and themajority of the population use one of the four regional dialects of Thai rather than standardThai (Simpson and Thammasathien 2007). Nevertheless, given the relatively minor statusgiven to other languages in the country, English fo
rms the ‘de facto’ second language of
Thailand. There are a number of domains in which English is widely used in Thailandincluding: as a compulsory subject in school and in higher education, as a medium of instruction in international education programmes, as the language of internationalorganisations and conferences (including ASEAN and ASEAN +3), for international businesstransactions, tourism, the internet, global advertising, scientific and technology transfer