Good to hear the contrary view. Personally, I liked the daily commute, but definitely something to take into account. And I really enjoyed the mix of ages and especially the mix of backgrounds of the students. We had missionaries, NGO people, expat salarymen, layabouts like myself, etc. There was almost always a chance or two or three to get together and socialize in the evening. Once I was blessed with taking the class with a stunning and very flirty guy from S. Korea. [sigh]Trongpai wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2019 2:32 pm The mix between bright young language students from other countries and retired expats sometimes did not work out well. Many an ol'fellas were left in the dust of humiliation and failure.
Actually, I don't recommend UTL unless you are really serious about class room learning and have the aptitude and fortitude for a disciplined learning of a language. The fortitude part gets hard when you get up in years.
I certainly never felt embarrassed or humiliated. I think on of the great things about getting older is you no longer have to give enough of a shit about anything to be embarrassed. Go ahead and dance if you feel like it without worrying about how you look . In language classes everyone is in the same boat. In my various classes the "worst" students were never the olds. It is really essential to leave embarrassment outside the classroom and just try to have fun learning. It's a classic "safe space." But this could certainly be something that's easier for me than others. (I would probably have more anxiety if I had hired a one-on-one tutor.)
I think now that Immigration tightened up the ED visa rules, and now the school has to certify attendance and satisfactory completion, there might possibly be fewer dropouts.
In Bangkok the other big language school is AUA, which I believe also has a school in Pattaya. But of course it would suffer from all of the same negatives.
Personally, and strictly for me, the extra discipline and organization that the classroom setting gave was really helpful. I think it helped from the start and I never would have learned writing and reading watching YouTube videos. Private tutors are available, but they're more expensive. And sometimes - at least for me - it was nice being with a group of people who were all learning together.