One learner, one tutor, and an hour spent talking. In Thailand every English paper is answered in silence, so speaking is the skill families end up arranging themselves. We do it in Bangkok living rooms and over video, for primary pupils through to adults in meetings.
What is
English conversation tutoring is one-to-one practice in speaking and listening, built around the situations a learner actually meets: a classroom question, an admissions interview, a meeting in Bangkok, a phone call with a bad line. The session is spent producing English out loud, and the tutor writes the corrections down afterwards.
Key Points
Speaking answers to frequency. Choose the format that survives a real school week in Bangkok.
The tutor travels to you, and the session runs long enough to be worth the journey.
Short and frequent, which is the shape speaking actually responds to.
People who are comfortable together interrupt each other, and interruption is the one thing a one-to-one session has to manufacture.
One city, two school systems running at the same time, and the year a learner goes quiet lands in a different place on each ladder.
Young learners will say almost anything out loud, and that window closes on its own. The work here is habit: answering in a whole sentence, then asking a question back.
Subjects:
Focus Areas:
This is where a strong written grade and a silent mouth start living in the same student. Accuracy is what gets marked at school, so saying nothing becomes the safest move in the room.
Subjects:
Focus Areas:
TGAT1 āļāļēāļĢāļŠāļ·āđāļāļŠāļēāļĢāļ āļēāļĐāļēāļāļąāļāļāļĪāļĐ and the TCAS A-Level 82 āļ āļēāļĐāļēāļāļąāļāļāļĪāļĐ paper both arrive in writing, and the first person to grade the voice is usually an interviewer or a CU-TEP & Speaking examiner.
Subjects:
Focus Areas:
Adults in Bangkok often read English all day and speak it twice a week, so the gap is narrow and very specific. We work the specific part and leave the rest alone.
Subjects:
Focus Areas:
Topics do not teach speaking. Functions do. These are the six we work through, in the order that usually unblocks a learner.
The order moves with the learner. Someone sitting an interview in six weeks starts at module four and comes back for the rest afterwards.
Most learners can build a sentence and still never reach the point of saying one.
Topics Covered
Four starting points, and the first session looks different for every one of them.
Scores well on every written English paper the Thai ladder puts in front of them, then freezes when a teacher asks a question aloud.
Recommended:
The lesson is in English, the reading is comfortable, and class discussion still manages to happen without them.
Recommended:
Chulalongkorn, Thammasat or Mahidol, where the English requirement is printed in a document that carries a date.
Recommended:
Reads English all day, speaks it in two meetings a week, and can name the exact two minutes that go badly.
Recommended:
A speaking lesson leaves no exercise book behind, so the record has to be made on purpose while the session runs.
Four or five of your own sentences, written down the way you said them, with the corrected version beside each one.
Every word you wanted and could not find. That list becomes next week's vocabulary, and it belongs to you alone.
Roughly what share of the talking was yours. In a conversation lesson that share is the lesson.
A single task, small enough to do on the BTS. Long homework lists go undone, so we set one thing.
Every one of these is reasonable. Every one of them also delays the fix by roughly twelve months.
Challenge
Root cause
Every English assessment a Thai student meets is read and answered in silence. O-NET English at āļ.6, āļĄ.3 and āļĄ.6, TGAT1, and the TCAS A-Level 82 paper all measure recognition, on paper or on a screen.
Edulom solution
We measure the two things those papers never look at: how long the pause is before an answer starts, and how many sentences the learner produced without help. Both move within weeks, once somebody is counting them.
Challenge
Root cause
TGAT1 āļāļēāļĢāļŠāļ·āđāļāļŠāļēāļĢāļ āļēāļĐāļēāļāļąāļāļāļĪāļĐ rewards picking the right printed reply, and under TCAS70 the whole TGAT and TPAT set returned to paper delivery. A student can do well on it and still be unable to hold two minutes aloud.
Edulom solution
We keep the two jobs apart and say out loud which one we are doing. Paper technique belongs to the TGAT1 programme; this page is for the voice.
Challenge
Root cause
Accuracy is what gets marked at school, so silence becomes the safest answer available. The longer that lasts, the more expensive the first sentence gets.
Edulom solution
Early sessions lower the accuracy bar on purpose and raise the volume. Corrections are written down afterwards, so nothing interrupts a sentence while it is still being built.
Challenge
Root cause
The requirement usually carries a date and a number long before any interview. Chulalongkorn's BBA programme accepts CU-TEP & Speaking at 101 taken on a single test date, next to TOEFL iBT 79 or IELTS Academic at 6.5, wanting a GPAX of 3.00 upward, on a certificate that has not yet turned two.
Edulom solution
When a family names a programme we work backwards from its published requirement and its deadline, then say plainly how much speaking time that leaves.
Challenge
Root cause
Thai state schools run English-medium tracks, EP, MEP and IEP, and international schools teach every subject in English. Both put the lesson in English. Neither of them, on its own, hands one student enough turns to build fluency.
Edulom solution
One learner with one tutor changes the arithmetic of speaking time, and that arithmetic is the entire mechanism here.
Speaking is the one English skill Thailand's testing ladder never measures. That is exactly why families are the ones who have to notice it.
No learner in Thailand has sat with an Edulom tutor yet, so every line below describes how we work, and you can check all of it on day one.
Agreed in writing, quoted by the session, with nothing added to it afterwards.
Your own sentences, the words you reached for and missed, and one thing to practise.
Fit decides everything in a speaking lesson, so changing tutors is free and early beats late.
A tutor on the same BTS or MRT corridor turns up on a Tuesday evening. Distance in kilometres tells you very little about that in Bangkok.
We will never name a band or a grade you are going to reach. We will tell you exactly what happens in the room, and you read it every week.
A Thai school year begins mid-May; an international one begins in August. We plan around whichever calendar your family actually lives by.
The qualification that matters for this subject is behavioural, and it shows up inside the first ten minutes of a call.
Video is the format that makes three short conversations a week possible, and short and frequent is the shape speaking responds to. It also reaches a learner in Chiang Mai or Phuket, where the tutor for one particular combination of subject and language may simply not live nearby.
In-person sessions are arranged across Greater Bangkok, and a tutor is matched to one BTS or MRT line, since a commute across the city is what quietly cancels a Tuesday evening. The khet we open with sit along those lines: Sathon and Bang Rak on the Silom side, Watthana out through Thonglor and Ekkamai, Huai Khwang on Rama IX, Bang Kho Laem by the river, then Bang Na, Saphan Sung and Don Mueang. Around them sit Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan and Pathum Thani.
On grades, exams, the tutor's own language, frequency and cost, roughly in the order they come up.
Follow a Thai student from āļ.6 to university and count the times their spoken English is graded by anyone. O-NET assesses English at āļ.6, at āļĄ.3 and at āļĄ.6, on paper at the youngest grade and through Digital Testing at the two older ones. TGAT1 carries the name āļāļēāļĢāļŠāļ·āđāļāļŠāļēāļĢāļ āļēāļĐāļēāļāļąāļāļāļĪāļĐ, English Communication, and under TCAS70 it is sat on paper along with the rest of the TGAT and TPAT set. The TCAS A-Level 82 āļ āļēāļĐāļēāļāļąāļāļāļĪāļĐ paper is a written subject paper. Twelve years of assessment, and the mouth is never opened once.
This is what produces the student every Bangkok family recognises: excellent marks in English, and a long silence when a stranger asks a question. Nothing has gone wrong. The system measured one thing and the moment measures another.
The first occasion anyone grades the voice is usually an admissions interview, or a sitting like CU-TEP & Speaking, which Chulalongkorn's BBA programme accepts at 101 on a single test date, standing in for TOEFL iBT 79 or for IELTS Academic at 6.5. By then the deadline is fixed and the practice time is whatever is left.
Bangkok runs two school calendars at once, and a conversation plan has to know which one the family lives by. The Thai year starts in the middle of May and finishes in March, its second semester begins at the start of November, and the long holiday runs from 1 April to 15 May 2570 (2027). International schools open in August and finish in June.
For speaking, the calendar matters more than it does for most subjects, because progress here comes from frequency and frequency is the first thing a busy term destroys. The two long breaks are the useful blocks: April and early May for Thai-curriculum families, June and July for international ones. A learner who talks four times a week through a holiday arrives at the new term sounding like a different person, and holds most of it if the sessions keep going at a lower rate.
The other date worth marking is the one with a number on it. If the destination is a Thai international programme, its English requirement is published with a threshold and a deadline. Work backwards from that, and the answer to "when should we start" stops being a matter of opinion.
Sit in on a trial, or ask for the notes afterwards, and watch four things.
First, who is talking. If the tutor is talking for more than about a third of the session, the learner is attending a lecture. Second, what happens when the learner stops mid-sentence. A weak tutor supplies the missing word within a second, which feels kind and teaches nothing. A good one waits, then offers a way to get round the word, because getting round a missing word is the skill that separates a speaker from a student.
Third, when corrections arrive. Corrections inside a sentence stop the sentence, and after enough of them the learner stops starting sentences at all. Corrections written down and handed over afterwards do the same teaching without the cost. Fourth, whether the tutor asks what the English is for. An interview in eight weeks, a class discussion every Tuesday and a weekly client call are three different programmes, and a tutor who does not ask will teach the same one to all three.
Practical Tips
Mistakes & Solutions
Other programs that might suit you
Tell us who is learning, what the deadline is if there is one, and whether you want a tutor who speaks Thai. We will come back with a plan and a rate.