The Importance Of English As A Foreign Language

English continues to be widely recognized as the language of business throughout the world and it will maintain and grow even more dominant. In the past speaking English as a second language was a marker of the ‘elite’ but nowadays is a basic skill that people should have (Dorie, C. 2012). It is often perceived by the younger population that does not have English as their first language (L1), that speaking English will lead to a prosperous career later in life. This paper looks into why Thailand has and is experiencing so many problems with its citizens learning or acquiring English as a foreign language. Furthermore, the research examined in this paper identifies common mispronunciation of English words by Thai learners especially mispronunciation

English thrives to be a lingua franca in various disciplines as well as business, likewise science, diplomacy, technology and academic conferences. Henceforth English skills consisting of a variety of aspects are of the upmost importance due to the overwhelming effect of globalization. Despite prolonged attempts to enhance English education in Thailand, students concluded that Thai leaners are still underachieving and their level of English was unsatisfactory. As English is prevalent as a global language, more emphasis and focus should be allocated towards pronunciation for Thai leaners (Khamkhien, A. 2010). This year, (2015) will see ten countries in south-east Asia join together to form one community, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). One of these ten countries will be Thailand, and while some countries in ASEAN are proficient in English, such as The Philippines, Thailand still lacks behind. A minority of people blame Thailand’s slow reaction or willingness to incorporate English extensively into education on nationalistic fractions that believe imposing the English language on Thais is against or might even destroy their culture and unique identities (Nagi, K.2012). In the Philippines English is everywhere, from street signs to cooking books. Moreover, English is also taught in a more practical manner as well as exposing the students to the more

That being said, it is not only Thai learners who experience such problems, language learners from all over the world have difficulties to acquire English pronunciation to a level of ‘comfortable intelligibility’. Mispronunciation is especially prevalent is aspects of syllable structure and stress and it is this mispronunciation which will determine if the leaner can reach a level of comfortable intelligibility (Sumdangdej, S