As an international program, English is obviously an integral part of our curriculum, not to mention our minimum 520 TOEFL score requirement for graduation (or 650 on TOEIC). Every incoming ChEPS can attest and relate to the painful experience of having to tune his/her ears to English lectures in the first few courses. Then, there are those endless oral presentations to deliver and countless reports to write, all in English. Finally, achieving 520 on the TOEFL by the end of the 2nd year is no small feat (although if your ultimate goal is to pursue a Ph.D. overseas, then you'd better score at least 580).

Sadly, your years of studying English have done very little to prepare you for what is to come in ChEPS. The good news is that it's never too late to brush up your English. In fact, there is a lot you can do for yourself. Although we run an English remedial course in the first summer followed by tutoring sessions with ChEPS faculty and the site directors in subsequent semesters, the best instructor is yourself. English is best learned by first making a resolution that you really want to master it (much the same way you approach the problem of losing weight or getting your body in shape). You then follow up on that willpower by immersing yourself (relax, you won't drown) with English in your daily activities, ranging from reading books for one half hour before bedtime to listening to international news on CNN. Here is a list of things you could do:

• Listen to English news on the radio and TV. Of all the things you must learn to master English, listening is the easiest. In my experience, it only takes about 6 months living in the US for you to be able to pick up nearly 100% of what you hear (assuming you have some working knowledge of English). Fortunately, you can achieve the same thing living in Thailand. Many of you now have access to cable TV. BBC and CNN news are the best sources. Some local TV channels also broadcast news in English at certain times of the day. This will allow you to tune your ears to the American and British accent. Next time you come across a "farang", you will have no problem understanding him. An added bonus of listening to international news is that you will also become an informed person about world events and current affairs.

• Read a lot of English books. This is so obvious but is often overlooked. How can you learn something if you don't read? Think back to the days when you first learned Thai. How did you do it? Of course, by reading a lot of Thai books. Dedicate some time each day to reading (say one hour). Here, I don't want to hear any whining about your busy schedule. Do you have time each day for your must-do activities, say bathing, eating, and watching TV? Make reading a part of your daily routine, too. But you will say you already have too much to do in a day. Well, go back to my previous paragraph about resolution. I'm assuming you are determined to master English. So it's a matter of priorities. And I'm saying you want to make learning English one of your top priorities. Remember, reading can be a form of entertainment, since you don't have to restrict yourself to just nonfiction. Finally, reading will also help you become a much better writer.

  Start with an English newspaper like "The Nation" or "Bangkok Post". For books, if you find the majority of them too difficult, try books for "young adults". Then slowly progress to harder ones.

• Watch some American soap opera and sitcom (what does "sitcom" stand for?) This may seem like a waste of time. To many of you, it isn't. While watching sound-track movies is useful, the effectiveness isn't always as good as watching soap opera and sitcom. Why? For one thing, people in all sitcom shows must enunciate their words very clearly and properly. Slangs are rarely used. In movies, sentences are sometimes garbled to reflect real people talking. Moreover, dialogues tend to be much faster in movies than those in TV shows. Just remember one thing, avoid the temptation of reading the subtitles on your TV. When you read, you can't hear. If you can't resist the temptation, simply put something near the bottom of the TV screen to block out the texts.

• Take interactive lessons and tests on the Internet. There are many English-learning sites on the Internet and most are free. I've posted a number of them in this page. Take the time to work on these free lessons and tests. In many cases, the sites mentioned will send you free lessons via daily or weekly emails.

• Keep a dictionary handy. You are your worst enemy. Most people, when confronted with a vacabulary, will shy away from looking the word up in a dictionary. This is sheer laziness. You will be surprised how often you come acrosss new words even if you don't read English books. Take for example movie titles. How many of you bothered to look up the word "perdition" in a recent movie titled "The Road to Perdition" played by Tom Hanks (incidentally, the word means damnation or hell)? I'm sure you enjoyed the movie, but probably didn't enjoy looking up the word. So make it a habit to look up every word you don't know. With the advent of PDAs and digital dictionaries, looking up words is now a cinch. If you don't have one, go out and buy one. It will be one of the best investments you ever make. Here is a mental exercise I play with myself. I managed to convince myself that an English word I don't know is an eye-sore to me - that it somehow makes me a lesser person. Consequently, I must know its meaning when I come across it, and add it to my English brain-database.

  Another tip - if you are an Internet junkie, always keep a window connected to www.dictionary.com. So whenever you come across a new word surfing the Net, just look up the word at that site. The site will also shows you examples of how the word is used.

On Speaking.....

Learning to speak English well is an entirely different "beast". Most will find this to be the most frustrating part of their learning process, and rightly so. While you could teach yourself English with the list of actions I mentioned, it's very difficult to learn how to speak unless you have a speaking partner who is either a native speaker or is very good at it. Speaking is a skill, and as such it can be acquired. But it can only be acquired if you practice a lot. Have you ever wondered why a 3-year-old "farang" toddler can speak English so fluently and you can't, although you know a lot more English words than he does? Because he has one thing going for him, which you don't - he's got English-speaking parents. The toddler simply imitates his parents' accent and speaking mannerism, very much like a parrot or parakeet imitates its owner's voice.

So what do you do then? Well, short of marrying a "farang", you are almost out of luck if you live in Thailand. You will have to wait for the days when you go live in an English-speaking country. An alternative is to hire a personal tutor who only teaches you English conversations (forget about attending a class for conversations - they don't work well because you will rarely have a chance to open your mouth to practice). But this is an expensive proposition because native-speaking tutors don't come cheap. Interestingly though, I've noticed over the years that living in a foreign country such as Australia or the US doesn't guarantee that one would end up speaking decent English. This is especially true with students who went over to study and only lived there for a few years. I had this misconception myself when I first studied in the US 2 decades ago. I never thought I had to struggle to be fluent in English while living in the US - and struggle I did. Why? Because I didn't practice enough. I surrounded myself with Thai and ethnic Chinese friends with whom I rarely spoke English. It took me a while before I was aware of this missing link.

One thing that won't work for sure (or with very limited success) is for you to practice speaking English with your fellow Thai friends. Have you ever noticed this phenomenon in sports, say tennis or ping-pong? When you practice with someone at the same level skill as you are, the skills in both you and your partner stagnate. On the other hand, if you are a much better player than your partner, your skill stagnates while your partner's improves tremendeously over time (in essence, you are giving him a free lesson). The same principle applies to speaking English. When you practice with someone who is very good, you inevitably adapt and adopt his style. At the same time, his higher skills will push you to your limits, resulting in your improvements.

In the meantime, you could do one thing though. Learn to pronounce English words properly. Most Thai people are very poor at this (not their fault because everyone else including their teachers talk the same way. That's why it's so important to listen to the news). There is another misconception here. You don't have to speak the North American accent for farangs to understand you. It's true that a native English speaker will have trouble understanding English when it's spoken improperly. By that, I don't mean your accent, but the way the syllables in a word are accentuated. Most Thai have the habit of raising the pitch of the last syllable in a word. Take a classic exmaple of the word comment. It should be pronounced as 'com-ment, but is universally pronounced as com-'ment in Thailand. In many cases, the pronunciations of simple words such as hour, juice, and vacuum, are plain wrong. Even such an innocuous word as Coke is pronounced incorrectly (and you wonder why you had so much trouble placing your order at McDonald's in the US).

On Writing.....

Incidentally, there is virtually no correlation between your writing and speaking, i.e. they both must be learned separately as if they are not related. A case in point: I know Thai and Chinese people who are married to Americans. In most cases, these Asian spouses have never studied or been to the US. Yet, after years of living together, they speak English very fluently. But when they send me emails, the writing leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand, I have high-school buddies at Seventh-Day who never studied overseas. Some of them write impeccable English. I mean when they email me, you almost can't tell the emails were written by Thais. Usually, this level of sophistication was achieved after years of avid reading and writing emails. But when they open their mouth to speak, the English is halting and the accent very thick. You would never guess that the emails and the conversations come from the same person.

I also know a Thai fellow from high-school who was raised by an American family. This guy could speak English as if it were his own mother tongue, and his American accent was perfect. In fact, he was so good he often preached on a Sunday mass in English. Yet, he had trouble keeping up in our English class, and often tested near the bottom of the class. The problem? His grammar and writing were really awful. As a matter of fact, his academic record was subpar and his aptitude was very poor. Yet, that didn't prevent him from becoming a very eloquent speaker. And you wonder why he couldn't translate all that good speaking into good writing and more.

In conclusion, study hard and practice a lot, but be realistic in your expectations. You may never become as eloquent as President Reagen (nicknamed "The Great Communicator") or become the next Ernest Hemingway. But with hard work and determination, you will discover in time that learning English can be fun and that it's a lifelong experience. You may even surprise yourself when you wake up one day and suddenly realize how good your English has become. I've done it and so can you. Happy learning.....