At the school that I was teaching at in northern Korat,
the majority of English teacher teachers could read to an acceptable level, but the same could not be said about their speaking.
It was laborious and constrained,not at all sounding natural,with most words being pronounced with a strong accent, or just plain incorrect. And do not even mention listening!
Not surprisingly, the same could be said about the students. They could read English and do exercises from a book, but not much else. They implored me, and many others, to speak slowly, even though one could not speak slower. The bottom line is their abilities were not good enough. They could barely speak in language, let alone comprehend what others were said. And this was high school students, albeit Matthayom 1 and 2. The administration did not help matters any when they refused my request to use listing tapes.
Being a teacher in Korea previously, I always thought that Koreans had problems with conversational English ; but Thai students' abilities paled in comparison.And we're talking about those in the English intensive program,supposedly the smartest. something clearly needs to be done. The only saving grace is that the students weren't necessarily the best. Why?