English Language Teaching at Expenses of Thai Language Teaching for Urban Refugee Language Learners in Thailand: Social Inequalities Related to What Languages to Teach

Abstract

This inquiry on young refugee language learners presents findings that have been yielded from an empirical study and conducted over a period of 8 months in Thailand. This study took an angle in multidisciplinary fields of language teaching by examining socioeconomic inequalities occurred to urban refugee children and adolescents resulted from their formal schooling interruption as closely in relation to what languages are taught in their humanitarian based language learning programs. A central argument throughout this paper has been balancing languages to teach for these young language learners by refocusing attentions on teaching needed Thai language that helps formal schooling interrupted refugee children and adolescents to resume their study in local Thai schools, accompanied by teaching globally-oriented English language. By the same token, while the promise of English language teaching and learning might empower young urban refugee students, English language teaching cannot be at expenses of Thai language teaching because the latter is urgently needed for these young urban refugees to continue their formal schooling and decreases inequalities. Index Terms-English language teaching, Thai language teaching, urban refugee language learners