
Piset

Oh, I just realize you are talking about the translating machines. or the voice response typewriters.

Many translation company tried to make a living with those translation softwares. You should read some of them when you are in bad mood, it could burst you into thunderous laughters.




comment 8
Piset date : 25/09/2007 time : 16.42
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/mahwatthai
Piset

Dear Khun Dam:

Please excuse me, I still do not understand your latest statement.

In China, over 300 million people are woring hard hours and hours of work everyday now trying to master English.

If you do not notice, China, by culture is both very realistic and humble, they are promoting English language learning in every way as a mean to gaining time they have lost in their decades of ignorance of the world, in order to catch up with the world.

I can confirm to you that 8 years after my retirement, I still get plenty of contacts and plenty of things to enrich my days, mainly because I have invested my time into learning Chinese and English. Very honestly, I still speak fluent Thai, but can hardly find any use for it in the past 17 years.

The above is true with no insulting intended to anybody.

Respectfully.

ps I no longer need any jobs, by the way.
comment 7
Dam date : 25/09/2007 time : 16.16
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/system

Khun Piset, if my post did not appear, as it is, then i shall come back again later. But i just like to let you know that soon you will have no job http://www.bangkokpost.com/190907_Database/19Sep2007_data01.php

Since you are in China, you should know many major cities in China have Esperanto club and my page also have link of the radio from China.

I shall ignore that sun set man's comment. He could not convinec any one with evidents but merely from his personal views. No one is expert.

comment 6
Piset date : 25/09/2007 time : 15.39
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/mahwatthai
Piset

Iam:

I believe that Dam is not completely ignorant, the points he bought up about Thais not speaking English and the French president's making a speech in English were both valid and true.

The difference could be the different frames of references that we had and the range that we explored in determining the need of English.

You might agreed also that many farangs are very unlike you, they might just see Thailand as the Oriental Hotel or the Cowboy Lane. You have the feet on the ground and down to eart contact with some of the Thais.

Like myself in China for the 17th year, I now am fully convinced that there are still so much of China that I really know nothing at all.
comment 5
Ian date : 25/09/2007 time : 13.12
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

Piset, your comments and Dam's make an interesting contrast, you see my comments as valid comment and agree with additions of your own. Dam just sees them as more criticism from what he regards as an ignorant farang:-)
You show your education and intelligence, he just displays his ignorance and stupid intolerance. You meet people like this in every country it is a great pity.
comment 4
Piset date : 25/09/2007 time : 12.26
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/mahwatthai
Piset

I am mostly in support of Ian's view point.

Let me add a few more lines.

1) Go into a big library or the internet and search informaiton of any subjects. You will find that most of the available information on most of the subjects are available in English, whereas, some might be available in French, Thai, Chinese, but to a much lesser extent. Thus, by being able to understand English one can expand one's source of information by many many times as compare to Thai or French or even Chinese.
2) English, for now, is a world language used by many international organization as the official language. I am a professional simultaneous translator for international conferences during the past 16 years. We are getting less and less assignments now because of the decrease in the needs to translate, since most of the participants either choose to present in English or can understand English well. When such translation is not available, the participants simply must be able to understand English.
3) For a country as small as Thailand, it must realized how small it is before behaving like a "care for nobody proud spoiled person." Imagine Singapore, it they only speaks Malay or Hokkian there and insisted upon that there, Singapore would be far far behind Thailand now. The same for Hong Kong, now Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen.

They moved faster than Bangkok because they realize, accepted and go one with what they must learned rather than laying back with their own phony proud past.

Language is a tool, learning one more major language would enable one to expand one's horizon, network of communicable world by so much. It is all gain and not lost.

The most stupid things in Thailand are those teachers still trying to force the students to spent days and hours on the languages that nobody used any more at the cost of the time for the more useful languages
comment 3
Dam date : 25/09/2007 time : 11.30
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/system

Comment 2, please, again, i beg you to think twice before you jump into concludsion and don't show your igronant in the issue wiht repeated of the history of the language.

Is President of France will not speak English in the UN session.

Can you read world famous classic of Chinese, of which is not translated. Thus , using the world as a result to convience people is only to scare those in the ban area.

Don't show your weakness if you like to keep your personality.
comment 2
Ian date : 25/09/2007 time : 08.42
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/anterian36

At one time Latin was the language of communication of educated people, then it became French, now it is English.
If you are a scientist and seek international recognition you must publish in English. Similarly in the areas of international politics, diplomacy and commerce, English is the universal language. Anyone who has to act through an interpreter is at a dissadvantage.
So the question for Thais is, is English essential for my career. In any of the areas I have mentioned I would say yes, if I wish to read or study world literature or information sources, the answer is yes. If I wish to keep abreast of world news and events the answer is yes.
This is simply because the global output of information is far greater than any media outlet or other service could possibly translate into Thai.
So if your reading ability is limited to Thai then you are automatically excluded from most of the information available in the world.
I am not saying learn English because I am English and lazy to learn Thai:-) I am simply saying learn English if you seek to broaden your knowledge of the world.
comment 1
Lion date : 25/09/2007 time : 04.03
http://blog.nationmultimedia.com/htunix

It can be tricky by let children attained English class on the side prior to study in school and keep doing this until they are well enough. Their brain will remember and always find ways to practice the English skill better or known earlier than the normal, Let life works

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