Thai trainees complete Japanese teaching program.

SAITAMA -- Fifty Thai trainee teachers have returned to their home country, having completed a special training program on Japanese language teaching here.

The some two-month program, held at the Japan Foundation's Japanese-Language Institute in Saitama's Urawa Ward, helped prepare the trainees for teaching Japanese language in high schools in Thailand. In total, 200 trainees have taken part in the program.

Commenting on the Thais' return, an institute staff member said, "We hope that these trainees will act as a bridge between Thailand and Japan."

At an emotional going-away party held at the institute on June 7, approximately 120 people including teachers and host families turned up -- with the trainees showing their gratitude through song and dance. Institute staff member Mihoko Himeda said, "Hopefully they'll go on to deliver lessons in Thailand that will inspire pupils to take an interest in Japanese culture."

According to the institute, the number of students studying Japanese at high schools and universities in Thailand rose to about 174,000 in 2015, with about 115,000 of these (more than 60 percent) being high school students.

Recently, the number of people in Thailand wanting to study Japanese has increased in response to factors such as the large number of Japanese companies operating in the country, but the lack of staff able to teach Japanese there has become an issue. As a result, Thailand's Ministry of Education decided to ask the Japan Foundation to nurture trainee teachers as part of a project running from 2014 through 2017. The Japan Foundation obliged, and let Thai citizens who passed a Thai Ministry of Education exam join its training program in Saitama Prefecture.

Supornsin Jirawut, one of the Thai trainees on the program, said, "On the final day of my homestay, my host family went to the effort of making Thai food for me, and I burst into tears. Looking ahead, I want to arrange practical lessons that have increased emphasis on conversation, and don't just focus on reading textbooks."

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles...0m/0na/013000c

I've met two Thais in my life who could speak Japanese (and they weren't the two hiso who were studying at the Jap uni I went to years ago); one was a super fine bird helping a Jap lad at his language school in the basement of a shopping centre near Udomsuk BTS (and she wasn't that good, but absolutely dreamy to look at); and the other was a bloke in a block of flats in Buriram, who had worked for years at a Jap car plant in Japan - his Japanese was amazingly good - the best I've ever heard by a non-Jap, and you would walk past him in rural Isan thinking he was an illiterate hick, with his long hair and dungarees. Very sound bloke.

That sounds great!