A simple but unanswered question of why Thai students lack practical English communicative skills
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Abstract
The focus of this article is on a simple question raised to ask about the current situation of English communicative skills among Thai students with an aim to see an increasing number of Thai citizens communicating in English efficiently, particularly in the marketplace environment. Even though the question examined in this paper is not a new issue in Thai society as it has been elevated among the public for several decades, it is worth investigating when time has flown to the third decade of the 21st century to see the progress of the English communication phenomenon in Thailand with a hope that the findings, in a certain degree, would be useful for English teaching and learning in a Thai context. Several current news reports, surveys and research were explored to examine recent English usage circumstances. Although the results of the discovery were relatively unsatisfactory compared with hard efforts that have been tremendously dedicated to this problematic issue, the investigation presented in this paper together with useful perspectives and the disclosed roots of the problems could be the voice of a Thai English teacher who was trying to offer some viewpoints and factual information to the authority to look back onto the country’s unsolved matter seriously.
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