Thai news stories

Do you speak English Khun Noy?

By surapong, Created on: 26/07/2010, Last updated on: 07/01/2016

» Ms Noy’s gonna need some English lessons in order to pass her tests to prove that her command of the language is good enough before being granted her visa. The number of Thai women from the Northeast marrying foreigners is rising every year. Over the past few months, almost 2,000 people have shown...

• prommee_NE commented : Just to add to the above: As a non-German who has resided in Germany for many years the rules are: A member of the EU, and his/her dependants can reside in Germany indefinitely without having to take any language proficiency test (although it helps to speak some German if you are going to live there). A non member of the EU has two years to pass a language proficiency test...If they fail after two years they will have problems getting a new visa. Schools have been set up for teaching German at a very low cost (I was unaware that the money was refundable...although I think in Bavaria the courses are free so it probably depends on region). Most major Companies also run free language training programs for their non German speaking employees So IF Thailand wishes to make it compulsory to learn Thai in order to get/renew a visa then maybe they should look at the German system. The problem would probably be the ability to run courses that are easily accessible and of minimal cost to make them attractive enough for foreigners to learn a language that they can only use in a very small area of the world. Beau58: As long as people are resigned to the fact that they cannot change things...things won't change. It applies generally but in this case the Education System. It takes people LIKE YOU, who are experienced in teaching in the Country and have a good reputation to change things, rather than people like me who frequent a remote village and try and install some sort of innovation.

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