Janpha, I hope you are not gauging Australian English on Paul Hogan. Australian speakers, through gradual change and worldly maturity, have long passed his comedy strine a long time ago. Australian speakers are up there with the best in the western world. Our young have what I call a lovely neo-Australian accent, clear and succinct in its own style.

I would like to share with you that the good effect Esperanto brings to our future generation. http://www.mondeto.com/1/post/2011/09/immediate-and-lasting-advantages-of-early-esperanto-1-brain-building.html

Look at how the The English language teaching sector directly earns nearly £1.3 billion for the UK in invisible exports http://www.britishcouncil.org/learning-research-english-next.pdf

The dominance of English creates the prejudices and stereotypes http://miresperanto.narod.ru/en/english_as_intern/hegemony_of_english.htm

This topic is also highlighted recently in this web discussing the China situation.

Saluton

I come to this article, a little late but better than never. I was disappointed with the comment of Janpha, who is in view of supporting of English in his/her own country but also for the ASEAN. Certainly, I am a citizen of ASEAN whodo not see eye to eye with this. WE in ASEAN can never be as perfect as the English native speakers no matter how hard we try it. Our daily chores are occupied with the local languages and how many minutes are left for English.

What Dr Philipson said is correct and we in ASEAN should consider using Esperanto as the commond language but not imperialist language , http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/mar/13/linguistic-imperialism-english-language-teaching. If you can pay attention to the European development, they would be going Esperanto but not English in order to maintain multilingualism. ASEAN has the large pool of languages are facing disappearing leading by Indonesia with 700 languages and now left less than 600.

Most of the ASEAN countries are not rich countries. Spending time and money on English are unwised move by the political leaders. If you don’t want the future generation to lose the competition read http://www.2-2.se The Esperanto is taking shape in Thailand now with Asia University is doing a research on that. Vietnam is a famous Esperanto country and 1st Indonesia Esperanto Congress will be held this April https://sites.google.com/site/iek2013bogor/

We are moving to Esperanto rather maintaining the colonial lang

Interesting! Exacctly what is it then, that “is not good enough”? And how might it be improved?

I know first-hand that teachers and lecturers are not looking at the way, though. They merely want to improve the student’s proficiency by the way of pushing them towards the perfection, hoping that their students will become better at using the language in their later life, and work.

I know this is just a tip of the iceberg. There are many more issues out there. And, yes, Thailand needs to rethink about its stance on English. So do the teachers and lecturers. Linguistics, from my point of view, can serve as the remedy.

For me, as a Thai and linguist, the problem lies in the insufficient understanding of Linguistics. The teachers are of course good at English, the language itself, but sadly not the tool of teaching it. Teaching English is an art combined with science. This is what I think Thailand lacks.

However, there is a point needed to be mentioned. The level of the language required can be roughly divided into two chunks. The first one is the communicative level, which your writing is very well explained. The other one is the more advanced level, which I think is still needed to be looked at.

Expectation arises when someone hears that a person is graduated with a B.A. or M.A. in English or in English-related field. She or he is expected to deliver a near-perfect level of the language, if there ever is such a level. The expectation like this is the drive of the native-like language competence.
… (to be continued)

Ingrid and others may be interested on my co-authored Thai-based work on communicative approaches and the need to go beyond this. http://www.asian-efl-journal.com/december_04_HJ&SA.php The work is a bit dated now, but nevertheless thought provoking I hope.

Thanks, Janpha. I’m not sure it’s correct to say that the EU has been ‘forced’ to adopt a multilingual approach. Multilingualism is part of European democracy. There is nothing wrong with employing translators and interpreters, either, as you seem to imply. It’s certainly a more efficient way to communicate than making a majority of people speak a language they are uncomfortable with …

If you are interested in European multilingualism, check out the resources of the European Commission at http://ec.europa.eu/languages/index_en.htm

EU could not do it this way, as English is perceived to be neutral in Europe. So the EU is somewhat forced to adopt a multilingual approach (they end up hiring an army of translators!)

English use in Asean is growing significantly. I agree with the observation that Thailand has been influenced by the inner-circle standards. I myself not not worry about the many kinds of Englishes to be spoken in Thailand. I love to have more native speakers to help create a more English-using society in Thailand and in Asean at large.

I think most Thai who are learning and using English know too that their pronunciation and accents are far from perfect and native speakers (Australian, American, English, etc) teaching in Thailand do not expect them to sound like native speakers, RP, or even General American, or Paul Hogan’s Assie.

I think when more Thais start to use English with fellow Thai, Asean citizens, and others — out- of -class use of English will create many interesting varieties — by default.

Just my two cents.

Janpha Thadphoothon

Prof. Phillipson’s talk is now available on the website.