This account of English in the formal education system in Thailand traces briefly its historical background and then looks at the teaching of English today. The country itself has quite a complex sociolinguistic context and in order to understand the teaching and learning of English, one must understand the basic tenets of the culture. From this crosscultural perspective, we can then understand some of the new initiatives that are presently being taken in English Language Teaching in Thailand.

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This paper outlines the revised version of the Common European Framework of Reference Languages: Learning, Teaching and Assessment (CEFR, 2018), followed by the Frameworks of Reference for English Language Education in Thailand (FRELE-TH). The approaches taken in Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China based on CEFR will also be briefly discussed. A number of issues identified by various researchers have affected the implementation of CEFR, such as the lack of background knowledge of the goals of CEFR, the initial stress on language assessment for teachers and learner/users, the apparent lack of follow-up in terms of training, materials and expertise. Finally, the implementation of CEFR in the region will be emphasized in reference to Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL) and reflected on how this approach could be implemented in the local contexts of Asia.

The argument put forward here is that we are witnessing the emergence of a concept of English as a lingua franca, which creates a set of attitudes about correctness and in particular ‘grammatical correctness’. The traditional ‘nativespeaker’ as final arbiter can only apply to English as a national language. It is the non-native speaker who is becoming the model for English as a global language.