What's a foreign teacher's contract worth?
What happens when your teacher agency won't pay up!
We were contracted to be paid for the full month of September but we were being told that our last day at the school was September 16, 2016. Something was rotten in the Kingdom of Thailand - it was like we were having our arses kicked out of a job too early.
Get it down on paper!
The secret to managing office politics
Conflict in a workplace can pop up unexpectedly. This is why it’s necessary for you to write things down. This way, when it comes time to defend yourself or to shed light on the matter you can look back to your notes and bring up exactly what happened
The slaughterhouse called marking
It's boring, thankless work, right? Should we even bother?
Hunting down every error is hard on a student's ego, but also very time consuming for a teacher faced with a full class-load of papers. But there are ways around it.
Perfectionists: stay away from English teaching
Some rules of the road
There are some businesses you’ll get into in Asia as a teacher where the best you can hope for is a good one year and then you leave either because the environment is just so toxic or because you are going to get burned out or maybe you’ll just get sick of living in a rural area.
Classroom management muscle
Lessons from Arnie in Kindergarten Cop
Let us spend this blog investigating the question of classroom management. To do so, I'd like to use a visual example from a movie, something we can all relate to in some way.
A very stubborn teacher
When another teacher gets in the way of you doing your job.
I walked in and smiled at the 50-something Thai teacher, who was a pretty big guy. He sneered at me and returned to the whiteboard. Feeling rather non-plussed I retreated and waited politely outside.
An undeserved promotion
Foreign teachers are powerless to stop problem students advancing
Last year in my P1 class I encountered a student named Oat (not his real name). Within minutes of meeting this child it was apparent that he had some sort of behavioral problem. He was extremely active, running from room to room, disrupting classes throughout the whole school. The other teachers tried to control him but it was close to impossible.
Is it standard to have a certain level of social engineering in the Thai university system?
Postbox letter from Humanities dept. University teaching
I don't think I've seen such blatant disregard for foreigners ever.
A short-lived teaching career?
I'm not sure whether Thailand isn't right for me or I'm not right for Thailand.
In spite of the draconian disciplinary measures, the students are basically normal, mostly happy, playful, loving children, who are extremely well behaved, and attentive to my classroom instructions - when the Thai teachers and assistants are present.
Entertainer or educator?
And somehow smiling through the pain while trying to teach a class of 50 kids
I was forced to wear sandals for at least a week as my poor toe needed some pressure-relief in which to heal properly. As I limped into each classroom, the 50 or so kids would all notice my footwear and the large bandage on my toe. But not one student smirked or laughed.
