The Thais have their own mnemonics for their consonant classes so why learn "new ones"? Also why learn pictures for consonants which have no relevance to the Thai "pictogram" which represents a word usually spelled with that consonant (obviously
ฅอ คน and
ฃอ ขวด are the exceptions).
I also don't think the Thai tone rules are all that convoluted that a person can't wrap their heads around them given enough time, but that's just my thoughts on it. Face it ANY native speaker who learned Thai learned via the pictures for the consonants and from the Thai mnemonics which go with the consonant classes. It's how the Thai language was beaten into their heads as kids in school.
Heck, even I learned the mnemonic "a chicken pecked a child that died above the mouth of a water pot"
ไก่จิกเด็กตายบนปากโอ่ง for the Middle Class Consonants and the one about "a ghost entrusted with a bag of raw rice gave it to me"
ผีฝากถุงข้าวสารให้ฉัน for the High Class Consonants (although there's another one which is used too, not to mention the English versions of those that I use leave a lot to be desired
)...
Now to be honest, I have never tried this "rapid thai" method or sat this class, nor have I ever met someone who did so I can't say whether it works or not. I just think there’s no need to make something which most foreign learners find a ‘tough row to hoe” already, more complicated than it is.
I do know for a fact a person wouldn't walk out of it being able to "read" Thai. To me that's taking a little creative license with the meaning of the word "read"
. Now, they might be able to almost pronounce written Thai, but that's NOT reading; because there's no meaning thai'd, err I mean “tied” to what they're pronouncing.
Reading is nothing more than memorizing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words so when you see them they have a meaning in your head. As I have said before, I could "read" as in know the meaning of what I call the "6-cow-words" in Thai (
ขาว,
ข่าว ข้าว เขา เข่า เข้า) before I could EVER replicate their intonation or vowel lengths only because I memorized the differences in how they were written and knew what they meant when I saw them.
Still what ever helps a foreigner learn Thai can’t be a bad thing any way you parse it out. If it helps you good for you…
"Whoever said `Money can`t buy you love or joy` obviously was not making enough money." <- quote by Gene $immon$ of the rock group KISS