100-word soapbox Ajarn

100-word soapbox
Ajarn.com asked a selection of teachers how they felt about working here in Thailand given all the recent changes. Sum up your feelings in one hundred words.

I feel if the MoE wants to tighten up the requirements for foreign teachers in bi-lingual programs, then they should also be requiring that we write the material that we teach. I came to Thailand with over 13 years of teaching experience here in Asia and have been appalled at the materials I've been given to teach at the three schools I have taught at. There is no methodology in any of these programs and the teaching books are mostly books used in "EFL" teaching centres (or worse from India or even home made). There are good teachers here, but none of them have any chance to use their ability in programs that are designed by substandard and non-native managers. If you are actually interested in improving the ability of Thailand's youth, why not travel to Japan, Taiwan or Korea and view what your counterparts have been doing with their programs or simply look at some of the reputable International schools curriculum. If you're going to hire professionals, you'd better have something for them to teach.

Firstly, Thais need to realise they are the ones who choose that untrained foreigners teach their children. Nobody is forcing them to have foreigners come here and do this. As such they need to take responsibility for their choices, stop treating us like criminals on bail and pay properly.

1. License Farang teachers directly, rather than through the schools, so schools can just hire licensed teachers, rather than hiring unlicensed teachers and having to go through all of the nonsense associated with getting their teachers' new licenses.
2. Give licensed teachers a one year Work Permit and Visa THAT IS NOT TIED TO ONE PARTICULAR EMPLOYER! Although there should be a stipulation that they would have to work a certain number of months and pay taxes in order to keep the license and permit.
3. Create a lesser qualification - say Teaching Assistant or Tutor for undegreed teachers, so that they can work for Language Centers or as 'teaching assistants' in Thai Schools.
4. Commission or, at least approve, of some textbooks for EFL teachers to use that are appropriate for Thai students at various levels

Raising the level of teacher standards and qualifications in Thailand will only work if it comes with uniform enforcement of those standards and qualifications as well as a dramatic increase in teacher salaries and better working conditions for all foreign teachers.

If Thailand wants better qualified foreign english teachers, it's going to have to dramatically increase compensation. if foreign english teachers want to receive that increased compensation, they'll need to get better qualified.
Conventional wisdom suggests that neither of these will take place any time soon, and i find the complacency on the part of the MOE, the TEFL industry, and foreign english teachers currently in thailand to be very disheartening. If the MOE, the TEFL industry and teachers want to salvage their reputations, criminal background checks and degree verification are strict but necessary steps. Don't underestimate the importance of reputation.

The best thing that could happen to some people, is that they'd leave LOS and go somewhere else, be it another country or their home-country. No matter where you go, leaving LOS will likely be a step-up.

Thailand will never have a satisfactory TEFL/English programme as long as the industry continues to be by and large unregulated. The minimum criteria for a work permit should be a degree certificate. The minimum requirements to teach English should be a degree and a TEFL certificate. This will ensure that fly by nights who are desperate to continue whoring cannot just do a one month course of variable quality and be employed in what is essentially a reasonably responsible position. Until that day, the TEFL industry in Thailand will remain a lowly paid, unprofessional joke...

When should be the time to go? When living under marshal law? When bombs explode 10 minutes from your door? When having been fired from your lowly teaching job for going AWOL for two weeks on a whiskey binge, you have nothing but 25 baht to your name?
When every time you suffer crap service you crave a culture that gives a shit, or at least pretends to?

It's simple. The time to go is when you're still rich enough to and you have something to go back to.

There has to be consistency. In three years of teaching English I have used three different course books. There is no communication between the grades so the courses are directionless and rudderless. The only test that matters is the means test. But if schools are really and truly interested in improving then have qualified administration running schools. You will not keep hold of qualified teachers until they have bosses they can respect and trust.

I currently feel embarrassed to be a foreign teacher in Thailand.

Thailand's new gov't wishes to create a self-sufficient economy, thus farangs will have to work to make themselves indispensable if they wish to stay. The professional bar must thus be raised, via:
= Serious entry level qualifications
= Effective qualifications and criminal screening
= Training schools not forcing every trainee through, and not making statements such as "there are jobs for everyone who wants one"
= Work permits based on national needs, not employer wants
= Resist the resistors! (i.e. those self-interested schools and businesses fighting changes, especially if claiming to represent teachers)
= Continuous Professional development a work permit requirement, including yearly Thai spoken and written tests to prove personal language ability (not for use in the classroom, but to show we are worthy of teaching foreigners) and effort to integrate into the host society. Thailand must make moves to improve the situation and remove foreign "hangers-on".

Use meaningful textbooks.
Enforce discipline.
Stream English language classes.
Listen to the foreign teachers.
Give the kids some incentive.
Limit class sizes.
Pay a reasonable wage.
Observe teachers often and constructively.

An objective in-class assessment on your teaching abilities. Up to three times per year. Pass and you get to keep a teaching licence which is easily transferable. This would sort out the degreers who can't from the teflers who can. Or the degreers who can from the teflers who can't.

In order to become a prosperous, stable nation, Thailand needs to become serious about skill development. This requires engaging the services of well-trained foreign professional trainers & teachers. These professionals require appropriate compensation packages & visa arrangements. Without appropriate skill development, Thailand will steadily lose its competitve edge to its surrounding neighbours.

While it might appear that I have a particular bee in my bonnet I must acknowledge a certain ambivilance towards some of the comments made about Thailand. It would be impossible for me, a 61 year old business retiree (accountant, double diploma plus teaching experience) to get a job of any value in Australia!

I'm employed by a 3rd class government secondary school with 2,500 students, I am the only blue eyed native speaker employed, in order to flesh out the farang ranks they have employed 4 Filliponoes who do a great job.

While everything is not "peachy", given the system it's not too bad. Oviously the "hidden agenda" is to keep the "peons" as dumb as can be while paying lip service to internal and international pressure. The last generation deemed it indelicate to aspire to a better life or to have ambition! Is it any wonder they are shell shocked by the modern world? Sorry about that, I just had to get it off my chest!

I think that some foreign teachers need to get a grip! Look around you! You are here to give face to the parents and the schools. Do you really think that the MOE or the schools really give a damn! They want blue eyes and white skin at the lowest going price. They like backpackers as they are no threat to the existing system or staff. If you are feeling ego deprived, scurry home! Not everyone is here for the booze and the birds, some of us ex- business retirees are here for the ambiance, the feeling of respect and the acknowledgement of experience gained.