Thread: volunteer teachers

are volunteer teachers driving down salaries? are they even more of a waste of space than esl teachers with tefl certs. obtained in thailand?

i was in the internet shop last week browsing thai ladyboys dot com when i was approached by the manageress/owner. she was interested to learn that a farang had moved into town (me , the only one apparantly... and long may it continue) , was a native english speaker & looked semi-professional (not a backpacker). she had relatives working at the only semi-private school in town & they were in need of a teacher. i told her that i'd consider a job under the following conditions:

1) no WP
2) no formal contract
3) i'd work under an assumed name
4) i'd teach 15 hours a week & be on site for no more than 20 hours a week
5) priority use of photocopier
5a) no flag ceremony shite
6) no thai teacher meetings (cos they are even more stupid than elt's, imo) but i'd do the odd PTA meet if they wanted
7) 40k a month, cash in hand

no we left it that she'd present my demands to the fools who run the school & get back to me.

a couple of days later i was back at the internet shop & there was another farang in there. some kid in his early twenties, bespeckled & rather full figured. so i went into the owners office to ask what gives. she told me that he was a volunteer teacher now teaching english up at the school, not only that but he was swedish i told her what i thought of non-natives teaching the mother language & she agreed.

so it seems that this kid has nicked a potentially cushy job from me Grrrrrrr! still, this place is a one horse town & as soon as he finds that the place has just on karaoke bar staffed by over some rather ugly fat birds... he'll be off to bkk or pattaya

i was speaking to some of the kids from the school who get in the internet shop just to check their level of english and was appalled... hardly understood a word i did... in comparison dirtydog sounds positively coherent

this place will never have a decent elt profession until they take out all the volunteer elt's & shoot them down like the dogs they are, imo.