Arthur_Ide commented : It is my hope that Thailand will judge the merits of the prospective teacher and ignore externals (age, race, religion, appearance, etc) as nations are shorting themselves excellent teachers who can advance learning a language correctly without the bells and whistles of modern methodologies, pedagogies, strategies, etc (all of which I have written about and taught), as the critical criteria is that the teacher is a subject-matter expert.

Arthur_Ide commented : [quote="Paul Garrioch":389ev6z0]The Prime Minister has explained the plan for a nuclear power plant to produce energy for Thailand and help Thailand move away from reliance on oil and gas. Thailand is a net importer of energy, getting much of its energy from the middle east at a huge cost to the country. Added to that the use of oil is polluting and a cause of green house gases. So the plan is to import huge numbers of foreign experts into Thailand and spend lots of money to build a nuclear power plant which would be operational by about 2020. Thailand would then need to continue hiring foreigners to run the plant, perhaps continue paying off the foreign debt they will get by building the plant and will be in constant need of foreign uranium and foreign help to get rid of or store the incredibly toxic waste produce that comes from nuclear energy. It seems to my simple brain that this does not fix Thailand's energy problems. Nuclear energy relies on foreign materials (uranium) which Australia almost has a monopoly on and so can set the price however they want (ie. wait 10-20 years until everyone relies on uranium and then double the price). Nuclear energy is just as polluting or more so than oil, especially if you count the mass usage of oil and coal used in the mining of uranium. Then there is the massive problem of storing incredibly toxic waste for thousands of years. Added to that - in a world political situation that is becoming more unstable and a world environment that is becoming more unstable - why would we want a nuclear power plant anywhere near us? Hmmm, what can we do to stop this silly idea???? Clearly the better answers are: Use less energy. Use energy more efficiently Use renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, thermal, tidal, etc.[/quote:389ev6z0] It is absurd to continue to use massive amounts of energy when 50 years ago the energy consumption was less than 5% of what it is today. Nuclear is not the answer. Look at what happened in Japan. Nuclear plants are unsafe. Turn to renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and water.