Sonthida Keyuravong                    Taka reports:



Wednesday 26th November saw a visitor from Thailand. Her name is Sonthida Keyuravong from King Mongkut's University of Technology. She has been involved in English Education there as well as a being a past head of Thai TESOL. Undergraduate and Graduate students as well as exchange students from Thailand attended the presentation.

Prof. Sonthida Keyuravong explained about the history, the current policy, and a cutting-edge environment of English Education in Thailand. Since some of the attendees have a great interest in English Education, it was a great chance to know about the system of a different country. She mentioned that both Thailand and Japan are countries which have never been colonised, but the goals of English Education are different. Thailand sees the main purpose of English Education to allow people to get better jobs. Some schools in Thailand have three programmes; Regular programme, English programme, and International programme. Some privileged schools have great facilities for learning English, even in public schools. However, it is also true that you can see some gaps between schools in rural areas and in the city.

The lecture involved a lot of interaction between the presenter and us, and we all enjoyed having her in our university. After the presentation, some students approached her to ask some questions and deepen the topic through some discussion. These kind of events can allow us to have a wider perspective towards our country. We are looking forward to having her again as well as other visitors!

Sonthida with Thai students who are studying at AUE: