TEFL Courses, TESOL Courses and TEFL Certificate Training, TESOL Certificate Training for Teaching English Abroad: Thailand

While I hesitate to call myself an ‘old Thai hand’, I have been in Asia since Lyndon Johnson invited me to tour South East Asia.  In those years, I have taught at the high school, college and graduate levels in four different countries. Upon receiving an invitation to teach at the ‘Harvard’ of Thailand, I decided to spend a year in the Land of Smiles. I had been teaching in Tokyo for 12 years and Japan was becoming a bit tiresome, not to mention very, very expensive. Soon after arriving in the Big Durian, I met a very sweet young woman working in a restaurant. Over time, we became very well acquainted and she later became my wife.

When we met she had a very small English vocabulary, and as a teaching professional I took it upon myself to improve her English language skills.  Now this sounds simple and straightforward, but reality has a way of rearing its ugly head. Two people cannot live together daily, when one is correcting the other’s grammar and vocabulary. It simply doesn’t work. Thus, I soon gave up my quest for skill attainment in my beloved and actually over time her communication skills improved on their own.

I am a video nut and we rent all the latest films that appear at the rental store. Over the years my wife has learned a great deal of language from watching films, though her usage is somewhat unique. She will often, when in need of a descriptive phrase, cobble together her own construction.  Once, on a visit to Jomthien Beach, she asked me to rent a motoscy naam! After a bit of thought, I realized she meant a jet ski! Now, this is a typical example of how a Thai will approach a communication difficulty. Though over time, this phrase has become part of her extended lexicon. She uses this, as if it were standard English, since she understands it, and she knows that I understand it, so communication will be successful!

She has devised a large number of such phrases that she will use daily. Another one is ‘pushing car’. A pushing car is anything with wheels that one pushes to move. A luggage cart at the airport, a supermarket trolley, a wheelchair. One lexical item suits all!  

I have come to realize that in the Thai mind, accuracy is secondary to useful invention. This construction and usage serves her purpose well, thus no further effort is needed. Expediency is the watch word.

As I am familiar with her way of communicating, it is quite interesting to see her conversing with my family members on visits to the homeland: the quizzical looks on their faces when at first they are unable to make sense out of her language, then their surprise when they discover that they can indeed understand.

Over the years my wife's fluency has grown immensely, though her accuracy has made little headway, and I fear that she has reached a point of ‘fossilization’ where her grammar and usage ceases to improve. Sort of a permanent ‘foreigner’ manner of speaking. Often she even sounds like one of Chico Marx’s Italian immigrant characters. But that does not faze her. She is always ready to wade into any situation.

Another time, I will explore her new constructs that seem to come out of nowhere...

         

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