When I learned english as a kid, I learned how to speak, read, write at the same time. Learning them simultaneously helped with retention and comprehension. In my very first year of english classes, PHONICS was the most important element. In english, there are around 44 phonics sounds, but we only use a few characters to represent those sounds. As with many other facets of english language - doing vowels and phonics this way is technically MORE difficult than the Thai way, if you think about it. The Thai way has special marks for each sound type. Regardless, our learning starts with characters and phonics, while our daily life helps with vocabulary and pronunciation. This way, when a solid ability to read is established, the student can expand vocabulary more and more rapidly over time.
Coverage of Thai vowels and phonics is always sparse and/or rushed in every program I run into. I need to be able to read out the words I see so I can expand my understanding of Thai naturally - the same way I developed my understanding of english. I should be able to focus on vowels, phonics and developing an understanding of how vowels and consonants work together in written thai - as some of the rules are complex. It's great that we have the alphabet section, but we need a series on phonics, vowels and pronunciation to supplement this.
I also want to be able to develop my handwriting through a penmanship course. It would not take too much to develop a penmanship course as a separate section. All you really need is printable PDFs. I am a graphic designer and I am developing a set based on a design used in an old (now non-existant) german thai course I found online. This is just for alphabet and vowels though. Penmanship courses start with characters and then progress to sentences that challenge the writer to develop muscle memory. This adds more dimension to the student's understanding of the language they are practicing.
What do you think?
