The Importance Of English Language In Thailand

Abstract

English continues to be widely recognized as the language of business throughout the world and it will maintain and grow even more dominant. In the past speaking English as a second language was a marker of the ‘elite’ but nowadays is a basic skill that people should have (Dorie 2012). It is often perceived by the younger population that does not have English as their first language (L1), that speaking English will lead to a prosperous career later in life. This paper looks into why Thailand has and is experiencing so many problems with its citizens learning or acquiring English as a foreign language. Furthermore, the research examined in this paper identifies common mispronunciation of English words by Thai learners especially mispronunciation of English

This new and revolutionizing method and approach to teaching in Thailand was to replace the monotonous forever lasting grammar translation method, which is fully embedded and traditional in Thai methods (Sumdangdej 2007). If the focus of the teacher is on pronunciation, especially consonants it is imperative that they know how and can implement how to teach properly. For those Thai teachers who do focus on pronunciation and are keen to see development in the students’ pronunciation so it nears intelligenabiliy, it is important that those teachers can analise profiently enough to detect any errors especially when the students are articulating English constanants. If the teacher does identify mispronunciation of sounds it is recommended that a plan is implemented which includes following processes to teach the correct pronunciation; these processes included discrimitation, recongnition and produvtion (Kanokpermpoonm