English language policy and education in Thailand

Abstract

English has been part of the linguistic profile of Thailand for several centuries now. However, during the last few decades its role has grown significantly as a result of a range of factors. In particular, the increasing integration of ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries and the place of English as its official lingua franca has had a major impact on perceptions of English and its role in policy and education. We begin this chapter with a brief overview of the current linguistic profile of Thailand which, despite official portrayals as monolingual, is in fact highly multilingual. Nonetheless, within this multilingual context, English has been given a special status as the de facto second language (L2) through its place in education, where it is typically a compulsory subject, and its role in wider society, especially in urban areas and the large tourism industry. We present a brief overview of recent education and language policies and the place of English within them. We then turn to a detailed examination of current policy and the adoption of the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) framework at both basic and higher education
levels. We present a critical discussion of this and argue that its relevance to Thai education is questionable. We highlight the tensions between the multilingual uses of English as a lingua franca for intercultural communication across ASEAN and the monolingual Anglophone orientations of current language policy.

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ORCID for Will Baker: orcid.org/0000-0003-0533-2795

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