I have just finished trolling through some of the comments about ageism in the TEFL arena, as well as other topics in your teacher info section, which I think is a great idea because it gives everyone a chance to air their opinions regardless of race, age, religion or any other defect your readers can think of.
My reason for writing is two fold; first, the number of people who claim to be English teachers that cannot write so much as one short paragraph without making spelling and/or grammar mistakes. Any person who has had a good education and who takes a pride in their linguistic abilities should be able to write one short paragraph without a single mistake, or at least check it with the grammar and spell check tool on their computer. These are the same people that shout and scream about the poor conditions that ‘farang teachers’ have to endure in order to survive in Thailand, I would suggest that they spend less time complaining and more time studying the English language, at which they claim to be expert enough to be able to call themselves ‘teachers’, they are a disgrace to the profession.

Second, having read the comments in the Filipino section, most of which boasted that the Filipinos are as good at teaching the English language as any ‘native speaker’, I was again aroused at the temerity of these people. I recently had the distasteful job of checking the English exam papers (where I work) for spelling and grammar mistakes, all had been prepared by Filipino teachers (I use the term ‘teachers’ loosely) and was appalled at the number of spelling, grammar and vocabulary mistakes that had been made. I gave the teachers in question the benefit of the doubt and assumed they were probably genuine mistakes, but when I pointed the mistakes out they all showed their true colours and arrogantly insisted that I was wrong. The matter was resolved when I handed them a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary and a copy of the Oxford book of grammar and told them to check their work again, then come back and apologise.
As an aside, I have a Masters in English Literature, as well as two other degrees and I am very proud of my profession.

Brian