Saturday, June 16, 2007

Resources to Learn English

I have been researching English learning resources lately, as I have some Thai friends who need some help. I have consolidated what I have learned so far here:

http://www.ebooks-international.com/Languages/LearnEnglish.html

The Thai people I know fall into two categories, as far as education goes: those with a university or college education, and those who quit school at age 10 or so and had to work.

Some of the brightest people I have ever met have only 4 years of schooling. They can add and subtract but cannot multiply or divide and do not understand fractions, decimals, and percentages. One lady (age 29 with two children and two ex-husbands) that I know well was a waitress a year ago. In the past year, she has taught herself English, how to use a computer, and how to run a business with several employees and a half a dozen major customers.

Another lady took 2 years at a technical college, financed by a government student loan. She created a multi-page web site using Notepad to code raw HTML. That's not something I would do, it's too difficult. When I asked her why, she said she wanted to understand exactly how HTML worked.

However, none of these people speak English very well. The university-educated can read better than the others, but they invariably write poorly and often speak poorly.

Hence my research. Hopefully it will benefit you or someone you know. Sphere: Related Content

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