Stumbling blocks

What I didn’t learn in my 100-hour online ESL course

I can see my skin through my dress shirt because the thin layer of fine linen is totally soaked through. In short, it’s too hot to care about anything academic.

An amazing TEFL journey

From Saudi to Thailand to China (and a bit of America in-between)

China is definitely on the upswing as far as English teaching goes. Thailand is a place I love but professionally dead to me. Saudi was challenging, interesting and of course lucrative.

Going Home

The difficulties of finding employment when a teacher returns to the USA

The economy is functioning like an alcoholic's ailing liver. This has been headline news for several years, but seeing it in the news and experiencing it first hand was quite different.

A Guinness book of records candidate?

I know a man whose worked for 19 schools

Ben said that he didn't plan to hop from one school to another. It just happened. From the time he started teaching at age 20 - but now in his 60's - he had taught in 19 schools (excluding tutorial centers). He taught in thirteen schools in the Philippines, five in Thailand and one in Afghanistan.

Happy hour at the ESL bar and grill

Amusing the students to death

Students are being scammed out of their money by an industry that is content to amuse the students to death by turning English language education into a perverted version of happy hour at Joe's Bar. Teachers and students deserve better than that.

An unwanted duty

Is this Thai tradition pain or pleasure?

In many schools in Thailand, Thai teachers, as well as foreign teachers, take turns in standing at the school gate to greet parents and students. Two or more teachers are assigned, depending on the size of the school, to do this each day.

I've given up looking too

Postbox letter from Sir Heath

I made the mistake of bringing some first year students' problems to the attention of the head of the section last year. By September, after four and half year at this university, despite 'an excellent record of work' the university decided to let me go.

One year later

Thoughts from a first time teacher on living and working in Thailand

The end of the term has made me very contemplative. A year ago I was in a very different situation than I am now; I was jobless and overwhelmed with debt and I was very confused about how to lift myself up from that desperate situation and pursue my dream of living abroad.

He sleeps in a storm

Disorganization, discipline, and decisiveness in the overseas TEFL industry

I really dislike job interviews. Not because of anything I do. I show up on time; I wear the right clothes; I'm polite; I listen and I ask the right questions. But when it comes to the interview and meeting other people in this industry, whether fellow teachers, administrators, principals, or directors, the ‘niceties' stop at my cover-letter.