English for your Boyfriend

[lonelywombat]

British Philippino is so much more soothing to one's ear. ;-)

Anyway, I randomly met a nice middle aged blond falang lady that had a table and booth-like setup at the Terminal 21 mall the other day. They were handing out flyers about their language school. Then I met her Thai lady peer. Both very nice. And not in as much of a sales pitchy kind of way. Anyway, 200-300 baht per course. Pay as you go. Sounded good. I made an appointment to go there with "M" a few days later.
We went. "M" liked it very much. He starts classes on Thursday.
Only 3 people per teacher. No Thai students. Native English language teachers. Sounds good.

Over 20 years ago in 1992 when I planned to spend the winter months in Bangkok, my friends who were teaching English suggested i join them. The pay rate was 200 baht per hour. The hours were terrible working 7-9 in the morning and 6-9 at night

On a good day i could have made 1000 baht per day. I gave it a huge miss. I mention this as your rates are 200/300 baht per course and only three in the class. I am currently paying for a 35 hour term, 5000 baht, with about 20 in the class.

Your figures might might have sense if they were in US $, but they seem crap to me.

[Jimmy Joom]

I have never posted on here, only have readтАж but I can say that I have put someone through school at RMIT at Siam Tower and have been very pleased with the results. They seem to get people to be able to communicate very fast, which has been a help to me. I highly recommend them.

[bruce_nyc]

RMIT sounds good....

I just googled and noticed their YouTube videos. They seem very focused on Australian English.

For example, they have an entire video explaining the question, "How are you going?"

They claim it does NOT mean, "By what means of transportation are you going?"

They say it means the same thing as, "How are you?"

This would be considered incorrect English in America.

This is English that's new to me. In all my life I've never heard someone say, "How're you going?" ......unless the intended answer was, "We're flying or taking a bus."

Teaching quarky local Australian dialect phrases that only fellow Australian people would understand seems like an enormous waste of time and money. My Australian friends understand American and British English just fine. I've never had a need to learn Australian slang or local dialect in order to communicate with them effectively.

[colmx]

RMIT sounds good....

I just googled and noticed their YouTube videos. They seem very focused on Australian English.

For example, they have an entire video explaining the question, "How are you going?"

They claim it does NOT mean, "By what means of transportation are you going?"

They say it means the same thing as, "How are you?"

Sounds like a perfectably acceptable form of English to my Irish ears!
Except in my case the english would usually be "How'is it going?" Which means "How are you?"
I'm pretty sure that teh British also use a pretty similar colloquialism

[bruce_nyc]

Yes, of course. We say, "How's IT going?" IT being your day... Same as saying, "How's your day going?"

But they specifically dedicated an entire video to: "How are you going?"

......meaning, "How are you?"

That's just plain incorrect, by American English standards.

[Nirish guy]

RMIT sounds good....

I just googled and noticed their YouTube videos. They seem very focused on Australian English.

For example, they have an entire video explaining the question, "How are you going?"

They claim it does NOT mean, "By what means of transportation are you going?"

They say it means the same thing as, "How are you?"

Sounds like a perfectably acceptable form of English to my Irish ears!
Except in my case the english would usually be "How'is it going?" Which means "How are you?"
I'm pretty sure that teh British also use a pretty similar colloquialism

We certainly do here in N.Ireland and indeed it's intended and taken as a relaxed friendly greeting that you might say to someone with the nod of the head as you pass them in the street without even expecting a serious reply other than "Grand 100%, yerself" :-) there, go and look that up in the English books :-)

[Jimmy Joom]

Perhaps I should mention that I felt more comfortable with my friend learning British English, and RMIT was able to provide a British Teacher. Apparently they have teachers from the United States and Australia, also. I don't have much experience with other institutions in Bangkok, but as we were investigating, I thought their intake process was the best. They give a computerized test which takes about 45 minutes followed by a writing task and a 10 minute interview with a teacher before assigning a course.

My friend did not want to study at the British council because they have larger classes, otherwise we would have chosen them. They, too, seemed professional. I was surprised at the number of language schools around the area that were obviously not as good as these two. I don't think this is an area I would want to sacrifice quality for cost's sake.

Interestingly, I had a look at my friend's course material, and it did not seem like they were teaching any particular style of English. My friend's accent hasn't changed, but his speaking has become faster and more clear. After Songkran, I will pay for another 50 hours.

I don't know if other people will find the place as good, but I can only speak for myself. I was satisfied enough that I felt compelled to write this, I hope you've found this useful.

[thaiguest]

a friend of mine recommended British Council. Anyone have any experience with it?

Aren't you American? In this case, do you really want your boyfriend to learn British English? From that point of view, the American counterpart AUA would probably be more suitable. That aside, both are very decent.

Yeah. They can't spell for nuts over there with weird words like neighbour (and this word has noth'in to do with horses), colour and so on.

The AUA branch near Rachateewi (?) skytrain station (next station after Sala Deang going towards Siam) has a very progressive approach to language learning/teaching.

Call in and the principal will be very happy to give you a tour and a chance to sit in on a lesson or two.