Ways to improve Thai education

This should be the first government priority

So how can Thailand improve its education? In a nutshell: train the trainers, put fewer students together, motivate them better, hire the right foreign educators to help this bring about, and involve parents more.

Writing resumes 101 for dummies

Postbox letter from Rebecca

Forget my standards of wanting someone with a BA in teaching, a TEFL certificate, a native-speaker of English, and some experience teaching in Thailand - I'm to the point where I will recruit anyone - qualified or not - who will take the time to submit a decent cover letter and resume.

My tears and your legacy

A letter to President-Elect Lee Myung-bak.

Recently the laws of South Korea were modified to improve the vetting process in the hiring of foreign English teachers. Analyzing my blood and urine for specific diseases and pre-existing conditions is one thing.

A teacher in Chiang Mai

Is it paradise or pants?

Few teachers know Chiang Mai better than Andy B. Although he started working there for less than 10,000 baht a month, he soon found out that displaying a degree of professionalism reaped dividends.

Go on, give us a job!

No degree? No teaching certificate? No experience?

All you've got is the language you learned as a baby. Is it still possible to get a job teaching English in Thailand? Ajarn.com picked eight random phone numbers from the jobs offered board and called them up. Dangerous things happen when ajarn.com's got time on its hands. (Names have been changed to avoid causing embarrassment. And there's certainly plenty of that)

More power to us

I lay myself prostrate at the threshold of your venerable institute

The Filipino teaching community is huge here in Thailand. But as many of them bombard recruiters inboxes with over-formal cover letters and speculative applications for jobs they are sometimes not qualified to do, ajarn.com asks the question 'can Filipinos make it easier for themselves to find jobs?'

Will I need a degree to teach in Thailand?

A question that will rage forever and a day.

Ajarn.com asks just how many teachers are teaching with fake credentials. Will schools employ teachers without a degree? And does a degree even make you a better teacher? Ajarn.com also braves the sticky, sweaty Khao San Road and comes face to face with not only foreign women that have let themselves go, but the degree makers themselves. Graduate for 600 baht? Surely not.

The perfect storm

Dopey foreigners and mentally deficient Koreans part one

So Korea, go ahead and continue to hire unqualified native English teachers. You know exactly what you're doing. You're hardly walking and talking testaments to your own good judgement. A plague on all your houses!

The ajarn.com job survey

Some brilliant answers to some frankly daft and predictable questions

We surveyed twenty-five schools and institutes that advertise regularly on the ajarn.com jobs board. Here is a selection of their answers. We fed the answers into the bat-computer and came up with an interesting combination of academic analysis and bullshit that does nothing else if not just fill up web-pages.