With the rapid progress of information and communication technology during recent
decades, a vast amount of knowledge has been spreading through our borderless world.
As the quantity and power of knowledge has increased greatly, it has thrust the world
into a knowledge-based economy as well as the knowledge-based society. With this
unprecedented global change, an ever increasing number of developed and developing
countries have been making great efforts to build up international cooperation and
networks in order to seek the ways to develop their own country politically,
economically and socially. In this trend of globalization, the most important language
being used among countries, institutions and individuals all over the world is the
English language. Therefore, English has come to be considered globally as the
international or global language. At the same time, the world trend has become
focused on internationalization in almost every area due to the challenges of global
competitiveness. Some have asserted that it is far from inevitable that the spread of
English will continue, however unstoppable it may appear at present, and educational
systems need to prepare for this eventuality (John E. Joseph, 2001), but all evidence in
recent years indicates that the English language education will be a critical priority for
education systems in most developing countries for many years to come.
The governments of so many countries have regarded the significance of English
language education and allowed the Ministry of Education to set up the policy and
strategies for promoting effective English Language Teaching (ELT) in every level of
education. In the past, the traditional ELT of the countries where English is non-native
emphasized the grammar-translation and rote learning method of teaching. Teachers
preferred to teach reading and writing skills to their students rather than listening and
speaking skills. This method was not attractive, leaving the students bored and
frustrated in their attempts to learn English, and consequently most students developed
negative attitudes toward ELT. It was determined that such methods of teaching had
resulted in the failure of ELT in so many countries.
Later, the idea of communicative language teaching (CLT), focusing on listening and
speaking skills, was discussed in several papers presented at the 1978 RELC* seminar
in Singapore (Ho Wah Kam, 2001). Subsequently this concept was incorporated into
Thailand English curriculum in 1996. Even though the Ministry of Education in
Thailand has tried to raise the standards of ELT in this and other ways, we continue to
face several problems as is evidenced in the results of the English language evaluation
of our students as a whole.