First of all, although everyone seems to recite “Thai people’s English is not good enough”, the discussion stops short of explaining what not good enough means and for what. Most academics I speak to suggest that the notion of ‘native-speaker’ is dead in that non-native speakers should be proud of their ‘non-standard variety of English’ (whatever that maybe). However, papers at the conference and discussions I’ve had in Bangkok to date seem to suggest otherwise; these are all about how a Thai accent has to be eliminated or how Thai grammar interferes with standard English grammar, or that Thai people should stop being shy, etc. All of these discourses are evidence for the fact that the native speaker/Western ideal is well and truly alive. This schizophrenic-like approach to assessment of what’s good English is the hidden mechanism that keeps Thai non-native speakers of English forever insecure about their English, and that keeps Western native speaker teachers popular in the job market.