Revisiting Thailand's English Language Education Landscape: A Closer Look at Thailand's Foreign Teaching Personnel Demographics

Some major issues crucial to a country’s education landscape involve what is taught, how lessons are taught, and who is teaching. Taking the third issue and using Thai government data, this study examines through documentary research method the demographic profile of foreign English-speaking teachers, aggregated by country of origin, sex, type of teaching license held, and rank per country of origin. Providing stakeholders with baseline information about who composes the foreign teaching force in Thailand, this paper discusses as well why English has been dubbed as the “language of the elite,” making it the leading foreign language studied in Thailand. Although this study initially sought to look into the demographics of foreign English-speaking teachers in Thailand, only one major finding reveals how demographic data can point to a hierarchical practice observed in the existing types of English programs offered to Thai parents and their children.