“English preparation”, the First Step to Innovative Grads (Students)

Goethe, German philosopher, stated that ignoring other languages, you won’t understand yourself. This quotation has reflected the importance of foreign languages as a communicative tools among human beings, dependent on one another for their living. Like Thais, there are many neighboring countries located in South East Asia - Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, and Singapore.

          Languages, especially English as an official language, is becoming more essential to communicate among the 10 members in ASEAN. Therefore, Thai citizens are encouraged to learn and practice English more fluently throughout the nation. If possible, it’s a sign for enhancement of English competencies for Thais.

          I, as an English teacher of RMUTL, acquired a good opportunity to organize the course named “English preparations for the 1^st year students in 2014”. The course provided the four basic communicative skills of English – listening, speaking, reading and writing. In addition, the project responded to the mission of our university “Enhance the university as international” and it is relevant to the campaign of English Teaching Development for ASEAN 2015.

          For the project “English preparations for the 1st year students in 2014” consisted of 2 minor projects which were English preparation  by using visual media focusing on improving  grammatical knowledge of students. The second minor project was how to learn English by Tell Me More program. The Tell Me More program helps learners to study language skills by themselves. There were feedback s from the participants. One of them told that he was glad to attend this campaign because he had chances to practice English in four skills. Even though he wasn’t now very good at English, he would become keen on English in the next 4 years.

          According to the above projects, the English teachers are required to develop the pedagogies and their competences. Therefore, there was a workshop for the teachers to revise and develop the 6 English courses in accordance with university’s learning mission “Building Innovative Students by Student-Centered Learning. Meanwhile all staffs of RMUTL are also required to develop their English skills by learning once a week.

          Every project mentioned above is a good start to develop English in RMUTL. I am certain that all of us will be good at English within 4 years and our university will be an international institution.