Let's unite
Postbox letter from JP Rob
Life is easy here and that's why people want to stay. Most teachers here are here to enhance their career and stamp on the teachers below them.
Book review
Bangkok Exit
As a refreshing change from someone writing about their ten years of hell in a Thai prison, you might want to take a look at Bangkok Exit written by Ryan Humphreys. Ryan gives readers a humorous warts 'n' all account of his first year teaching in Thailand at Sathit Wittaya School.
You will always be an outsider
The dark underbelly of the Thailand TEFL industry
These questions lead to the dark underbelly of Thailand’s EFL industry. Let’s face it: the cowboys have invaded and they’re here to stay. Many English teachers are tourists who only want to extend travel by getting a quick paycheck. Some are fly-by-night sex-pats who have run out of cash. Many English teachers are fleeing a criminal past, or hiding from life back home.
25K a month? You must be joking
Surely you can't live on such a pitiful salary.
Numerous jobs in Thailand still pay around 25,000 baht a month. Is it really enough to live on? The fur really flies in our heated ajarn debate. So how much do you really need to earn in order to survive? A selection of teachers have their say on the whole issue of pay scales.
Oldies........but goldies?
Are those teachers over 45 suddenly too long in the tooth?
With one or two positions on the jobs board asking for teachers no older than 45, ajarn.com asks if this is the start of a terrifying trend and whether our middle-aged days are numbered? Is the TEFL industry about to be over-run with lantern-jawed buck studs who've barely started shaving? Your e-mails came in by the truckload but strangely no one under 45 years old had an opinion (well, only a couple). As someone who turns 42 next month, I'm already finding out the locations of reputable nursing homes. Enough of all this - I need to go again.
Coming home
It just ain't what it used to be
I remember what I told my family and friends before I left for Korea to teach English for the first time in the spring of 1997. I remember telling them about my biggest fear: To end up like everybody else. I didn't want to end up like everybody else. And what is everybody else?
The flame of hope
The optimistic goodbye and our living legacy
I've had some great times in Asia, especially Thailand. Times I will never forget. But when it's time to leave, it's time to leave. And we all know when it's time.
What hope for a superficial education system?
The joys of being part of the system
Being a foreign teacher is again another superficial and costly exercise. They want to show you off like a new piece of gold jewelry or a good photograph. Relatively speaking it costs a lot to employ a foreign teacher in Thailand.
The TESOL diaspora
Making the outside world a home
I feel that the TESOL community, (if indeed there is such a thing as a TESOL community), is at a crossroads. Since so few of us have ever felt really comfortable living in another man's land, our story is not only one of alienation. It is also one of fragmentation, disillusion, and dissimulation.
My TEFL career
The ups and downs of over fifteen years 'in the game'
It's a been a long and often painful journey, but here's an account of 15 years in the Thailand TEFL business. My careers officer never once told me that it might turn out like this.
