The dreaded Summer break

Six weeks means just far too much time on my hands

When I tell people back home how long I get off they think it’s some sort of perfect dream. However, there’s a certain length of time for a perfect holiday. Six weeks is way too long in my opinion.

Problems that foreign teachers face here

Postbox letter from Josh

It just seems to me that the problems teachers face always come down to common narratives.

Bye, bye Thailand

When poor evaluation strategy and lack of communication mean one thing - the exit door

I have taught at five schools in Thailand and only ONE has let me finish the semester and given me a recommendation letter. I've had enough of this place to be honest.

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.

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.