[NEW] Thailand’s English skills lagging, says training company | ef thailand – NATAVIGUIDES

Thailand’s English skills lagging, says training company

Source: Education First English Proficiency Index

According English First’s latest English proficiency index, Thailand is far behind many of its neighbours and most of the world. The index, however, is not without critics.

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By far the most highly read story on the Bangkok Post website yesterday was about the release of the Education First’s annual English Proficiency Index.

The index shows that English language proficiency in Thailand is very low and dropping relative to other countries. The Kingdom is the third worst in Asia and ranks 62 out of 70 nations included in the index.

It will be interesting to see what, if any, reaction there will be from government officials, but don’t be surprised if some take aim at the test itself. Every year, the index takes the same criticism – it does not use a representative sample. 

This year, the fifth year the index has been released, the results were derived from test data collected from more than 910,000 adults who took the company’s online English tests in 2014. In other words, the test-takers chose to take the test themselves and they had access to the internet. Thus, they may or may not be typical of English-language speakers throughout the country. We don’t know.

Supporters of the test say, however, that it is useful because it has a very large sample and is one of the few tools we have for comparing English-language proficiency across countries. And few would argue with the conclusion that Thailand as a whole has an English-language problem.

With this in mind, here are excerpts from yesterday’s story by Bob James.

Thai English proficiency drops, now 3rd worst in Asia – EF

Bob James

Thailand fell to 62nd out of 70 nations in English proficiency and is now the third-worst country in Asia on Education First’s annual English Proficiency Index.

Even as countries such as Vietnam and India posted marked gains in English skills, Thailand’s ranking fell the most in the Asian region, with the country now boasting better skills than only Cambodia and Mongolia on the list.

Worldwide, Thailand beat out only those countries, plus Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Saudia Arabia and Libya.

“Thailand’s English proficiency remains low despite the country’s large tourism industry,” stated the report from EF, an international education company specialising in language training, educational travel, academic-degree programmes and cultural exchanges.

“Thailand’s school system performs poorly on international assessments across all subject areas. The average years of schooling there are also lower than the regional average, meaning that Thai adults are less educated than many other Asians.”

Education First noted that Thais still exhibit poor English skills even though the country spends a greater percentage of its budget – 31.3% – on education than any of the 70 countries it surveyed.

The company noted the current government now has mandated that schools align their English teaching to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in order to standardise teaching nationally.

The government also has set a “modest” goal of a B1 level in English for all high school graduates, EF said.

Source: Education First English Proficiency Index

As is the case globally, women in Thailand speak better English than men, 46.3% to 44.3%. Global proficiency averages for women and men, respectively, however, are 53.4% and 52.1%.

The country’s decline in English proficiency can be seen in age breakdowns. Youths 18-20 years old and adults 21-25 exhibit poorer English skills than those in the 26-30 age bracket.

Globally both those age groups do better with English, EF found.

Average scores on the international TOEFL and IELTS in Thailand came in at 76 and 5.3, respectively. TOEFL scores among the surveyed countries ranged from a low of 61 to a high of 100.

Thailand has dropped 11 spots in the proficiency rankings for non-native English speaking countries.

The kingdom is now ranked 64th among the 88 listed countries and territories in the EF English Proficiency Index 2018. This year’s ranking, conducted by Switzerland-based Education First, a language school operator with branches worldwide, is based on test data from 1.3 million adults who took the EF Standard English Test (EF SET) last year.

In the latest results, Thailand has a score of 48.54, which is classified as low proficiency.

In 2017, Thailand was 53rd (49.7) out of 80 countries and was also categorised in the low proficiency band.

In East Asia, Thailand has the worst English proficiency except for Cambodia and Myanmar. Thailand is far behind China and Japan, which supposedly have low abilities in English.

Sweden tops the EF English Proficiency Index 2018 with 70.7, bumping last year’s top-scorer, the Netherlands (70.3), into second place. Singapore ranked third with 68.6 followed by Norway (68.3) and Denmark (67.3).

Libya is ranked at the bottom with a score of 39.64 behind Iraq (40.8), Uzbekistan (42.5), Cambodia (42.8) and Afghanistan (43.6).

Among Asian countries, Singapore was top, followed by the Philippines in 14th, Malaysia in 22nd place, India in 28th, Hong Kong in 30th, South Korea in 31st, Vietnam in 41st, Macau in 44th, China in 47th, Taiwan in 48th and Japan in 49th.

The full report is available at EF.co.th, while a summary of the Thai proficiency is at this link

One of the key findings according to the survey is that English proficiency has not improved in Asia despite high levels of investment in the language.

New correlations indicate that societies with higher English proficiency are more egalitarian. Women also continue to outpace men in English skills worldwide, and this gender gap has been widening since 2016.

Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin said that the development of Thai students’ English skills is crucial and needs serious improvement.

“Each Thai student studies English for at least 12 years at primary and secondary school, but most remain unable to communicate in English. This is the main obstacle to global competition,” he said.

The two main challenges that need to be addressed are Thai teachers’ English skills and their teaching approach, according to Mr Teerakiat.

By focusing on language accuracy and memorisation rather than communication, most Thai students are left unable to converse effectively in English. Many Thai students were also found to have a poor attitude towards English classes.

In 2015, the Ministry of Education and the British Council teamed up to improve the skills of primary and secondary English teachers through the Regional English Training Centres (RETC) project. Approximately 17,000 out of 40,000 of Thailand’s English teachers have been trained and mentored in a more conversational approach since the project began.