Gary started his investigations into Thai language schools after we returned from Chaingmai, Thailand last June. The OMF missionaries there told him about their language training facility in Lopburi. He applied there, but we ended up second on a waiting list. There is still the possibility that some of those who have signed up for the school won't be able to raise their support in time, so they won't go then. The school starts in early December, so we should know if it is actually full by the time we leave. We won't give up going there until we are in the airport in Bangkok on December 30th. Gary plans on calling them from the airport and if they don't have a space then we would catch a flight up to Chaingmai and start looking for a place to live. (This picture is from www.backpackers-around.com/foto-thailandia-lopburi.php)

The Lopburi school sounds good to us because it is in a small town where little English is around. This is a picture of one of their back streets in a "middle class" neighborhood. This is from a web site called unglamorouslove.com written by someone who is learning Thai there as a part of their preparation for mission work there.

Also, the room and board are part of the price, so we wouldn't have to find our own. We could concentrate on learning Thai with few distractions, except maybe monkeys.

Gary looked at many schools in Bangkok which teach with many different methods, but they are all more costly and living in Bangkok is expensive (and polluted). A couple of schools are also available in Chiangmai and the living expenses are less there than in Bangkok. Gary is concerned we might be too distracted to study well if we were in Chiangmai, though.

These different schools each say they approach the learning of Thai by focusing on a different learning style. Gary hoped he might figure out which school would be best for him if he figured out his learning style. I found a test to determine learning styles in my papers, so Gary took it. He found out all the styles are nearly the same for him, so the approach of whatever school we go to wouldn't matter too much.