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Photo: Private language school in Thailand What's On This Page?
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Thailand - Teaching English as a Foreign Language Page 1
For some time, Asia has been the world's fastest growing economy and the demand for English teachers is huge as Asians seek to improve their English language skills. Thailand is no exception. Not only are English skills important for commerce but English is the second language of Thailand's elite. In a country where image and face are everything, being able to understand and speak English is very important to the country's growing middle-classes. Elsewhere in these pages I've talked about the lure of Thailand and how intoxicating it can be to foreign visitors. To be able to live in Thailand is a pipe dream for most people but, as an English teacher, maybe it would be possible to live and work there? Let's explore.
The stigma of teaching English in Thailand My jaw dropped. In late 2005 while reading the latest episode about pervert and ex-glam rocker Gary Glitter, detained in Vietnam for child-molestation charges, he claimed he had been teaching English to the pre-pubescent girls he had been abusing. As far as I am aware, he hadn't set himself up officially as an 'English teacher' but many perverts in Southeast Asia and other parts of the world do. Sexually abusing children doesn't go down very well with most people as being a good reason for moving to Thailand, or elsewhere, whereas teaching English seems to be a lot more legitimate. Several perverts I have read about in Thailand were 'teaching English' according to the media reports. Not only does it legitimise their existence in Thailand but it gives them an income which they probably need as it is unlikely they have funds coming in from elsewhere. How nice, they earn money from teaching one set of youngsters while abusing others. This isn't a big secret and the media reports such cases widely. As if Thailand didn't already have a bad enough reputation this type of thing only fuels the rumours and misconceptions. This makes me feel really good when I get in touch with old friends and they ask me what I am doing these days. "I'm in Thailand, teaching a little English," I tell them. Yes me, a single man in his mid-40's who gave up a regular (but boring and unfulfilled) life in England to experience other cultures. Even if the communication is by phone or e-mail with no visual contact I can see eyebrows starting to be raised. Thank you perverts for creating a situation where everyone is tarred with the same brush.
Depending on where you teach in Thailand it may appear to be the most unprofessional environment you have ever encountered. I believe that a little professionalism goes a long way though and it can actually help you quite a lot. Thais are more perceptive than they appear on the surface and they can tell the difference between someone who is trying to do the right thing and someone who isn't making any effort. If getting more work is important to you this is something to consider. I have started to turn down work now as I have more than I want or need but everything started with one job. I got involved with a group of university students, made an effort with them and, as a result, lots of other requests for lessons starting coming in. The Thais don't always say much but they're not stupid. Many want to learn English and many have the money to do so but they are very selective about which teacher to employ if they are spending their own money. Making an effort to adopt a professional attitude helps me too. I talk to students before I start teaching them to understand what they want and then I put together a course outline (or syllabus, or whatever you want to call it). I give them a copy and ask if it is what they want. If it isn't we agree changes and finally we arrive at something which is agreeable to both parties. This is good for several reasons. I now have a list of subjects to teach so don't have to wrack my brains each week trying to think what subjects to teach. I have found that some institutions will suddenly ask me near the end of a course what I have taught with no prior warning. I don't have to think back several months about what I taught, I just produce my course outline. If there is ever a disagreement, or expectations have been set incorrectly about what would be taught during the course, a sheet of paper with what was agreed when the course started can be very useful. If students ask me questions I don't know the answer to I tell them I don't know but will get back to them. I then make an effort not to forget what I promised. I'm honest about things and admit what I don't know. This is Western culture and doesn't constitute a loss of face as far as I am concerned. For some classes, but not all, I produce a summary sheet after each lesson for what was taught to supplement the students' own notes. It's quite time consuming but I believe it helps them and it also shows that you are sincere about wanting them to learn. My attitude is one of wanting the students to learn and it makes me feel good to have helped them. If their general ability after a course has remained the same then I have failed. I don't start each lesson with the objective of just making it through to the end of the lesson trying to do as little as possible so I can pick up my money.
When I was a naughty child (from about the age of zero to 25) my mother would threaten that the man from the home for naughty children would take me away. The Thai version is similar but parents threaten their children that a farang will come to take them away. This is such a scary prospect that the kids stop crying and start to behave. For a long time I didn't realise this. I'd noticed that if I walked past a house with a screaming child I would often hear the mother use the word farang as she was talking to the child but I didn't know why. One day this happened when I was with my girlfriend and she explained what was being said. In my neighbourhood there are two young kids who are guaranteed to burst out crying if I walk past. They might be playing quite happily but the minute they see me the tears start and they run to the nearest Thai person for security. They don't take their eyes off me until they are satisfied I have gone and the danger has passed. Farangs, with their bigger stature, steely blue eyes and maybe a shock of ginger hair can be quite an intimidating sight to Thais. After being in Thailand for a while and not seeing too many farangs I am starting to understand this. There are times when I am quite startled by the look of some farangs as they pass through. They are a lot more powerful looking than I am, have lots of body and facial hair, a look of meanness in their eyes, tattoos, piercings and pirate-style haircuts. And that's just the backpacker girls. When you take this fact into consideration and add it to the shyness that exists with most Thais it is not difficult to understand why some students in a classroom environment with a farang teacher resemble frightened rabbits caught in car headlights. One evening as I was eating dinner in a local restaurant I was approached by a Thai guy who spoke very good English. It turned out he was a Fulbright scholar who had studied for an MA in the US and now runs a language school. He asked if I taught English and told me he was desperate to hire a native-speaking English teacher. He had hired a South African guy but admitted to having made an error of judgment. This guy would just explode in the classroom terrifying the students and he was sacked. Teaching Thais needs incredible patience and tolerance. Sometimes they can't manage even the simplest questions and answers but you just have to persist. Losing ones' temper, or having a hot heart as the Thais say (jai rawn), will not help but will just make matters worse. Maybe I am naturally patient because I don't need to make a conscious effort not lose my temper but if you have a volatile personality it needs to be controlled. I make a big point of praising students when they say something well. It might be that their sentence structure of their pronunciation was very good, or both. A thumbs-up is a pretty universal 'well done' sign and sometimes I will applaud. What usually happens is that the rest of the class will also join in. The Thais are a very gentle and sensitive race. It's a case of using lots of carrot and no stick to get the best from them.
The opportunities to teach are vast and varied, ranging from voluntary work in refugee camps on the Burmese border to high-paid positions improving the language skills of Thais working for multi-national companies. In between are hundreds of private language institutions and thousands of government and private schools around the country. In addition, Thais with money are also prepared to pay for private tuition. As the economy grows so will the demand for English teachers. There is a growing elitist middle-class in Thailand and they are incredibly status-conscious. The image they portray is very important to them. Having the right clothes, cars and other material accessories is important but increasingly, being able to speak good English is the skill they want because it sets them apart and gives them the air of superiority they desire. What may be of interest is that I consider the most obvious work places to be the worst. Foreigners who don't understand Thailand will no doubt search through the jobs listings at Ajarn.com and other similar sites thinking that is their only chance for employment. I did this many years ago and only grew despondent when I didn't receive replies or was told I wouldn't be able to find work. I wish I had kept a few e-mail addresses to inform those ever-so-helpful people where I am teaching now and how much I am earning. Thais schools, unfortunately, consist mostly of pupils who don't have much interest in learning English. Girls are a lot better but Thai teenage boys are a nightmare apart from a few. It doesn't matter what you are trying to teach, if your students aren't interested in learning you are just banging your head against a brick wall. University students should be better but many under-graduates demonstrate the same attitude as high-school students. What I have found though is that once they get beyond undergraduate level they become a joy to teach. Master's degree and PhD students are among my favourites. Private language institutes are all about making money and native-speaking teachers are just commodities to be used as part of this process. The institute's objective is to pay teachers as little as possible while getting them to do as much as possible to increase profits. Maybe they're not all like that but the ones I've been involved with have been. There is a vast market for English teachers in private companies where there is a need for staff to have an understanding of English. I have found that it is much more rewarding teaching adults because they have a better attitude towards learning. I have also found that I get paid and treated better than at purely educational establishments. However, companies expect teachers to be professional. At the companies I have worked at I have done requirements workshops and then turned those requirements into a syllabus and individual lesson plans. You can't turn up with a hangover and tell the students to look at page 55 of their text books while they listen to a listening tape. People working at such companies are busy and don't have the time to tell you what or how to teach. They want you to make a professional assessment of what needs to be done and to make an equally professional plan to develop and deliver material. I also said that the more advanced students were rewarding to teach but you need to know your subject. PhD level Thai students can spell better and have a better understanding of English grammar than most native-speakers, especially some of the bums in Thailand bluffing their way through as English teachers. You will be exposed quite quickly if you can't spell or can't explain in which situations, for example, to use different tense structures to talk about the past tense. Another reason for trying to find work outside of the normal schools and language schools is because of the farang bums I mentioned above. And there are thousands of farang bums in Thailand. These guys have bummed out of society from wherever they come from and arrived in Thailand. They have no source of income from abroad, no skills and little education. The only possible thing they can do to survive in Thailand is to pose as English teachers. I use the verb 'pose' because they can't teach and many don't even have a grasp of their own language. OK, they can speak it - just - but they can't spell, or explain grammar. These guys hate their work but have no choice. When new teachers arrive who don't know the system it is an opportunity for the bums to offload work on them in order to get an easier life. I know because it has happened to me. That's why now I only work where I can do so completely independently and be my own boss. I may not have been in Thailand for as long as them but I am not a completely gullible idiot who can be given everyone else's work to do while others put their feet up. There are enough teaching opportunities in Thailand not to be a victim and not to be taken advantage of. It helps though if you can afford to wait. Finding good work is like finding a good woman. If you are desperate you will find bad ones but if you sit back and relax, good ones will come to you.
Finding Work This can be done from outside of Thailand. Language schools with branches in your home country as well as Thailand are one option and of course there is the Internet. My personal experience applying for Internet advertised jobs in Thailand was not good though. Most jobs I applied for that way didn't even result in a reply and occasionally I would get a refusal but I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because I didn't have long list of qualifications or maybe because my face didn't fit? Job applications in Thailand always require a photo so they know what you look like). In Thailand it's a different story. When I decided to go job hunting I brushed up my CV, copied it several times along with copies of my qualifications and went walking around some schools. The first one I stopped at offered me a job there and then which rather took me by surprise. When applying from a distance they are never quite sure what you are like so being able to meet you in person is a big bonus. You are also there and available! It seems that many people thousands of miles away who are offered jobs just don't show up. I would strongly advise anyone looking for work in Thailand to go there first. As I said above, don't restrict your opportunities by only thinking about working in schools and language institutes. Thailand depends very much on tourism and foreign trade and all sorts of businesses have a need for English language skills.
If you've read any other pages on this site you will already understand that Thailand is the land of image and appearance where substance doesn't count. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Most Thai employers would have no idea how to interview a foreigner and ask the right questions to find out if that person was a good teacher. The techniques that Thais use to assess where other Thai people fit into the social hierarchy don't apply to farangs so they are pretty clueless. Their assessment of prospective foreign teachers is carried out superficially based solely on appearance. For this reason you should be very well presented when seeking work. The photos on your application should also show you presented well. It doesn't matter if you have an IQ of 30, a prison record and a fondness for small boys. Just wear a nice shirt, a new pair of trousers and a clean pair of shoes and you'll be OK.
Visitors to Thailand who just arrive at the border and get a 30 day stamp, or arrive with 60 day tourist visas, are not allowed to work officially but many do and no one seems to care. Whether you do or not is up to you. The consequences of working illegally are actually quite severe but if there is no enforcement of the law, so what? In order to work legally an Immigration Non-B Visa is required and this must be obtained from a Thai Embassy or Consulate outside of Thailand. As I'm based in southern Thailand, Penang is the most convenient place for me but if you are based further north it may be more appropriate to go to Vientiane in Laos. First you need an offer of a job. To get the Non-B visa you need to fill in the appropriate form (which has many weird questions) and supply the following - two passport photos, the fee (200 Malaysian Ringgits in Penang) and the offer letter from your employer. Make sure that the job offer letter is on official headed note paper (preferable with the company crest at the top), that the person who signs it has a very long title and sounds important and that it is stamped with the official company seal to prove its authenticity. Thais love all this kind of stuff. Apparently they used to issue 6 month Non-B visas at one time but no longer. You will get a 90 day single entry visa. When you go back into Thailand after your visa run the visa will be activated and the 90 day clock starts ticking. The single entry part of the visa means that if you have to leave Thailand for any reason before your 90 days are up the visa is effectively nullified. Once you have the Non-B visa you are allowed to start work. The idea now is that in the 90 days it is valid for your employer can start arranging a work permit for you from the Department of Labour. This is another long, bureaucratic process requiring more photos and photocopies of various documents. Provided a work permit is granted you can then renew your Non-B visa for another year after the original 90 days. Work permits cost between Bt750 and Bt3,000 depending on the duration. Visa applications are normally accepted from 9am to noon and can be collected between 2pm and 4pm the next day. This is something to bear in mind if you won't arrive until the afternoon or evening. You may need to stay an extra night or grease someone's palm to get the application processed faster.
Who Pays For Visa Runs And Work Permits? This varies. If you get recruited from abroad it is likely that your employer will pay for your air ticket to Thailand and all these expenses. I haven't been so fortunate and have footed the bill myself for two visa runs to Penang. These weren't particularly cheap as I refuse to stay in a Chulia Street doss house so have paid for decent hotels while in Penang. In my first job it took my first week's wages to recoup my visa expenses and my second week's wages to pay for the new wardrobe of suitable working clothes I had to buy.
Is A TEFL Qualification Necessary? Strictly, no. If you happen to walk into a school where they need English teachers and you are a presentable, native English speaker you can probably find employment. However, this question raises ethical questions. Why do you want to teach English in Thailand if you aren't qualified to do so? Is it just to fund your enjoyment of the wonderful lifestyle Thailand has to offer? Is it to pay for your drinking sessions or encounters with prostitutes? English is now an important life skill for Thais and some are paying a lot of money for lessons. Don't you owe it to them to give your best? And to do this don't you first need to learn the necessary skills required to teach? I did a 4 week TEFL course at the Boland School in the Czech Republic. I thought that my use of English was already pretty good and I know that my spelling and grammar usage is better than 99.9% of kids coming out of University with degrees. I worked for many years at one of the world's leading companies and was used to hard work when the occasion demanded. What I did not expect on my TEFL course was to be challenged the way I was. It was a tough course and not everyone is guaranteed a pass, some people just get a certificate of attendance. It was tough but one of the English proverbs I teach my students is, "Nothing worthwhile in life comes easy." When I finished the course I felt confident to prepare and deliver English lessons and to handle questions about the language. I honestly can't see how anyone without that training can teach effectively.
Is A Bachelors Degree Necessary? No. Most language schools will say yes, especially if you are applying from abroad, but my work permit application did not require a degree which is quite handy because I haven't got one. They asked for a graduation certificate and I gave a copy of my HNC which was good enough apparently. In reality, my sub-degree UK education was a lot higher standard than that of many Thai university students. Most Thais just can't differentiate between good and bad foreigners or good and bad foreign teachers. In an effort to try to get good teachers they specify that job applicants must have a list of qualifications as long as your arm but this means nothing. The Thai university system is turning out hundreds of thousands of graduates each year and, quite frankly, a lot of the kids aren't too bright. What it means though is that every position now offered in Thailand requires a Bachelors degree as a bare minimum. In the classified pages of the newspaper even roadsweepers in Thailand need a degree. Are people who do not have degrees bad teachers and are those who have them good teachers? Not necessarily. Does the degree have to be in a related subject? No. Does it matter that many youngsters coming out of universities with degrees can't spell or construct grammatically correct sentences? Apparently not, but I think it matters. Regardless of the arguments, if you have a degree it will probably make getting a teaching job in Thailand easier.
Free Lessons And Exchanging Lessons In my opinion this is something to be avoided although I have helped people who I like at times. Thais always want something for free and I am constantly asked if I can give free lessons. The other ploy is to exchange English lessons for Thai ones. This arrangement could work but, as I mentioned above, people need to know how to teach. I can teach English and I'd happily exchange some lessons with a proper Thai teacher to teach me Thai but I haven't had the opportunity to do so. Some Thai friends have attempted this and haven't had a clue. To 'teach' Thai they look around the room pointing at objects and giving me the Thai word. This, unfortunately, is not teaching.
Sometimes learning is boring. We all know this but we just get on with it. This isn't necessarily the case with Thai students though. If it's not considered fun or if something is too tough for them, they will just switch off. Some will put their heads on the desk and sleep, others will talk, others will look out of the window. Some will just not turn up for subsequent classes. Many advertisements for language schools in Thailand include the word fun and I have even started using it when I prepare a syllabus for a new class. Fun, fun, fun. Yes, wouldn't the world be wonderful if everything we had to do was fun but sadly it isn't. Unfortunately Thai students haven't quite woken up to this fact yet.
This has backfired at times, especially if the game is me versus them. The only thing that is important to them is beating me. I don't care about that but they miss the point. I might turn a learning point into a game to make it fun but the important thing is to learn. For them, winning is important, not learning. In some hangman games the electronic dictionaries and crossword solvers come out under the desks to make sure they 'beat' me but by cheating they don't learn anything. It can be a balancing act between teaching and entertaining in Thai classrooms and I try to keep the balance right. Some farang 'teachers' just act like clowns all the time. Their 'Jack-the-lad' antics keep the teenage boys amused but when these so-called teachers don't correct any mistakes and don't know how to explain a grammatical error there isn't much educational value in what they do. The students are very passive. When I underwent education in my business life the students were the masters and the teachers were the servants. If students weren't getting exactly what they wanted from the course they would tell the teacher so things could be changed. When I took Thai lessons I had studied the language enough to have quite a few questions and I made damn sure that I got the answers I wanted. My Thai teacher had a syllabus but I was very proactive in the classroom. Thai culture is completely the opposite. Teachers are deeply respected (whether they deserve it or not) and students won't speak out against them. I have tried to wean my students away from this and make them more Westernised in their attitudes. I'll make suggestions but tell them I want their feedback to ensure they are getting what they need from our lessons. It works sometimes but it's a slow process. Typically, when I start a new class I will give them an outline syllabus but make it very clear I want their feedback in order to fine tune it so they get exactly what they want. In the West I would expect to be told by students they don't want certain topics because they know them already or they are irrelevant, and to suggest some other topics. This doesn't happen in Thailand. What I provide first of all is always OK and they never want to change anything. I have produced feedback forms which are designed to require very little work. The students only have to tick boxes but they never bother filling them in. In my experience so far I have found that asking students for feedback is a waste of time. Because they are passive it is not uncommon for me to teach something and when I try to elicit from them if everything was understood they just look back at me. It's puzzling. Sometimes I've asked students with completely blank stares on their faces if they understood and it turns out they did. Why didn't they tell me then?! Volunteering is another potential problem. "Can anyone tell me ..... ?" is often not answered. They will not always volunteer so it is necessary to pick on someone. I think this is cultural too. If they volunteer an answer and get it wrong they can lose face and if they get it right their friends tease them. Once a lesson has finished they just forget everything. On a few occasions I have run out of time to complete an exercise with all the students so tell them we will continue next lesson. When the next lesson comes that can't remember what we were doing before so it is necessary to start all over again or start something new. Homework is generally a waste of time for the same reason. Once one lesson has finished they generally have no interest in English until the next lesson begins. I have set my students small reading exercises, for example to learn some idioms, and asked them to give me some of their own examples next lesson. The result is always the same. The sheet of paper hasn't been looked at since it was given out and I just get a lot of blank stares. They are very shy too and this is something I find extremely frustrating at times. With a new group of students expect it to take about four lessons just to draw them out of their shells. Some remain the same throughout the entire course. The irony is they say they want English conversation classes to improve their speaking ability but they just won't speak because they are shy. Aaah. You might expect this from six year-olds but the problem exist with Thais who are in their late teens or 20's. I generally like shy and unassuming people but it is a real handicap in the classroom. One class I taught only had two students. When I spoke to one of them they would never reply directly. I would say something and then there would be a lot of giggling and speaking in Thai between the two of them before I'd receive a barely audible whisper back. They weren't that young either. Sometimes I just want to shake them to make them speak. The annoying thing is that they have the ability. They know the necessary grammar and vocabulary but they just won't articulate what is in their head. It's definitely cultural and starts to get better once they are in their 20's. Bachelor degree students show a lot more confidence than high school kids. Thais grow up slowly. Expect many 18 year-olds to behave like 10 year-olds. This constant pursuit of fun makes you think at times that schools are geared up for everything apart from learning. At the high school I taught at there were many things that frustrated me. I would prepare one hour lesson plans but the students would arrive at least 20 minutes late. Sometimes it was 30 or 40 minutes. My complaints fell on deaf ears. Certain other teachers saw this as a benefit. It meant they had less classroom time and if in the remaining 30 minutes they could put a listening tape on for 10 minutes it reduced their teaching time even more. If the students had to come from an adjacent building it took them forever. When they first told me they had to travel I was under the impression they had been studying at another school across town or something. After a while I realised they were only coming from the adjacent block! It was a five minute walk at most but apparently 40 minutes was acceptable. One week I was told that several of my classes had been cancelled due to 'Academic Day'. Indeed, several classes were cancelled as the students constructed polystyrene models of buildings from London and New York. About two weeks was wasted. When the big day came it was anything but academic. Students from other schools visited and it was just like a village fair with food vendors and craft schools. It had no academic value at all but was used as a bit of a showcase for the school and was regarded as a major event in the school calendar. On the day itself no work got done and also on the day after when everyone was involved with clearing up. Immediately after 'Academic Day' they started to plan a similar event, 'Sports Day' but I left before that happened.
If someone can't jump very high we first try to determine if the cause is a lack of effort or motivation. If the cause is apathy or laziness we can try carrot or stick approaches (depending on the situation and the individual involved) to get more out of them. A little reward or a kick up the backside may be all it takes. If the problem is real - and not lack of effort - we might look at other solutions. Perhaps we need to find ways to strengthen the leg muscles, or maybe improve the jumping technique, or perhaps even introduce a completely different technique? The Thai solution for people who can't jump very high is just to set the bar very low. There is no effort involved, the underachieving jumper is happy that he can now clear the bar and the teachers are happy because their students are no longer failing. I like to give examples to back up what I say so here are a couple. I paid for my girlfriend to go on a basic computing course. The idea, more than anything, was just to try to boost her self-esteem a little by giving her a new skill. I sat in on one lesson and about half an hour was spent playing with the delete and backspace keys. The students typed a row of characters, put the cursor in the middle and repeatedly pressed each key to see what happened. This surprised me a little. Had I been running the course I would not have made a special point teaching something so basic. If necessary, I may have spent 30 seconds on it and not 30 minutes. Another complete lesson was devoted to using MSN Messenger. Yes, type a message, press enter and your message gets sent. Does that really require two hours of instruction? On another occasion, while I was in a computer shop waiting for prints, I observed a group of students being taught Microsoft Word. They had all typed in their name and were busy changing the font, the text and background colours, using bold and underline, etc. It was just playing, basically, which anyone can do in their own time but this is the sort of thing that Thais are 'taught'. Word is actually quite a complex application because it can do so much but nothing of any real value was being taught. At the end of these courses the students all get a nice diploma stating they have studied certain things but the reality is they come away with hardly anything of value and what they do learn they forget almost immediately. I'm being harsh but this is backed up with my experience of teaching school and university students. I understand the game and I know how to play it but I don't want to because it is wrong. I could play hangman and other games for half the lesson, clown around for a bit longer, give them a tape to listen to and a text book to read, ask them questions they already know and they would be quite happy. They would probably be happy with my teaching and say what a good teacher I was. It's a waste of time though and I don't like wasting my, or other people's, time. It would also be a waste of money for whoever was paying my salary. When I teach students, I want to teach them useful material. If they are employees I want to teach them English that is relevant for their work; if they are final year degree students just about to start work I want to teach them how to write a CV and covering letter; if they just want a basic course I want them to be able to handle a variety of real life situations. My approach causes problems though because it requires the students to actually do some work, which they don't like doing. The typical response is just to stop attending classes if the going gets tough or blame the teacher. Good teachers take pride in improving the ability of their students and want to see them make big strides. Poor teachers are happy just to go through the motions and pick up their paycheck each month. It's difficult being a good teacher in Thailand. If your motive for teaching is to actually teach and to see students develop and improve, Thailand could be quite a frustrating place to work.
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