picture album page 3 of 2004
April
"The Thai language has 44 consonants and 32 vowels and 5 tones..."
"If you speak English in Thailand, you will be in the middle or upper class of the society,
but if you don't speak English, you will belong to the low class..."
Dr. Chansue has been reported on CNN for her repairs of turtle shells with fiberglass!
Guest speaker: Dr. Nantarika Chansue
Date: Saturday, April 24th (2004)
Title: Using English in Thailand: Is It Different from Japan?
21 people attended the meeting.
Dr. Nantarika Chansue is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Thailand's leading national university, Chulalongkorn University. Educated in Thailand, Japan, and the United States, and a frequent visitor to Japan, Dr. Chansue is known internationally for her work on aquatic animals. She has developed new techniques in the area of fish surgery and articles on her work on turtle shell repairs with artificial materials have appeared in publications such as Mini World, the English language learners' newspaper. Dr. Chansue also lectures annually at Miyazaki University. She holds a PhD from the College of William and Mary, Virginia. A Masters in Business Administration, and recently completed a graduate degree in law. She also holds a Diploma in Gemological Science, NAUI certified dive instructor and has won trophies for pistol shooting. At present, she is currently enrolling in a Masters of Mass Communication program in Bangkok. Dr. Chansue started her talk with a pop quiz about Thailand in order to familiarize the audience with Thai culture. English is compulsory in Thailand and it is taught from the first grade. There is also social pressure to learn English, as it is a mark of high status. Thais are not afraid to use English, unlike the situation in Japan. She pointed to the problem of too much translation of the materials in Japan. Her talk was liberally sprinkled with sparkling anecdotes from her life, as she pointed to the similarities and difference in the cultural attitudes towards language learning. Both Japanese and Thai use non-Roman alphabets, though Thai uses the same SVO word order as English. Pronunciation problems are similar, though Thai itself is a tonal language. She highlighted the fact that there are no programs similar to JET or native speaking ALT's in Thailand and that the salaries for foreign teachers are so low that most commercial language schools are forced to recruit from among the tattooed and pierced backpackers who dwell on the infamous Khao San Road. Be that as it may, the average TOEFL score in Thailand is 495, slightly higher than Japan's 484. Dr. Chansue's talk ended with a lively question and answers session.
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Akita JALT
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