Flashermac Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 Bangkok Post 20 Oct 2010 The Education Ministry has scrapped a plan to make English the country's second language, saying it could lead to misunderstandings that Thailand had been colonised in the past. The ministry will make English the main foreign language instead of the second official language, Education Minister Chinnaworn Boonyakiat said yesterday. A subcommittee on education standards development under the committee on education reform proposed in July that English be made the country's second official language. The panel hoped this would spur students to achieve proficiency in English and help place the nation on the road map to the Asean Community in 2015. Mr Chinnaworn said the ministry had carefully considered the proposal and found it might lead to misunderstandings among people and agencies responsible for implementing the policy. Other countries that have declared English a second official language were normally viewed as former colonies, he said. Thai is the only official language of Thailand. The minister maintained that the ministry would make a serious effort to improve English teaching and learning in schools even though the second language proposal had been scrapped. The ministry would outline its key policies for education improvement on Friday, with the attempt to make English the main foreign language on the agenda. The plan calls for the development of English teaching and learning at popular public and private schools to be on a par with international standards. After completing their education at those schools, students would be able to communicate fluently in English, he said. Native speakers would be recruited to teach English to senior secondary school students, and the ministry would seek the cooperation of the Foreign Affairs Ministry to contact foreign teachers to teach the students. The ministry would also announce its policy on revamping the school curriculum on Friday. So what's different from what they're doing now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCorinthian Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 English is taking over just fine by itself. It will be a cornerstone of the world for at least the next 100 years for one simple fact: The Internet is written in English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 There are plenty of websites in Chinese, German, Japanese, you name it, it is there! When the US dollar is removed as the world's reserve currency, then the kee will hit the fan!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted October 20, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 Never forget that the Minister of Education is a political appointee, not a trained educator. The MoE changes fairly often too. When Thaksin was in command, the MoE changed so frequently that the regional education boards had a hard time keeping up with the changes in policy. Saying making English the second language would make tourists think Thailand had been a colony is assinine. English is the second language in Scotland and in much of the north of England, but nobody thinks they were ever colonies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCorinthian Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 There are plenty of websites in Chinese, German, Japanese, you name it, it is there! Uhhh..... Not at all what I was referring to bro. The underlying code running it ALL of the internet is in English. If you program, you HAVE to know it. (And under that is ultimately numbers, but again, in 1234567890 and not à ¹‘ à ¹’ à ¹“ à ¹†à ¹• à ¹– à ¹— à ¹˜ à ¹™ à ¹‘à ¹ ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous God Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 Let me re write this The Education Ministry has scrapped a plan to make English the country's second language, saying it could lead to misunderstandings that Thailand had been colonised in the past by England. In fact it has been colonised by China, and will make obscure Chinese dialects the second main language, ignoring Mandarin, which is considered to be worthless if speaking to a Chinese Thai person, said the Ministries advisor Khun Chungghaijingjinggengmark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 There are plenty of websites in Chinese' date=' German, Japanese, you name it, it is there![/quote'] Uhhh..... Not at all what I was referring to bro. The underlying code running it ALL of the internet is in English. If you program, you HAVE to know it. (And under that is ultimately numbers, but again, in 1234567890 and not à ¹‘ à ¹’ à ¹“ à ¹†à ¹• à ¹– à ¹— à ¹˜ à ¹™ à ¹‘à ¹ ) Technical protocols to support the extension of the internet address system to languages such as Chinese and Arabic should be finalised this year, ICANN boss Paul Twomey says. Resolution of the difficulties will mean millions of new users can come online using “phone books†in their own languages, with internationalised domain names spelling the end of English-speaking domination of the world wide web. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been wrestling with the technical difficulties involved in integrating non-Roman character sets into the uniform domain name system (DNS) technology – the .com and .net address hierarchy that uniquely identifies all computers and resources attached to the global network. Dr Twomey said domain name registrars in Asian nations, India, Cyrillic language countries such as Russia and Greece, and the Arab-speaking nations were eagerly awaiting the release of the protocols so they could begin establishing their own services. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCorinthian Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 Technical protocols to support the extension of the internet address system to languages such as Chinese and Arabic should be finalised this year, ICANN boss Paul Twomey says. Resolution of the difficulties will mean millions of new users can come online using “phone books†in their own languages, with internationalised domain names spelling the end of English-speaking domination of the world wide web. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has been wrestling with the technical difficulties involved in integrating non-Roman character sets into the uniform domain name system (DNS) technology – the .com and .net address hierarchy that uniquely identifies all computers and resources attached to the global network. Dr Twomey said domain name registrars in Asian nations, India, Cyrillic language countries such as Russia and Greece, and the Arab-speaking nations were eagerly awaiting the release of the protocols so they could begin establishing their own services. Dont hold your breath. And check your spelling! (And go look at Unix. And for that matter, hexadecimal! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exileexpat Posted October 20, 2010 Report Share Posted October 20, 2010 Mr. MoE.. We know that you were never a colony.. instead you just broke the country up and gave parts of it to the french and English. And yes we wont forget that the Japanese were invited guests during those years not rules.. But of course that story changed when the Japs lost the war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted October 21, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2010 Thailand never "gave" anything to the French and Brits. Unless you call it giving when you have a gun at your head. And those "invited" Nipponese guests sure had a hell of a time when they first arrived on 8 Dec 1941. Learn your history before you try to rant and I'm sure you can do it a lot better! p.s. How many hunndreds of American GIs did the Vichy French kill or wound in Africa? I used to know the number, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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