Teaching Thai Language as a Foreign Language: A Case of Verb Structure in Thai (การสอนภาษาไทยในฐานะภาษาต่างประเทศ: กรณีศึกษาโครงสร้างคำกริยาในภาษาไทย)

Abstract

The primary aim of this paper is to share some viewpoints on how to teach the Thai language to French speakers, based on the author's extensive experience in teaching Thai to French people, both formally at universities and informally out of classroom contexts. By using a contrastive linguistic approach between Thai (L2/target language) and French (L1), the paper gives an overview of the main differences between the two languages in terms of sounds, words and sentences. This is followed by a syntactic and semantic analysis of Thai verb structures, providing insights into the differences between the Thai and French verbs. Finally, some pedagogical implications are offered.