Are you certified?

Finding your way through the TEFL course maze

Teaching was no longer challenging. I was stagnating. Sure, I could always shake my life up with a weekend of debauchery, an occasional fling with a sexy female expatriate, or by traveling to a different city – and, truth be told, I often tried combining all three. But, at my core, I knew that I wasn’t growing productively. As a teacher I wasn’t developing. My methodologies had become stale. I needed a new bag of tricks. I needed rejuvenation.

Career services corner

Help in finding a job

As the head of a well-regarded English program at a government school in Bangkok, Thailand for the last 1.5 years, I have been largely appalled by the thousands of resumes I have seen, e-mails I have received, and the lack of interviewing skills of most teacher candidates I speak to.

Ajarn lesson number one

The first steps to becoming a teacher

A teacher, me! Terror was my first reaction, yes I was used to handling million pound budgets and protecting the reputation of celebrities form the British tabloid, but teaching is such a responsibility!

Advice you can truly use

Don't listen to those barstool experts!

Having been warned-- or advised-- that appearance is very important here in Thailand, (just as important as Japan, Korea, or Taiwan I suppose), I set out on job interviews. Most of the advice for teachers on the Thailand websites struck me as either superficial or downright absurd.

Fresh off the boat

Newbies. Don't you just love 'em

I've seen it all before. We all have. These young, naive 20 something newbies, these walking erections with a backpack, who get off the airplane at Don Muang with nothing but a goofy grin and a 42 work vocabulary, and magically land that 40,000 Baht a month job te aching English, while the rest of us, with our credentials, our education, and our experience are left wondering where the good teaching jobs have gone.

December 2002

A year-end selection box of TEFL snippets

Featured this month is corporate work, Mr Micheal from Siam Computer, how to dress to impress at interviews and mingling with rich English teachers.

Manic depression

Looking for jobs in the concrete jungle

There's been more comments recently about how hard it is to get a job. Part of the problem is the rather disinterested or negative attitude of some teachers who simply believe that it's their god given right to be able to land a dream teaching gig with minimal effort.

Contractual obligations

Always read the small print

A not particularly accurate overview of the contracts offered to teachers in Thailand. Taken with a pinch of salt it might give you some ideas of what to expect.