The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

Doggsy

I understand that some people that come to Thailand only teach English as a means to staying in Thailand and 'living the dream'. I also understand that some teach english to stay in Thailand and be a SLAGDOG monger, ( possibly already said that in the 'living the dream' comment!).

However it is extremely rare for somebody to admit teaching TEFL and not getting chewed out by other members of the forum, surely everybody can admit that there are good ones out there.

I taught TEFL for about 6 months when I took a gap year from uni which I would like to think helped me, along with staying in Thailand, grow up enough to realise that I was wasting my time at uni and thus made me try harder in my final year to ensure I passed my degree.

It also enabled me to try teaching which I had never thought of as a career as I had disliked school when I had been there. Once I realised I enjoyed teaching it has now led me to enrol on a PGCE course starting this September.

Granted most TEFL jobs pay a rubbish salary but if people don't need the money or can survive on the low salary it brings it then what is the problem? Not everybody needs to earn a high salary and be so materialistic...

dirtydog

You state here that once you realised that you enjoyed teaching you decided to get properly qualified for it, are you saying that your 4 week course wasn't enough to make you a PROPER TEECHER?

Doggsy

Possibly not. 4 weeks is not very long to learn how to do something. however it is better than nothing.
I guess it is a little like experience v qualifications. I could finish my course next June and be qualified as a proper teacher. I could then come up against a person that was on my TEFL course back in 2002 and has been teaching for 6 years. Who is the most qualified? Some people are more natural at teaching than others.

Although 4 weeks worth of training is not a lot some of the teachers are still having a positive influence on the students, ie the ones out in the sticks where the kids are scared of talking to a farang. If they have an approachable teacher the fear is diminished. This will automatically help them relax more in English class and learn more.

The forum doesnt seem to understand why people dont just go back to the west and make money to be able to return to Thailand and not have to teach English. However not everybody has a lot of money and once you are bitten by the Asia bug dont want to have to spend the next 10 - 15years living in the west to be able to return to the east.

For some living for now is more important, is this wrong?

Camel Toe

TD IMO has always had this thing about teachers. It probably comes from the fact an unpopular BKK Phil banned a lot of the founding membership on this forum, and many who came later over the years, whether or not they had a go with BP at some time or the other. There is as well cross membership. I am one of those. I don't hate BP but I wouldn't want him to marry my daughter, and DD had better stay the fok away from her too.

Some like to rag on teachers as if we were low-life, assuming all graduated from KSR university. I don't know all there is to know but I get the idea Johnnie Walker late night boredom sets some members off on "I'm above you tangents", especially if they've racked up a tonne of repo points, to the extreme all the rest of us are supposed to lick their arses or get reded. Ajarners do it too. In fact I'd rather read anti teacher stuff here than read some of those teacher cvnts on AF arguing over who's better qualified.

It also seems some TDers, occasionally, will bate you into presenting your credentials. You may want to show you are the real thing, the same person who just might be educating their children at present or in the past, or in the future. One or two members might just turn your post on you and treat you as if you're academia trash and came to Thailand to bump school children .. pure unadulterated ignorance and/or Johnnie Walker logic.

I figure this to be a blue-collar website. And that's okay by me. I'm blue collar myself, but got a degree late in life.

I got a lot of respect for DD, he's talented and works hard. And there is a whole lot of good folks here. If you want to post about teacher stuff there are plenty of places to go.

good luck

panama hat

Really?

dirtydog

Thats true with any vocation though, some people are better brick layers than others, it's just a matter of getting through your quota perday and getting the money, (me, I'm a shite bricklayer regardless of all the accolades I get), one of the courses I went on was artexing, now thats just giving texture to ceilings and walls, 2 courses of a week each, you still need another complete month of working experience to actually do something so simple to a reasonable degree that you will actually get paid a good rate for the work you have done.

Now what do I know about teaching in Thailand, my girlfriend is a degreed teacher and I used to shag her a lot, can't be bothered so much nowadays though, but, 2 of my mates done their TEFLer course 3 plus years ago in Pattaya, 300baht per hour garaunteed work is a foking Godsend in the Chonburi area, yep, 300baht per hour is what they work for, they got a lot of johnny foreigner mates who done the same course as them on more, but they work at schools for at most 8 months per year and then get foked around for 4 months unpaid with promises, yep, TEFL sounds like a great career move to me.....

__________________

bkkandrew

Tell me about it. Fucking tiring having to service her at the moment!

dirtydog

You have to make your own money in life, ok I build, I get people phoning me me to do odd jobs, a good example is the non working light, you spend 30 minutes driving there, you find it is the 10 baht light switch is broken, you drive to the shop, buy a new 10baht light switch, you drive back to the customer and fit the new light switch, I have now spent an hour plus petrol foking around to earn less than my mates who are teaching for 300baht per hour, thats probably why I don't bother answering my phones

dirtydog

She eats little boys like you for breakfast

dirtydog

Of course, another friend of mine earns 120,000baht month per month at the Regents in Pattaya, but he is a proper teacher but didn't get the full expat package as he was already living here, TEFL 300baht per hour, or the proper money as a real teacher, ie 120k baht per month and up.....

kingwilly

Actually, contrary to what some people may believe, I have the utmost respect for quite a number of teachers of TEFL. And different people are doing it for different reasons, some good, some bad.

I knew of several blokes at my old footy club in thailand who were teachers of TEFL.

One was a very hard working, honest, good bloke (Torbek, for those who remember him) - he did a great job and did it well, as far as I could gather.

Another was a painter from Australia, he got his degree from KSR, I was mates with him, but as far as I could gather he was shite at teaching.

Some good, some bad.

I'll argue with Smeg when he gets on a rant, but then I'll equally argue with Megahorn who teaches as a means to stay in thailand and shag and photograph cheap whores giving him blowjobs or I'll argue with Accidental Alcoholic who appears to believe that he knows everything there is to know about teaching in thailand....

Accidental Ajarn

The dark side of human, as least male humans, nature is to seek out others to belittle in order to make oneself appear superior.

TEFLERs are an easy target, obviously a compulsion to insult comes from feelings of inferiority. Those being the most vicious towards TEFLER (Like DD) are the ones with the lowest self-esteem.

Not hard to understand, if you want to see what drives most hatred, don't look at the object being hated, look at the personality of the one doing the hating.

Why can't we just live and let live?

Chairman Mao

From what I've seen DD is only being real. He gives talks up those who are doing it correctly, and slags off the scummy rejects who are foking up kid's educations just for their own self interest. Low self esteem must surely come from doing a job you hate and should not be doing just so can avoid going home IMO.

kingwilly

Aaaah, I think it is time for a

Accidental Ajarn

"Why can't we just live and let live?"

Because it is not in human nature. However, does that mean we have to be slaves to our basest emotions?

At one level, competition between each other is healthy, as it drives us to achieve more. On the other hand, it can result in pettiness and division, like is seen on this thread.

We can do two things in order to set us out from the pack (In order to be more sexually desirable?). Raise ourselves or belittle other. Belittling others may have been a successful technique when we humans lived in small tribal units, but is a total waste of time in modern society. It is a much better idea to devote one's life to achieving one's own life goals and not worry so much about others, even if the others are TEFLERS.

melvbot

TEFLers are like the ginger kids at school, hard not to spot them and have a banter with them. Some take it to heart, some take it in their stride.

Gerbil

I'd rather be a ginger than a TEFLER.



(Thank god, I'm neither. )

Camel Toe

It's easy to see why some folks don't care much for teachers, be they drunk, drinking, stone sober, or just ordinarily bigoted. I don't like them that much either. Visit this site as an example: A to Z Teacher Stuff For Teachers FREE online lesson plans, lesson plan ideas and activities, thematic units, printables, themes, teaching tips, articles, and educational resources. Too straight, too Christian, too boring.

What makes the teacher in Thailand somewhat more digestible to me is that he's usually not a teacher back home, at least for some time, he's a traveler or an expat and some of them like Thai people and Thai kids and like helping out .. as an option to living on an overpopulated island of chavs or in Bush country.

Apart from the Thai birds, who never really caught more than my eye, living here for many blokes is not the paradise the Thai government want us to believe.

Marmite the Dog

No. You do the sums and let me know.

benbaaa

Shit. If I'd known there were TEFLERs on here I'd never have registered. Is it too late to flounce?