An AI Thai English teacher,
paired with a human.
ploy.com is an AI Thai teacher of English. It is built to be paired with a human English teacher — the foreign teacher at the front of the room — whenever a real Thai person who speaks English is not available. It is never the only teacher in the room, and when a real Ploy is there, it is quiet.
Ben teaches a room of Thai-speaking young adults. Ploy sits beside him and does seven jobs at once: she hears the question nobody dared ask in English, she puts the lesson at the level of the room, she keeps every eye on one screen, she says the word the way it is said, she makes it stick, she goes home with the student, and she gives the teacher back his evenings. There is one Ploy. We are training ten to twenty new American teachers, and we cannot find them a Ploy each. So ploy.com will be the Thai co-teacher they take into the room.
The plan, with what is built marked honestly
Seven jobs, one co-teacher
Each job below is done today, somewhere, by a tool teachers actually use. We looked at the top fifteen on October 1, 2026 — what each one does, what it costs, whether it speaks Thai, whether it works when the rain takes the internet. ploy.com's job is to put the seven that matter into one place, in Thai, for one teacher with one TV.
Hear the question, in both languages, on the TV
Today: Google Translate "Live translate" · Apple Translate (offline) · later: the ploy.com translator, with Isan
A student says it in Thai or Isan; the teacher hears English; the room reads both on the wall. Google's free app does Thai↔English now and shows each language on its own half of the screen. Apple's app works with no internet at all. Neither understands Isan. That is what the translator is for.
Put the lesson at the level of the room
Today: Diffit, Twee, MagicSchool, Gemini, ChatGPT · ours: eslteacher.com worksheets
The same text at three reading levels; a dialogue, a gap-fill and five questions in thirty seconds; instructions in Thai for the teacher who has none. The free tiers do most of it. ploy.com will do it in Thai, for Thai classrooms, and print it, because the printer works in the rain.
Keep every eye on one screen
Today: Kahoot! Go (free), Quizizz/Wayground, Blooket
Most rural rooms have one projector or one TV and a weak signal. A live quiz on the one shared screen, answered out loud together, is the thing that reliably works. Kahoot's free plan does it; Thai comes on the paid plans. ploy.com will run the game in Thai, from the teacher's phone, on the TV.
Say the word the way it is said
Today: ELSA Speak (฿1,750–4,390 a year), Duolingo · ours: englishteacher.com — 2,900 words in Ploy's voice
Pronunciation scoring exists and is good; it is also English-only and paid. englishteacher.com already plays every one of 2,900 words in a real human voice with the Thai beside it, free, no login. Scoring the student's own attempt against it is the next step.
Make it stick
Today: Anki (free), Quizlet ($19.99 a year)
Spaced repetition is the one method in this whole list with more than a century of evidence behind it — the spacing effect was measured in 1885. Every word a class meets on ploy.com goes onto the student's own card deck, scheduled the Anki way, on the phone, offline.
Go home with the student
Today: Edsy (Thai-built, used in Thai schools), Duolingo English-for-Thai (free), ChatGPT and Gemini free to every Thai aged 15+ through Thai AI Pass
Thai students lack what one Thai teacher called "flight hours" — real minutes of speaking and listening. An AI partner that asks, waits, scaffolds and corrects, at home, in Thai first, is already in nearly a thousand Thai schools through Edsy. ploy.com will give every student in our rooms that partner, and the free national AI Pass means the model costs nothing.
Give the teacher back the evening
Today: Gemini in Classroom (free with Workspace for Education), ChatGPT, Canva (free for K-12)
The lesson plan, the parents' message in Thai, the marking rubric, the three-line explanation of the past tense that a Thai speaker will actually understand. A new American teacher in Surin has none of this on day one. Ploy does it for Ben. ploy.com will do it for the rest.
Two iPhones, two clip-on mics, a laptop and a TV.
Before a single classroom, the family living room: Ben speaks English, Ploy speaks Thai, the boys watch both languages appear on the flat screen. Here is what that takes in October 2026, checked against the makers' own pages — including what no longer works.
- Clip the mics on, plug the receiver into the iPhone. An iPhone takes one microphone input at a time, so both voices go in through the one receiver. Over Bluetooth a phone connects to one transmitter only — use the receiver.
- Open Google Translate, choose Live translate, then Conversation. The app hears which language is spoken and shows each on its own half of the screen; it runs a few seconds behind the speaker. If the face-to-face layout rotates half the text for the table, choose "Text only" for the TV.
- Mirror the iPhone to the TV with AirPlay. Same Wi-Fi network as the TV. No AirPlay on the TV? Put the laptop on HDMI and mirror to the laptop instead.
- When the internet drops, switch to Apple Translate. Conversation mode, with Thai and English downloaded, works entirely on the phone. Speakers take turns.
- Then do the same thing with two phones. One mic on each, both in a Google Meet or Zoom call, the laptop on the TV — this is the classroom shape. Google Meet's translated captions support Thai but need a paid Workspace plan; Zoom lists Thai too. Mute the phone speakers or the room will echo.
What no longer works, so nobody wastes an evening on it. Microsoft Translator's multi-device conversation — the free tool that gave each person their own phone and a shared bilingual caption screen — was retired in June 2026; its replacement is enterprise-only. Apple's new iOS 26 Live Translation does not support Thai. And no app anywhere, free or paid, understands Isan: that piece does not exist yet, which is why we are building it.
What gets built into ploy.com, in order
| Step | Status |
|---|---|
| The home demo above, done and filmed in Rattanaburi — the clip goes on this page. | now |
| The classroom page: the shared-screen game, in Thai, from the teacher's phone to the TV; the worksheet at three levels, from eslteacher.com, printed. | months 1–3 |
| The translator, phone version: push-to-talk, offline, Isan or Thai in, English out, text shown for confirmation. The full design. | months 1–3 |
| The student's deck: every word met in class onto a spaced-repetition deck on the phone, with Ploy's voice from englishteacher.com. | months 2–4 |
| The partner at home: an AI speaking partner in Thai first, through the student's free Thai AI Pass account, built to the same rules as everything here — it asks, it waits, it never does the English for you. | months 4–8 |
| The teacher's desk: lesson plan, parents' message, rubric — in Thai and English, for a teacher who arrived last week. | months 4–8 |
| Pronunciation scoring against the human recordings; the classroom rig with speakerphone and wall screen; Isan on the phone. | months 6–12 |
| Ten to twenty new American teachers trained on all of it in the TESOL course in Udon Thani (first course January 2027), and each one takes ploy.com into their room. | 2027 |
Four rules. It is always paired: ploy.com never teaches a room alone — a human English teacher is in the room, and when a real Thai speaker of English is available, she leads and the software is quiet. And three carry over from the translator to every part of this: the helper gets the question asked, but English is still the destination; the screen on the wall is the lesson; and it is rationed. A perfect helper in an English classroom removes the reason to produce English. Ploy knows when to stop helping. The software has to be taught that too.
Why one website, and why in Thai
Thailand placed 116th of 123 countries in the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index; the Northeast scored 389 against Bangkok's 467. Between October 2025 and March 2026 the Ministry of Education and Microsoft put 160,000 Thai teachers through an AI course, and the Ministry's own partners are installing smart screens in pilot schools in Buriram and Sisaket, the next provinces over. The tools exist. They are in English, they are scattered across fifteen subscriptions, and they assume a teacher who already speaks the language and has the time to learn fifteen apps. The teacher in a village school in Surin has a TV, a phone, a weak signal and forty students. One AI Thai co-teacher, in Thai, that does the seven jobs beside a human — that is the whole idea, and the name on it is the name of the person who does them now.
Sources, all read October 1, 2026. Google Translate Live translate: Google Help ("each speaker can view the transcription and translation of each of their own languages on each half of the screen"); TechCrunch, Mar 26, 2026 (iOS and Thailand launch). Apple Translate offline: Apple Support ("Download specific languages for offline translations"); iOS 26 Live Translation languages: apple.com/ios/feature-availability. Microsoft Translator: App Store listing ("The multi-device conversation feature has been retired"), WhistleOut Mar 4, 2026. Mics: DJI Mic Mini and Mic 3 FAQs ("a phone only connects to one transmitter at a time"). AirPlay: Apple Support 102661. Meet and Zoom captions: Google Meet Help 10964115; Zoom KB0060844. Prices: magicschool.ai/pricing, web.diffit.me/pricing, kahoot.com/schools-u, quizlet.com/upgrade, ELSA on the Thai App Store, Duolingo course page. Edsy: MIT Solve, EduSandbox (Rayong pilot), Google Cloud customer page. Thai AI Pass: aipass.go.th. EF EPI 2025: ef.com/epi, Thailand fact sheet (Northeast 389). AI for Teachers: Microsoft Source Asia, Apr 24, 2026. Open Schools: Huawei, Mar 25, 2026. "Flight hours": Eduzones, Jul 17, 2026. Isan speech recognition: opentyphoon.ai (SCB 10X, Typhoon Isan, Nov 27, 2025). The full dossier with URLs is kept by the non-profit and available on request.