The Cactus Course Outlines provide a learning framework for the Cactus Foreign Language Evening Courses. They are designed to provide you with a good idea of what you might cover over a 10-week period, and include typical themes, grammar and vocabulary fields. They are flexible rather than prescriptive, in that our teachers may decide to adapt their learning plans to the specific level, aims and interests of their classes.

• Thai Beginner 1
• Thai Beginner 2
• Thai Beginner 3
• Thai Elementary 1
• Thai Elementary 2
• Thai Elementary 3
• Thai Intermediate 1

This is general language outline for evening class teaching. It aims to guide teachers to plan their lessons whichever book they use. Although some topics are the same on different levels, the content of the more advanced levels is richer and more varied.

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Exchange common greetings
• Yes/no question: ไหม ใช่ไหม เหรอ หรือยัง
• How to state your name, nationality and place of origin
• Polite forms
• Use basic sentence patterns
• Expressions - (please , thank you , sorry and goodbye)
• Asking price and negotiating; Carrying out shopping transactions
• Location expressions
• How to ask people about their job
• How to express possession
• Ask where something or someone is
• Simple descriptions (Key adjectives/adverbs, colours)
• How to ask someone to repeat something
• How to buy food and ask what something is called
• Taxi transactions

Grammar:

• Yes/no question with ไหม ใช่ไหม เหรอ ไหม?
• Polite particles (ค่ะ ครับ)
• Affirmative sentences
• Negative sentences ‘ไม่’
• Question ‘ใคร’, ‘อะไร’, ' ที่ไหน
• can = verb+ ได้
• too+adj

Cultural content:

• Names in Thailand
• Shopping, markets
• Thai food and cuisine
• Thai writing
• Being polite in Thailand
• Numbers and counting

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation: Tones; some low, high and mid class consonants and some vowels (short/long)
• Reading & writing: Character writing system; “dead/live” syllables
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Answer question about where you are going and what you are going to do
• Expressions for meeting people
• Use ‘จะ’ to express future time
• Ask questions with ‘อะไร’, ‘กี่’, อย่างไร’, and ‘เมื่อไหร่’
• Use ‘gwar’ to make a comparison
• Talk about leisure and forms of transport
• Directions, prepositions, time
• Ask question and units of measurement - Who/which/what/how/when/where/how much/how many
• Express ability
• Talk about colours, fruit juices, common purchases and shop
• Dead/live syllables

Grammar:

• Future tense
• Present tense
• Comparison
• Prepositions
• More verbs
• Using ‘ แล้ว’ already
• Uncountable nouns
• Periods of time
• Joining verb
• Classifiers
• Polite requests ขอ
• Would like to อยาก (จะ)
• if sentences
• verb bpen + adverb

Cultural content:

• The culture of meeting people : dos and don’ts
• Travel in Thailand
• Thai destinations
• Free time in Thailand – Leisure activities

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation
• Reading & writing
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Socialising
• Talk about your stay in Thailand and knowledge of Thai
• Ask and talk about what someone is doing
• Ask question with ‘หรือยัง’
• Say how long you have been doing something
• Use some past, present and future time expressions
• Use possessives
• Use vocabulary related to activities about the house, feelings and contacting someone
• Describing people
• Ask question with ‘ทำไม’
• Refer to quantities
• Places, vehicles and the weather

Grammar:

• Present, past, future tenses
• Classifier
• Quantities ‘เยอะ’
• ‘เป็น’ ‘ได้’ express ability
• น่า+verb convey the sense worthy of….
• ช่วย+ verb+noy polite request
• Verbs of saying and thinking with ว่า
• Practice tones

Cultural content:

• Thailand – dialects and languages
• Housing in Thailand
• Climate in Thailand
• Thai concepts of time
• Work in Thailand
• Family
• Days/months/years

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation : High class consonant, tone rules
• Reading & writing
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Comparing things/discussing alternatives
• Talking about the days of the week
• Health, appointments and international travel
• Asking for and giving permission
• Referring to past time
• Saying the order in which events occurred
• Indicating that action is in progress or about to happen
• Describing things
• Talking about clothes and travel
• What you have done or used to do
• About things increasing/decreasing
• Expressing hope, possibilities and certainties

Grammar:

• Use ‘tang nee’
• Use ‘เคย’ used to
• Since and when
• ‘มา’ ‘ไป expressing time
• ‘กำลัง’ expressing continuous tense
• ‘bringing’ ‘taking’
• Expressing frequency

Cultural content:

• Invitations
• idioms
• Health and sickness in Thailand
• Animals, the environment and education

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation : silent ‘or’ at the beginning of the word; more vowels
• Reading & writing
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Asking how to say things in Thai
• Talking about religion and customs
• Using conditional clauses
• Making requests
• Understanding signs and notices prohibiting and requesting
• Thai for messages
• Making phone calls / phone idioms
• Reporting what someone has said
• Answering the phone and making phone calls
• Say what you know or don’t know

Grammar:

• Reported speech ‘บอกว่า, ‘ถามว่า’
• Reporting questions with ‘when’ or ‘where’
• คืิอ ‘to be’
• Asking for help
• Expressions with ‘พูด’
• Translating ‘only’

Cultural content:

• Thai religion and customs
• Bureaucracy in Thailand
• Telephone etiquette
• Thai television and radio

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation : More vowels
• Reading & writing : words beginning with consonant clusters; words with new vowel symbols
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Coping strategies when you don’t understand
• Past tense
• Some ways of intensifying adjective and adverbs
• Travel enquiries
• Travel arrangements
• How to book the hotel
• Telling time

Grammar:

• ไป + vehicles
• The grammar of telling the time
• More than
• Not at all
• How questions

Cultural content:

• Thai regions and peoples; ethnic groups, Regions and Provinces
• Festivals and periods of the year
• The concept of Time in Thailand

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation
• Reading & writing : miscellaneous spelling rules; the letter ‘r’, ‘tr’; rules of the use -rr at the end of the word or syllable; letters not pronounced
• Role plays and language games

Themes/Lexical Fields can include the following:

• Revision
• Use clauses with ที่
• Use passive constructions
• Translating ‘early’ and ‘late’
• News
• Technology
• Feeling/opinion
• Economy

Grammar:

• Clauses ‘เลย’ ‘ที่’
• Passive construction
• Word studies
• Sentence patterns
• Affirmative statements
• Negative sentence/questions

Cultural content:

• The Media in Thailand
• Feelings and opinions
• Doing Business in Thailand: the Economy
• Techology

Skills Work:

• Lots of speaking
• Lots of listening
• Pronunciation
• Reading & writing: Reading comprehension
• Role plays and language games