Ways to Improve Thai students’ English Proficiency
One of the most challenging issues in Thailand is Thai students’ shortage of English proficiency. Because ASEAN community will be completely united in the end of the year 2015, English will play a bigger role as the official language in the region. Surprisingly, Thailand will be the hub country of ASEAN in many ways. As a result, this problem is very challenging since Thai students’ English proficiency is very low comparing with ones from the other countries within many reasons. The first reason is that Thai students have fear of speaking with foreigners. Many of them are afraid of losing their face from making mistakes during the conversation. Moreover, Thai students have been taught to concentrate on correcting grammar more than they do on speaking skills in their daily lives. The second reason is that Thai students have the negative thoughts on English learning. For example, Thai students are not motivated to give enough attention on learning English. And when the progress on learning English does not move, they find it is difficult to learn. The last reason would be the lack of motivation from surrounding people. At the present, some families do not recognize the importance of learning English, so children in the family are ignored to be motivated as well. Also, the government does not have enough practical policies to help Thai students improve their English proficiency efficiently.