ASEAN experts promote English teaching in Thailand

BANGKOK, March 9 (TNA) - English teaching experts and policy makers from the education sector across the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have gathered in Bangkok to promote Engligh teaching, based on the fact that possessing superior English skills will help shaping ASEAN youths to become high quality workforces in the future. Students in several ASEAN member countries and even the 10-nation bloc's three key dialogue partners of China, Japan and South Korea, where English is the third language after their ethnic mother-tongue and national languages learnt at local schools, have hard time learning English. With almost 1,000 languages spoken throughout the ASEAN+3 countries, non-native English teachers and policy makers of Thailand, Laos, Indonesia, China and South Korea, for example, have all experienced similar teaching situation. Representatives from South Korea and China are, therefore, eager to promote future cooperation with English teachers and policy makers in ASEAN through relevant meetings. The representatives have also encouraged forming a regional network to analyze present policies along with helping each other to improve teaching standards for better learning quality of their ASEAN+3 students.(TNA)