I quit teaching

A few weeks ago I quit ESL teaching to become a freelancer writer. This has been my dream for years, but I will always be glad of my time working as an ESL teacher. Who knows, maybe one day I will return to it.

I still intend to occasinally write articles about ESL issues as they come up in Thailand. You can check out some of my other writing on;
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Questions about working in Thailand

There are certain questions that those wishing to teach in Thailand frequently wish to know prior to committing themselves to making the move. Here are some of the most common questions asked.

Will I find work easily in Thailand?
Your qualifications and teaching experience will decide the ease to which you find work in Thailand. In many cases qualifications seem to matter more than experience. In the past it was possible for any native English speaker to just arrive in Thailand without any real qualifications and experience and still find a job but this is getting harder. You still hear about it happening, but most of this type of work is illegal and unreliable.

Do you need a degree to teach in Thailand?
Most school teaching jobs in Thailand do require that you have at least a degree. It is also a requirement for a teacher’s license, and it will be a bit of an uphill battle to get a work permit without a degree. People do get jobs without degrees, but again this tends to be of the illegal variety.

Is it possible to work illegally in Thailand?
I would not advise anyone to work in Thailand this way. Legally you could be arrested, spend time in an immigration prison, before being deported and banned from Thailand for eleven years. This has happened to westerners; although the most often reason has been working with a dodgy degree or getting into trouble. I don’t know of anyone who has actually been deported for teaching illegally, but that is not to say it doesn’t happen.

Can you make a good living teaching in Thailand?
This depends what you mean by a good living. Most of us manage to get by on our wage, and some of us are able to supplement our income in other ways. The average teacher, outside of Bangkok, only earns about 30,000 THB a month which is about $900 or 600 Euro. You can certainly live on this and there are better paying jobs once you get yourself settled in Thailand.

Am I too old to teach in Thailand?
Most Thai teachers retire at 62 years old, but as demand is so high for good native speakers you will likely still find work way beyond this age.

How to plan for your first ESL class

Your first time teaching can be a stressful event; mine was almost enough to drive me from the teaching profession forever. I was stupid enough to believe people in Bangkok bars who told me that no preparation was needed and that you just had to keep the students entertained for fifty minutes. This was terrible advice, and I no longer accept any advice from people in bars; in fact I don’t even go to bars anymore. The truth is that if you do not plan your first lesson then it will be a nightmare. Anyone coming to teach in Thailand will most often be expected to give a demonstration lesson when they apply for their first job; for a lot of people this will be their first time teaching ever. Here are five tips to make it go easier on both you and the students.

1. Arrive to the class with a clear idea of what you want to teach. It is better to have too much material than not enough. If you are going to be monitored by interviewers then it is a good idea to have some teaching resources like handouts or flash cards. It is important to check with the school first to find out what will be available in the classroom when you come to give your sample lesson; it will be disappointing for everyone if you arrive with a well-made power-point presentation, but there is no computer and projector in the classroom.

2. Avoid giving a class which focuses on material which is too simplistic. If you want to bore students then a sure way is to devote an hour to introduction phrases like; “What is your name?” and “Where do you come from?”. The students have likely been taught these phrases ad nauseam, and even the most lowly English class in Thailand will have likely mastered this topic. You are unlikely to impress anyone with this type of class; believe me I tried. Don’t spend the hour playing games like hangman; these are lesson fillers and not lessons and should be avoided when you are trying to impress.

3. Focus your first class on a subject that will engage your students encourage them to participate. This will all depend on the age and language ability of the student, but one class which I enjoy is using English songs. If you plan to use this as the main subject of your class then you need to first ensure that the class will have the facility to play these songs; i.e. speakers. It is important to decide on your target vocabulary prior to class and arrive with a worksheet based on the song or songs. This worksheet will contain different exercises based on the lyrics of the song; such as fill in missing words from the lyrics or using single words from the songs to make new sentences.

4. Begin the class with an introduction and the goals you plan for the hour. Tell the students about the target vocabulary you will be focusing on and what you would like them to take away from the lesson. Finish the class with a review of all that you have covered during the class.

5. Do not overwhelm the students with too much information. Constantly monitor the class for signs that they are getting bored or getting lost in the content. Be prepared to change direction if you feel that you are losing the students. An important part of teaching is being able to adapt and change to conditions on the ground.

End of term

It is now the end of term for me here in Thailand; half the school year is gone. This term just finished has been a long one for me. I am starting to get itchy feet, and the ‘ways of doing things’ in the school that once niggled me have now grown to become irritations. There are things that I like about my current employment, and still have good days, but overall I’m more than ready to take my show on the road again.

Despite my urge to move again I have decided to stick it out until the end of the next term. It is seen as bad form to leave a school half way through the year and seeing as we have already lost one teacher to pregnancy it would be a bit unfair to leave now. As I am currently the only native English speaking teacher in the school any mid-year departure might not be well received; perhaps I’m overestimating my own importance here.

My reasons for wanting to leave are financial, my son’s future, and the school itself. I am receiving a low wage considering the fact that I have a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education; native speakers with this qualifications get the top-paying jobs in Thailand. My school seems to have no real understanding of this and pays me almost the same money as the non-native English speakers. One of the Filipino teachers is actually paid more than me despite the fact that his ability is English is poor ( some Filipinos have very good English, but this guy does not belong to that group). As far as my school is concerned the fact that I agreed to the original contract means that there is no reason for me to complain; maybe they have a point. In Thailand if you are prepared to agree to a low wage that is all you will get; there is no point complaining about it later.

Another reason for my wanderlust is my son’s future. Lopburi is a nice enough city, but the choice of schools seems a bit limited. I want a school with an English programme that starts in the early years. I want a school where my son is going to be challenged to develop and not just allowed to pass every subject because I have paid for him to attend there.

My final reason for wanting my next term to be my last at the school is the way the school is run. It all seems to be about appearances without substance. Students in our bilingual programme are not allowed to fail any subjects and disruptive students are not disciplined. During my first year in the school this niggled me, but now after a year and a half it irritates me greatly.

So I suspect that my next term will be the last at my current school. It has been an experience, and I don’t regret taking the job there in the first place. My current negative feelings though, tell me that it is time to move. I will miss the students, and there are some things that the school does very good.

Teaching illegally in Thailand

Many ESL teachers in Thailand are working illegally. For whatever reason they don’t have the documentation that would give them permission to work as a legal teacher. I would never judge these people, and realise that for some it is their only option. It does not mean that they are bad teachers in my opinion; although many of the less reliable teachers will be of this variety.

I previously worked as an teacher without the proper immigration documents. I was a volunteer teacher in my local school. I did this with the knowledge of the local police,village head, and a local man who worked for Thai immigration. They had no difficulty with me doing this unpaid work. The local school would not be able to afford the paperwork, and I wasn’t go to pay a lot of money to do volunteer work. Technically I could have been deported for doing this kind of work and not allowed to return to Thailand for eleven years. Apparently Thai immigration even view fixing your own car on the side of the road as work which you it would be illegal for foreigners to do.

I know that there are many more westerners who work as volunteer teachers without the proper paperwork. Some of these are retired and see at as a way to keep busy or put something back. Many of these retired guys probably wouldn’t be allowed to get a work permit on their current visa. They take the chance. Surprisingly, even the volunteer foreign police force which assists in tourist areas is full of people with no work-permits to do the task; the ultimate irony but this is Thailand.

Many illegal teachers are in paid work. They need to earn an income while staying under the radar of immigration. This is getting harder for them to do with immigration now asking more questions about how people are able to stay in Thailand with no obvious source of income. Visas are becoming increasingly more difficult to obtain. Illegal teachers do not usually get one year extensions so they need to do regular border runs or trips to Thai embassies in nearby countries; an expensive and time consuming hassle.

It seems that few of these western teachers get caught for working illegally, but they tend to only be able to get low paying jobs with little chance of advancement. Mind you, I’m in a low-paying job with little chance of advancement and I’m legal.

What is a qualified teacher?

What does the word qualified teacher mean in Thailand? For some it means the type of school you work in; for others it seems to mean the qualifications you have in your possession; and for others it just means having a job as a teacher. In Thailand there seems to be a lot of people looking down their nose at those who fall in a category that they view falls below them; thus those who work in International schools will look down their nose at those who work in Government schools, and those with degrees in education will look down there noses at the mere TEFL’er. I don’t think this feeling of elitism is unique to Thailand, but it can be a bit demeaning when one set of teachers constantly belittles another set of teachers.

It is my view that a good teacher is a good teacher no matter what qualifications they have or where they work. Some people might see this as me trying to defend my own lowly qualifications, but that is simply not the case. Not only do I have a degree, but I also have a Post Graduate Certificate in Education; I am a fully qualified teacher. I also don’t consider myself a particularly good teacher. There are plenty of people with less qualifications than mine who I believe are better teachers. You just can’t replace certificates with enthusiasm. It also seems to be the case that there are some teachers working in the international schools who are even less skilled at teaching than I am.

The idea that a good teacher will always find their way into an international school and into a higher paying job is simply wrong. Some people just prefer government schools. As well as being as qualified teacher, I am also a qualified nurse. I trained in England and choose to work in the public health sector because this is what I valued; I could have earned more money working in a private hospital that is not what I wanted. I am not saying that all the teachers working in government schools in Thailand are doing it for altruistic motives; that is not my point. People might choose to work for less pay in a government school for the simple reason that there is an impression that working in an international school involves far more work-commitments for the extra cash. Some of us value family time above our job and this is why we moved to Thailand in the first place.

I also think that the view that those working in International schools are somehow more respectable is another myth. Few people have ended up in Thailand as a means to advance their teaching career; even working in the international school will involve far less money than working in the richer western countries. Even if your decision was a purely professional one there are few will believe you. It is generally true that western male teachers have a bad reputation if they work in Thailand no matter what school they teach in; even though, this is incredibly unfair.

As I said, it is my view that you can find good and bad teachers in all types of school. You can also find them with different types of qualifications. It seems doubtful that things will change anytime soon. People seem to need to bolster their own ego’s by degrading those who they see as being lower on the food-chain - one of the less attractive human habits.

Should people do the TEFL course if they want to teach in ThailandShould people do the TEFL course if they want to teach in Thailand

This is another one of those questions that you frequently hear asked from those wishing to work in Thailand. It is actually two questions; the first is. do you need to have completed TEFL in order to work as a teacher in Thailand? the second question is, should you complete TEFL if you want to teach in Thailand. Let me deal with the first question first.

If you need a TEFL certificate to teach in Thailand is a much debated topic. In regards to the teaching license there seems to be no official requirement to have this certificate. It is most often the schools themselves that are most interested in their ESL teachers having this qualification. I personally only managed to finish half the certificate, but the fact that I have a Post Graduate Certificate in Education means that schools don’t tend to ask me for one. Most schools seem to treat the TEFL as an official requirement and are reluctant to employ people without it if their qualifications are not related to education. It would seem that that this piece of paper is well worth getting for anyone without the traditional qualifications.

The second question is, should you get a TEFL certificate if you want to teach in Thailand and that is a far easier question. If you have no teaching experience then it makes sense to complete a TEFL certificate. This will not make you a great teacher, but it will certainly give you an introduction to the area, and more importantly give you some some supervised teaching practice.

Education in Thailand and why I'm worried

The longer I stay in Thailand the more concerned I become about the Thai education system. This has become even more pressing as in a year or so my own son will likely need to become part of it. I can’t afford the high prices of the international schools, but even they attract the occasional bad press from disgruntled parents.

My main worry is the fact that the system here does not seem value quality, but instead seems dedicated to decoration and keeping people happy. For instance, my current school insists that all students be given at least 70% no matter how badly the students perform.

Cheating is rampant and not just confined to the students. Some of the teachers are studying for higher qualifications and just last week one of them just cut and pasted a whole English article from a web-site and submitted it as his own work without any qualms. He didn’t even bother to hide this blatant plagiarism because it is obviously something he has been doing all his life. This is not an isolated incident but a frequent occurrence. It is obvious that many have made it through academia without doing the work, and many of these people now teach for a living.

The people who suffer are the good students. The ones who work their asses off for nothing. Believe me there are quite a few of these. Thai kids are not dumb, they are just being failed by a dumb system that seems to be showing no signs of improving anytime soon. There is a public expectation that every student do well. There is no recognition that a percentage of students doing less well than others is a sign that the system is working and has merit. Not every student can be getting top marks in every subject - that is just silly and demeans the whole system.

The Thai education system is not all bad of course. The students are among the best in the world, and if given the chance more of these young people could do amazing things. The ones who go on to do great things at the moment seem to manage it despite the system and not because of it. The people of Thailand are not unaware of the problem either. Some fine students are just as baffled by the whole thing as every one else. An excellent article on the subject was written by this Thai student (http://n-natta.blogspot.com/2009/08/nation-of-cheaters.html)

I am sure that there are some schools in Thailand that get it right. The problem is that it only takes a few to tarnish the rest. That is just the way it is. When too many people are getting 70% it makes that mark mean practically nothing. When no attempt is made to control cheating it makes all marks mean less.

So I’m worried about my son’s future here in Thailand. The obvious answer would be to take him away from Thailand altogether. I don’t want to do this though, this is his home. Thailand has so many great things it its favour. He deserves to be part of its brighter future, and maybe things will improve in his lifetime.

Teaching is how you improve as a teacher

I frequently come to the conclusion that we can sometimes become better teachers despite ourselves. Even if we are not making any great effort to improve our pedagogy skills the mere fact of being in the classroom day after day can improve your ability to teach effectively; this has been my experience anyway. The students don’t make it possible to stagnate or should I say they don’t make it easy. If the students are not kept engaged they can make your life hell and you have to be constantly learning and refining ways to stay in control; much of this learning is not deliberate.

I remember a more experienced teacher telling me that it takes at least five years for a new teacher to find her or his feet; this makes sense to me. I firmly believe that the only real way that you can learn to teach is by actually doing it. Theories and research are important but are practically useless if you have nowhere to test them. All the most useful techniques in pedagogy are learnt through experience and what works for one person might not work for another.

I like the analogy of teachers acquiring a toolbox full of tools which can be applied to different situations. Each teaching situation is unique and so the more tools you have the better. Sometimes introducing a game might increase the energy of the group while other times slowing the tempo down might be what is required. The longer you stay in the job the more tools you will have in your toolbox.

The different types of English language teachers you find in Thailand

I have come to a recent realisation that you can divide ESL teachers in Thailand into three main categories. I know that in reality that people are not really this easy to put into boxes, but for the sake of discussion these categories seem useful; if only to see where I fit in the equation.


The first group of teachers are the consummate educators. These are the minority and their main purpose in life seems to make the rest of us feel bad - only joking. No these are professionals who live for their job and consequently tend to be brilliant teachers. It could be argued that this type of teacher is born and not made, but I’m not sure about this. I think that if most people put in the same hours and invested so much of their personality into teaching then they too could be this good - but maybe not. All I do know is that I do not belong to this group and probably never will.


The second group of teachers are those who see it as a job but try to be the best they can at it. Teaching does not necessarily give them their identity, but they like to feel that they are benefiting the students in their charge. Some of these teachers might go on to become one of the consummate teachers but most will choose not to. I would say that most of the ESL teachers who stay in Thailand for a while belong to this group. This is where I would see myself belonging.


The third group of teachers are the malcontents. They really don’t like teaching but see it as a way to stay in Thailand. The students get on their nerves and the see the sole purpose of the school administration as being there to piss them off. They are always aware of how many sick days they can get away with taking and see a term as an obstacle course to make it through. They have no interest in becoming better teachers and believe that the consummate educators are at best deluded and at worst evil-suck-ups there to make them look bad.


I know that these groupings are far from a perfect picture of reality, but they make sense to me. I sometimes admire those in the top group and worry that I’m slipping into the third group.

The school where everyone passes exams

In the school where I now work the students are not allowed to fail. This is not just an aspiration; this is school policy. Not only that, but every student in the bilingual programme is expected to get the equivalent of a high B or A in every subject. Our academic department has decided this. The school believes that if a student isn’t doing well then it is the teacher’s fault and it is up to the teacher to remedy the situation. The implication being that you either just give them a high mark or keep on testing the students until they get it themselves. Most teachers just wind up rewarding marks for no effort. This is because it would be impossible for some of these students to achieve this mark. This is not meant as a slight to them. Where in the world do all the students in a school get top marks all the time?


This way of doing things probably all sounds completely crazy to anyone outside the Thai teaching profession, but this is common practice here. If you don’t like it your choice is to either move to one of the few schools where it doesn’t happen or just put up with it. If we complain to Thai colleagues the usual response is to claim that we just don’t understand Thai culture and we should stop worrying about it so much. If we complain to the management about it the usual response is silence.


I quit teaching full-time a few years back because I felt like a bit of a fraud in front of the students. I didn’t have any proper teaching credentials so what right have I to be teaching them anything? In order to rectify this I spent a lot of money and a lot of time studying for a Post Graduate Certificate in Education while teaching voluntarily in a Thai village school. Four years later with my bona fide credentials in pedagogy I returned to full-time teaching. Yet, here I am a couple of years later feeling again like a fraud.


I spend a lot of my time trying to convince students that studying and learning is important. I try to tell them that exams are important. Yet, all they have to do is look at their classmates how don’t do any work and still come out with high marks. Why should anyone make the effort? The usual way I deal with this is by telling myself that it is the knowledge that is important and not the exam marks, but sometimes it is hard not to feel like a clown. I ask myself the question. If I was a student in my school would I study? The honest answer is no. Why work for something that is going to be given to you anyway.

The joys of teaching in Thailand

Spending time around ESL teachers in Thailand might make an outsider think that we really are a lot of whiners. It is understandable why some people wonder why we would put up with the job if things are so bad. If you read the web-forums, devoted to those of us who teach English here, you will see post after post of complaints about the state of the education system in Thailand and the amount of obstacles that are put in the way of those wanting to do the job. It is reasonable to ask why we would put up with it? It’s not like the pay is up to much. What keeps people doing a job which seems to cause them so much stress?


Well, the truth is that despite all our complaints things aren’t really that bad. Teaching has rewards that just aren’t available in other professions. School administration can try and interfere with a lot of things, but once the lesson starts we have a lot of autonomy. The classroom can be like our stage and for the next fifty minutes, to an hour, we have a captive audience. These members of our audience are not passive participants though; not one bit. We have to battle for their attention. If we get it right we can leave the class feeling high as a kite; if we get it wrong we can feel down in the dumps. The highs more than make up for the lows. Occasionally you get a great day, all your classes go well, and you almost skip home from school convinced that you are the best teacher ever.


Another reward of teaching are the students themselves. When I started in the profession my anxiety about what they should or shouldn’t be doing took away from my appreciation of the students as individuals. I am now much more relaxed around them and have found that they can be great fun. They can make me laugh and make me think. I can see how their aspirations are similar to what mine had been at their age. Their enthusiasm makes me feel like a teenager again; it is easy to believe those who claim that teaching young people keeps you young. It can sometimes feel like a real privilege to know them at this special time in their lives.


Teachers can really make a difference to student’s lives. This goes way beyond the lessons that are being taught at the time. I remember all my teachers and they all affected my life in different ways. The impact of teaching students can have an impact way after that teacher has died.


There are also lots of other perks to the profession which keep us in the job. For one thing; it is hardly hard labour. Despite the occasional annoyances I still get days when I think; ‘wow. I can’t believed that I’m being paid for this’. I don’t have a boss on my case all the time, and most of the jobs associated with the job are reasonable.


Teaching in Thailand is not always easy, but it certainly has its good points. We wouldn’t do it otherwise.

Dealing with disruptive students

Dealing with disruptive students can be difficult. If you fail to do it though, these little devils can make your life hell. I have met more than a few colleagues who have experienced sleepless nights because of a class where they felt like they lost control. I personally have walked out of a classroom determined never to teach again. It can take a lot of inner-strength to face students once more after you have had a bad experience with them.


It is easy to just blame the teacher for not having the skill to keep students in check. This definitely seems to be the attitude in Thailand with teachers afraid to admit they are having problems in case it reflects badly on them. This is a real shame because support and exchange of ideas could work wonders to bring these classes back under control. Instead there seems to be classrooms where good students can’t learn because of disruptive students and teachers hide the fact so as not to rock the boat,


I know for a fact that it is not always the teacher’s fault, because I was once one of these disruptive students. I did not want to be in school and even if one of those wonderful teachers like the ones you see in movies (I’m thinking Dead Poets Society here) walked into the room then there would be no way that I wanted to listen. Always blaming the teacher is treating the student like a purely passive variable in the equation; I don’t believe this is the case.


It is not always the disruptive student’s fault either. Why should they be expected to sit through boring classes with teachers who don’t seem to care enough about them to keep them interested? I wouldn’t put up with that either.

The truth is that the problem is caused by a mixture of unique factors and no one answer fits all cases. Sometimes students are disruptive because they don’t want to be in school or because they have serious traumatic event occurring in their life. Other times they are disruptive because the lesson is boring, or that they are tired, or because a teacher told them off for not doing their homework.


It does become easier to control classes as experience in teaching grows. I do believe though, that more should be done to bring the problem out into the open and not to create a blame culture. This problem can drive good teachers out of the profession, and create a learning environment which fails students.

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Best advice for those wanting to teach English in Thailand

I always seem to be meeting people who would love to come and teach here in Thailand. My first response is to dish out warnings about the difficulties that people may face. Many of those interested have already developed Thai fever though and can't be dissuaded - I was the same.  I made many mistakes on my path to becoming a legitimate teacher, but I also learnt quite a bit. Here are some of my top tips for making the process as pain-free as possible. 

1. Have realistic expectations. Working in Thailand is completely different from coming here on holiday; what was once exotic will soon appear everyday and making a living in a sunny place can be just as difficult as elsewhere. 

2. Don't come here in holiday mode. If you come to Thailand with the intention of staying then it is vital that you take the whole thing seriously.  It is important to quickly develop a normal routine so that you can meet your work commitments. The partying needs to stop, but this does not mean that you can't still have fun and have all the benefits of living in a tropical paradise. 

3. Make sure you appear respectable when around colleagues or students. In Thailand this means not walking around the super-market in your swimming trunks and not falling around drunk in front of your students. It also means not doing anything which would reflect badly on employers. 

4. Teaching is a profession and requires a professional attitude.  It would be wrong to treat it merely a way to extend your holiday. This attitude will reflect in your work. Teaching is a noble profession and you can have an enormous influence on the lives of students; this influence can be good or bad. 

5. Become involved in the ESL community. Listen to the podcasts and read some of  the many blogs and online articles devoted to teaching English as a Second language; become knowledgeable about the different teaching methods and stay up to date.  Check out the Thai teaching related web forums regularly. This knowledge will be impressive at job interviews and more importantly help you develop as a teacher. 

6. Get qualified. It is possible to get work without many qualifications but this is not recommended. For legal work the minimum requirement is usually a degree. Attendance at some type of TEFL course is also usually desired. 

7. Gain some experience in front of students. A TEFL course is good for this. If you have never stood in front of a group of learners before then it can be a traumatic experience. It is best that you have as much support in the early days as possible. 

8. Don't be tempted to submit dodgy certification. Fake degrees are easy to find in Thailand but the consequences for being caught with these are extreme. It is often easy to spot these fake certificates. 

9. Try and have some savings for when the shit hits the fan. Thailand does not have any comfortable social security payments for you to fall back on if things go wrong. Make sure you are not caught with your trousers down. Have at least enough money to make it back to your home country. It is also handy to have a credit card from your home country for emergencies. 

10 Don't just take the first job that comes along. Research and think carefully. Does the job have health insurance? Does it pay you for twelve months of the year? Will it guarantee you a work permit and help you with this? What will your employers expect from you?

First Impressions

I have come to realise that the importance of making a good first impression is not just related to job interviews. It also applies to teaching. What happens during any first lesson I have with a new class can set the tone for months ahead, and the impression created during that first meeting can be extremely difficult to change.

This fact can make teaching very problematic. The chaos that often accompanies the beginning of a new school term means that it can be difficult to always maintain a confident and competent manner. It is vital that the teacher gives this impression from the beginning though. Students are highly skilled at sniffing out weakness in a teacher and don't suffer fools gladly. If the class have decided that they are being baby-sat by a disorganised idiot, it can take a lot to change this opinion.

I remember last year being given a last minute substitution and arriving at a class completely unprepared. I managed to keep the class occupied for the hour, but it was obvious that I was making it up as I went along. I left the class feeling embarrassed by my lackluster performance and feeling relived that at least I wouldn't have to face that particular group again. It turned out thought that I was to inherit this class and it took weeks to change the prevalent attitude of, " her comes Mr confusion". Some of the students continued to see me that way until the end of term.

Now I try and treat these first classes like job interviews.

Little slips of paper that make me want to hide

Most mornings in our staffroom there is a little ritual which I have grown to loathe. It involves little pieces of paper no bigger than bus tickets. These harmless looking slips have the power to completely ruin my day, because written on each one is information about any substitution class that I will be expected to cover. On a bad day I could end up with as many as three of these loathsome notes; this means three extra hours of work that I hadn't been expecting and won't be getting payed for.

Unfortunately it is difficult to avoid developing a negative attitude towards the person bringing the bad news. Last year it was the same teacher all the time who gave out the substitution slips, and I developed a Pavlovian response of inwardly groaning every time she approached me. This task is no longer her responsibility, but the response is so hard-wired inside my mind that I still automatically worry if she walks near my desk. This year the Thai teachers take turns with this task so anybody approaching my desk in the morning raises my suspicion.

I don't begrudge covering classes for sick colleagues. I don't even mind covering when people just fancy taking self-awarded bonus holidays - I occasionally wish that I had the courage to do this. Sometimes , though, it is just difficult to not feel disappointed when you come to work expecting to finish at noon but need to stay till four. There aren't many perks working in a Thai school, so the occasional early finish is always appreciated.

At the moment we are in the middle of the cold and flu season; swine flu mania is also in the air. Many teachers are unable to make it to work so the substitutions will likely become even more and more frequent over the coming weeks. It is tempting to just go hide in the toilet until the lady with the substitution slips has finished her rounds.

What is a native English speaker?

For me the question of whether or not someone is a native speaker is an easy one; it is my mother tongue and any language that I pick up at a later date will not be my native language no matter how much effort I put in to it. My mother tongue was learnt without an internal vocabulary, but any new language depends on my current vocabulary. I think that in Thailand this distinction becomes blurred; for some people native English speaker means being white, for others it means having a certain accent, while for others it means being able to speak English well enough. This would all be irrelevant except for the fact that being seen as a native speaker can not only affect your ability to get a job, but also the pay and conditions once you are in the job.

Many foreign teachers believe that the term 'native speaker' is purely a race issue. They see the tern 'native speaker' as being code for white person. Some of the Filipino teachers point out that their country now has English as an official language so they should be classified as native speakers (perhaps Thailand should follow this example and, rather than spend money on English teachers, just list it as an official language of Thailand). Race does cloud the issue in Thailand, but I feel there is more to it than just this. I don't agree that having a good understanding of English is the same as speaking/understanding it 'like a native'.

There are also those who argue that having a certain accent is what being a native speaker is all about. The Irish and Scots lose out here as many believe these accents are too difficult; American English become the prestige native speaker accent with all others being seen as at most second best. My point here is not to get into the debate about which accent is better, but about the perceptions people have.

I always just considered myself a native English speaker without much thought as to what this actually means; I didn't need to think about it. Living and working in Thailand though has made me question lots of my assumptions. Does native speaker mean your mother tongue? Will my son, who is being brought up with two languages while living in Thailand, be considered a native English speaker?

What exactly is a native English speaker and should it matter?

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Good podcast for ESL teachers

This podcast provides great ideas for ESL teachers. I also find it useful because it keeps me up to date with what other ESL teachers are doing elsewhere in the world. I listen to these podcasts through itunes but you can also download from their website. Here is the link;
http://www.eslteachertalk.com/

Song Club

The activity which my students and I enjoy the most is song club. This is not a required part of the curriculum, but is something that I decided to introduce myself.

One day a week we are given an hour to do what we like with our home-room class. Some teachers use this time for more intellectual pursuits like poetry or math problem solving. but I prefer just having a sing-a-long with the class. It doesn't involve thinking too much (which is considered a crime by most Thais) or being too serious (another heinous crime), but is an easy task which actually leads to good vocabulary acquisition.

Most weeks I pick the songs, but occasionally I allow for the students to pick one. I download the video for each song and print out the lyrics before arriving at class. These are hardly ever songs that I would choose to listen to at home. I found quickly that my favourite type of music ( stuff like the Pixies or Billy Bragg) isn't suitable for ESL students; instead they prefer vomiting inducing stuff like Westlife or other pretty-boy bands. I often feel like a traitor to the music of my youth when I observe the female students "ooing" an "aahing" at my selections.

The most popular song by far is 'My Love' by Westlife and the girls scream when it comes to the solo by the blond blue-eyed guy. I often have the urge to stick up a photo of the now grown-up members of the band who are fighting, and often losing, in the battle against middle-age - I wonder would the girls scream then.

Despite the mostly lousy selection of music it is hard not to enjoy it when the students sing their hearts out. There is something so uplifing to be found when 50 teenagers join as one and lose themselves in the music. It makes the whole thing worthwhile. It is a class that frequently runs over time, because we have all forgot to look at the clock.

Can you teach in Thailand without a degree?

I frequently receive emails, or see questions posed on internet forums, about the possibility of teaching in Thailand without a degree. I always see this as a tricky question to answer.

When I arrived in Thailand eight years ago it was quite easy to pick up work teaching without any kind of degree; there are many people who claim that it is still easy to pick up work without one. The problem is that most of this work is of the illegal variety where the teacher is treated poorly. Working illegally is an expensive game of cat and mouse with the teacher needing to leave Thailand at least every couple of months for a new tourist visa or to get an extension on their 'visiting family' visa (the Non-O as it is less romantically called).

When I first came to Thailand I worked illegally. The teaching agency that employed me had actually promised to get me a work permit, but as time went on it became obvious that it just wasn't going to happen. Even then a degree seemed to be a necessity. I felt like a fraud in the classroom and felt uncomfortable about my legal status. I left the agency and set about getting the qualifications that would allow me to become a 'proper' teacher; I completed my nursing degree and then a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Four years later I was able to get a work permit and be accepted by the Thai Teacher's Council (TTC).

You still hear stories of people getting a work permit without a degree. I am sure it does happen. People claim that their school has special connections with the TTC. I sometimes wonder though how many of these claims are genuine; after all most people don't like to admit that they are working illegally. People go to extreme lenghts to stay in Thailand. At my current school it is a shock to see how many people are willing to submit obviously dodgy degrees (last year we got one from Oxxford).

My advice to people without a degree is that if they are serious about working in Thailand that they should try and come with the expected qualifications. At least a degree; although the TTC is now saying that it wants applicants to have at least an degree in Education! It is not easy, but delaying their departure for Thailand for a few years will allow them to improve their CV. Thailand isn't going anywhere, is it? Of course this is easy for me to say, and I didn't follow this advice.

A new school year

A new school year has just begun in Thailand and with it comes the good and the bad. The good is in the classroom. The students have arrived with their new books and fresh uniforms and are excited about being in a more senior class; that bit nearer the end of schooling. The bad is the utter chaos that is happening behind the scene.

One reason for our current state of confusion is a change of management which occurred during the school holidays. The foreign teachers, like me, missed out on all the action as we were all away holidaying in our home counties. Apparently thought the manoeuvring and intrigue was worthy of a political thriller and has left a bad atmosphere among my Thai colleagues. Our old boss is now just another teacher and people who we barely exchanged a hello with previously are now our new leaders. Our former boss is doing little to hide her umbrage at being usurped; although direct confrontation is not permitted in Thai society. She says that she is happy to be free of all the responsibility, but it is obvious that this is just a ruse.

The new management is full of new ideas, but in their enthusiasm for change has meant they have missed out on the important things. We are now a week into the new term and the class schedule is a mess. I turn up to teach health studies and find the students waiting with their ‘reading and writing’ book. It is not the students fault as the management is not in agreement about what subject we should be teaching either. One says it means this subject while another says it means something else. Fear of causing a loss of face means that they cannot directly call the other wrong. The solution; I have been told to teach what I want for the time being.

The current enthusiasm for school that the students exhibit won’t last. It never does. Failure to show some type of organisation though will frustrate them and cause this enthusiasm to wane far quicker than it should.

End of Term

It is now two weeks to the end of term, and the end of the school year here in Thailand. I will be saying good-bye to some of my students, but most will be back next term to begin the next level of their education. For all of us, both student and teachers, it is a time of change.

The school is currently full of nervous excitement; with all the students preparing for exams. All our classes are now focused on revision instead of new information. Hopefully we have taught all that needs to be taught for the year. We teachers pester the students to revise; we all know that any of the student’s failures will also be seen as our own. I feel like an anxious mother waiting for her child to perform at an important event.

Many of my Matayom 3 ( similar to 3rd year in Ireland or the UK) also have entrance exams for other educational institutions - so the pressure is really on them. Our schools bilingual programme finishes at the end of 3rd year so if students wish to continue learning, with such intensive focus on English, they need to change school. Some of the students will stay in our school though and just attend regular classes, others will be lucky enough to gain entrance to the schools genius programme for year 4 but most will be moving school.

Although most students are anxious about their exams there are others who are making no real attempt to prepare. They know the open secret that it is actually hard to fail the school’s exams, because it is the teacher’s job to make them pass. If they fail one test it is up to the teacher to provide a test that they will pass. The final week will be spent chasing students around to get them to do extra work so that we can push their low mark above the expected pass mark.

The other foreign teachers and I are all excited about the end of term. We are all going away for the two months to different parts of the world. We are travelling to India, China, the Philippines, and in my case Ireland. It has been a long year and we need to recuperate before we do it all again next term.

The Thai Village School

For almost four years I worked in a village school in an area of Thailand called Chat Trakan; which is located in Phitsanulok province. Prior to moving to Thailand I had never spent any time in such a remote location; Chat Trakan is one hundred and twenty kilometres from the nearest city, and forty kilometres from the nearest 7eleven.

The reason I moved to such a rural location was that this was the village where my soon-to-be-wife had spent her childhood, and where she still had family. She still considered it home. We had been living in Phitsanulok city before the move, but the promise of a more peaceful existence appealed to me. My wife loves being near her family so she was delighted with the move. The village is called Muu Baan Pak Rong which means ‘village at the mouth of the river Rong’.

I had been teaching in Bangkok the year prior to this, but I left because I felt like a bit of a fraud; I didn’t have any proper teaching qualifications. I loved teaching though, so I decided to go back to education and get the pieces of paper that would allow me to hold my head high among my teaching peers. I would support myself during this time by yearly trips to Ireland where I could work for two or three months. I also volunteered to help out at the local village school so as to gain more practical experience.

Our local school had been built completely from wood obtained from the nearby jungle. My first impression was that it seemed like something out of a different century.; a far simpler time. Like much in the village the school was built for functionality, but it did look extremely quaint nevertheless. As well as the brown wood there was also colourful paint to brighten up the place, and it completely suited the tropical location. The only evidence of the 21st century was the computer, but even that looked out-dated and it wasn’t connected to the internet. The school population was very small with less than eighty students.

Pak Rong Village school is a rong rian pratom which is the Thai name for primary school. It was decided that I would only be teaching p3-p6; which would mean students aged nine to twelve years old. It was also decided that I should teach only on Fridays so as to not interrupt the normal schedule too much. The local teachers were delighted that I would be teaching English, but felt that it wasn’t such an important subject for young children who were mostly destined to become rice farmers. My classes would be considered extra-curricular, but all the students would be expected to attend.

My only other teaching experience had been in a Bangkok high school, and this did little to prepare me for a village school. The first shock was that nobody could speak a word of English. Not even the English teachers could hold a conversation in the language. The next shock was that there was no course syllabus for me to follow. The teachers had been using a textbook, but when I tried to use it I found that it was far too basic for a conversation class. These English textbooks didn’t go much beyond ABC and, “what is your name?” and my expectations for the students were far higher than this. I decided to leave the textbook to the Thai teachers, and they seemed pleased with this suggestion. I would need to create my own syllabus, but this was going to be a challenge - the school kids were unable to read English. All learning would need to be done purely through speaking and listening.
The classroom that I would be using had no chairs or desks, but the students were well used to sitting on the floor. This is the position from which they ate their food, watched television, and did their homework. If a household did possess a chair it would be only for ornamental purposes.

I quickly learned that what the students lacked in knowledge about English they made up for in enthusiasm. They didn’t just repeat the words that I was teaching them, but they would scream the words back at me while laughing and trying to mimic my Irish accent - they thought it all great fun. Some of the younger students cried when they first saw me enter the classroom. They had no previous dealings with a ‘farang’; the Thai word used to describe white-faced foreigners. After a couple of classes though these fearful students would be laughing and play-acting with the rest.

We played a lot of games during class time. I quickly found that this was the best strategy for keeping them engaged in the lesson. They gained new vocabulary far easier when it felt fun. Their favourite activity was the running game. I would make cards with pictures of the vocabulary we were currently working on, and when I called out the word two competing students would need to run the length of the classroom in search of that picture. They would be so full of energy that I often worried that they might do themselves an injury; but they never did.

In Pak Roong school I taught on Fridays. Thai school children have a different uniform for nearly every day of the week. On Fridays they wore an old-fashioned farmer’s garb; the sort of uniform that I previously associated with communist China during the 1960’s. When I first noticed the students wearing it I was half-expecting them to also remove a little red book from their pockets and for them to begin waving it at me.

During my time teaching these children I was working towards my Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. I did most of my learning while teaching these village students though. They made me think about how to keep them engaged. If I lost them during a lesson then I would need to work hard to get them back on course. I developed strategies. This is how I really learnt how to teach. I would go to a lesson and mess up by boring the students, but the next week I would try something different. This way I slowly found what worked and what didn’t work.

Working in the local village school meant that I soon became well-known by all the local village children. I felt a bit like a celebrity. It was nice. After a few years doing it I really began to feel like a part of the local community, and it felt like a great privilege to be a part of these young people’s lives. This is when I really fell in love with teaching.

Thai Cheaters

Thai students like to cheat. They will do it during class time, and they will do it during exams. If you give them homework you can be sure that quite a large percentage of what you will get back will be exact copies of someone else’s work.

In a way it is not really surprising. Cheating actually seems to be far more tolerated in Thailand than it would be in say Ireland or the UK. There seems to be this belief in Thai society that the important thing is the piece of paper, and the means to getting this qualification is hardly ever questioned; that is except when some scandal reaches the national press because some powerful person’s son has been caught cheating on an important exam.

I seem to remember that there was a research study conducted on the Thai public’s opinions about cheating. This study found that the vast majority of respondents claimed that they saw nothing wrong with cheating to achieve a goal. I can easily believe this research paper, because everything I see in Thailand seems to support this conclusion.

This is not to say that everyone in Thailand cheats. I’m not saying that. What I would say though is that there is far more acceptance of it then elsewhere. The Thai national attitude of tolerance and ‘mai pen rai’ (nevermind) also applies here. Many students, who might otherwise do poorly in education, benefit because of this lax attitude. Is that always a bad thing? I’m not sure. But I do feel sorry for students who work hard all term and come out with the same result as somebody who has done nothing all year.

When I first arrived in Thailand some of the old-timers, who had been teaching for a while, warned me about the amount of cheating that went on in schools. I often scoffed and believed that these sounded too much like tall tales. My view soon changed though when I witnessed the full extent of this phenomena.

I remember when we first moved to my wife’s village a few years ago. I had already a bit of experience of teaching in Bangkok, and I had decided to help out in the local schools. Because of this offer of help I was pleased one afternoon when a group of students arrived at my door. They were led by my niece, and they all clutched pieces of paper. My niece explained that they had an exam, and they needed my help with the English paper. I thought it odd that they would be allowed to take their tests away from the school to elicit the help of others, but I decided to do what I could.

I sat my niece down while her friends gathered around, and tried to explain the questions to her in the hope that this would help her arrive at the answer. She looked at me in a very confused manner, and just pushed the paper towards me. She did not want to know how to answer the questions, she just wanted me to answer them so that she could share them with her friends. I tried to explain that there was little benefit in me doing her exams, but this seemed to only add to her confusion.

My reluctance to help these students cheat would likely seem a bit odd to many Thais. This is a culture based around doing favours for people and getting favours back in return. If a teacher leaves an apple for a teacher it is usually accompanied by the student’s conviction that they will later get some type of pay-back for this gift.


Of course I had seen cheating occur in my own school, and to be honest I probably would have had no problem doing it myself if I thought that I would get away with it. The thing was though that the only people who did cheat were the very brave or the very reckless. When I was at school the chances were that if you cheated you would be caught. It’s a different story here in Thailand. Students usually make little effort to hide their cheating and when caught they have this attitude of ‘hey, why are you making such a big deal about this’. When I cross out the copied work or deduct marks they will act as it it is me who is in the wrong.


The thing that I find most strange is that even when I spoon-feed the students the answers there will still be people copying off their friends. This occurs even when I highlight the correct answer on the board. It seems like that it is their instinct to copy even when there is no need.

When I receive homework the copied answers could not be more obvious then if the student’s had actually written in red pen ‘ this work is not mine’. They copy everything word for word with no attempt at disguise. The saddest thing though is that this work is usually copied from someone who is equally as hopeless at the task at hand as they are. Not only is the work a copy, but it is a copy of something that is wrong.

The internet has become a great tool for the Thai cheater. Students have no shame in copying and pasting large chunks of someone else’s work and trying to pass it off as their own. They really think that nobody will question why suddenly they are so competent in English when they usually struggle to answer the most basic question in the language. To add insult to injury they will sometimes forget to remove the telltale signs that it is taken from the internet. I will begin to read a students work and realise that it is full of Google ads and jarring messages saying ‘click here for link’.

The truth is though that cheating is rarely punished in Thailand. There is a lot of pressure in schools to ensure that students pass, and if they don’t pass it is the teacher who is seen as failing and not the students. Failing someone is a big deal, and can be a real uphill struggle with school administration putting pressure on to change a failing mark to a pass.

Despite whatever view the foreign teacher in Thailand might have it would seem that cheating is endemic in the culture. I don’t think that it is our place to try and change this, but instead to work within the system as best we can. If change is to come it will come from the Thai people themselves, and not due to what they would see as interfering outsiders.

I try to minimise cheating as much as possible, but have turned my focus towards just doing my best for the students in the hope that they will gain some knowledge and maybe even develop a love of learning. In the end this is what is really important; at least in my opinion.

Teacher, my arse!

Foreign teachers who work in Thailand seem to have a bit of a bad reputation; especially those from western countries. The harshest critics tend to be other westerners. Some of these criticisms can be very harsh, while others seem to me to be just plain silly. The attitude to westerners who teach in Thailand always puts me in mind of Jim Royle, from the UK sitcom ‘The Royle Family’, who would sneer at everything that irritated him by adding the words. ‘my arse’. I can easily imagine him responding to the news that a westerner is teaching in Thailand with the words ‘teacher, my arse!’.

The most frequent criticism that I hear about the western teacher is that they are only doing it to stay in Thailand. Opportunists. This is probably true for most, but so what? I think the criticism here is that our motivations for doing a job should be somehow more noble. We should have a calling to do it. Maybe we should have dreamed about it as a child and devoted our youth to obtaining the proper qualifications. Surely it’s not right that we should decide to become teachers because it suits our lifestyle in our thirties, forties, or older. Is it?

I think that there is a major misunderstanding here. The belief that people usually enter professions because of some noble calling. I am sure that some do, but many don’t. I know a lot of professionals. The reasons given for beginning their careers are often far from noble and are usually quite mundane and sometimes even strange. I know doctors who became doctors because their parents were doctors, I know nurses who became nurses so they could meet a rich doctor, I know people who decided to become teachers because they quite fancied the long holidays. Most people seem to just fall into professions, and their motives are seldom given much scrutiny from their peers. Why you want to be such and such, is usually a question reserved for job interviews.

I fell into nursing. I would not have even considered it a few months prior to applying to begin my nursing degree. This did not stop me being a good nurse who did his job efficiently. No one ever really questioned my motives joining for the profession, and no one accused me of becoming a nurse for the wrong reasons. Nobody cared. So long as I could do the job well, what did it matter?

I also fell into teaching in Thailand. I had left a job in Saudi Arabia and had nowhere really to go. A friend said I should try teaching. I did, and I soon found that I really liked it. It was a challenge, but I now believe on most days that I am good at my job. The fact that I didn’t plan to be a teacher no more matters to the quality of my work than the fact that I never planned to be a nurse. Life takes us places that we never planned to be and that is what is so great about it.

Another favourite criticism is that any white face can get a job teaching in Thailand; they don’t even need to be able to speak English! Is that really true? If you visit some of the Thailand related web forums you will see posts from people, almost every day, who are desperate to get a teaching job in Thailand. There are many who have tried to teach here but failed. I would actually say that most people who try to land a teaching job in Thailand don’t last very long. Ok, they might get a job, but teaching is not an easy thing to do. If you do not have what it takes then the job will be unbearable and most people will quickly give up.

Nowadays having a white faced English teacher is not so important in Thailand. Schools know that they can get two Indian or Filipino teachers for the wage they would need to pay a westerner. The level of English may not be as good with these non-native speakers, but at least most have had some teaching training, and their level of English is usually sufficient to teach Thai students. The schools still want to have at least one white face though for the school brochure, but I don’t think that demand is as high as it once was. The need for native English speakers is falling in my opinion so jobs are harder to come by.

It is now more difficult to get a job in Thailand without at least a university degree. Moves are underway to make an education qualification mandatory as well. People do still get jobs without degrees, but I think that most would agree that if you want a future teaching in Thailand then a degree is the bare minimum. The parents expect it, and it seems to me to be a reasonable expectation. I don’t think that a degree necessarily makes somebody a good teacher, but it does at least demonstrate an interest in learning.

I enjoy teaching in Thailand and believe myself to be a professional educator. I believe that the same can be said about most other foreign teachers here. Still, I believe that the stereotypical image will linger on. It can’t really be helped. Luckily we don’t need to look to other westerners for affirmation of our worth. The greatest reward for a teacher is going to a class where you have struggled with motivating the students and suddenly realising that they are getting it. You are teaching, and they are learning. When this happens I leave the class convinced that I am one of the best teachers ever, but knowing later another class will make me feel like the worst teacher in the world. Best teacher, my arse!

Three days in hell - Part 3

The next morning was another early start. We were beginning the day with exercise on the beach. The students arrived in dribs and drabs with many still wearing their pyjamas. By six the beach had brightened up enough for us to get to work.

My friend Punit was the PE instructor, and so he took the lead in warming-up the students with jumping-jacks and light stretches. I wandered around trying to encourage everyone to get involved. Many of the students were just sitting in the sand looking miserable and claiming, “too tired, Ajahn”. Most joined in after a bit of coaxing, but a few needed to be scolded or threatened into exercising with the rest.

A buzz of excitement spread through our congregation with the arrival of our Chinese maths teacher who had decided to go for an early morning swim. The fact that he was wearing a pair of speedos meant that he had lost his usual image of sternness. The kids all cheered as he dove into the sea and began swimming parallel to the beach.

We finished off the morning work-out with jogging. Three hundred students running along the beach was a chaotic scene. I ran behind. I needed to stop every few metres to pull up fallen students. Some had legitimately slipped in the sand but most were just diving in an attempt to get out of the exercise.

After breakfast we set up our activity stations. Prior to coming to the camp all the attending teachers had planned their own activity. I had decided on a type of ‘go fish’ game where I provided over a hundred words on small cards, and the aim of the game was to form as many sentences as possible. All our stations were spread out around the resort. I had been given my own bar in which to set up. This outside bar was empty of all alcohol so there was no need to worry that the other resort residents might mistake me for the real thing. The bar-top provided an ideal space to set out my word cards.

The students had been divided into twelve groups, and they spent twenty minutes at each activity station. Upon arriving at each station they would begin by shouting their team ‘boom’ while performing a group-hug. When the chanting was finished it was time for them to get to work. Almost all the students seemed to enjoy my ‘go fish’ activity and most seemed really eager to win as many points for their team as possible. The twenty minute sessions passed quickly, but by midday I felt completely shattered and bored with the game.

After lunch we had beach activities. We were now completely out of kilter with our schedule, but our head of department was still determined to salvage something from her plans by getting the students to complete all the games that she had set for that afternoon. We were only on the beach a few minutes before she realised that the students had no interest in following our programme. They just wanted to swim and getting three hundred students to co-operate in games on a beach felt near impossible. Our head of department admitted defeat and decided that everyone could just swim. The students cheered their victory.

Despite my colleague’s early morning swim in his speedos, we had been warned by management that we were expected to wear respectable clothing at all times. If we wanted to swim we would need to wear out clothes. I had on my track-suit so bottoms and a polo shirt, and so jumped in the water and began swimming around Thai-style - fully dressed. I joined the students who had swum out the furthest and attempted to supervise their safety.

The students were loving the water, and I worried that the over-excitement might lead to accidents. I tried to stay near the more troublesome students whose energy threatened to put them in danger. We played a game called ling which means ‘monkey’ in English. One of the students had removed their t-shirt, and we used it like a ball by throwing it to one another. One student was the ling, and it was his job to stay in the middle of the group until he could catch the improvised ball. It was great fun, and for a while I forgot that I was their teacher and became just one of the group.

A western couple were walking along the beach and stopped in apparent amazement at the sight of our group. We must have looked like some spectacle; three hundred students acting like they had never seen water before and a westerner swimming with them while fully clothed.

We spent about two hours in the water. I began to worry that we were in danger of heat stroke, and I was beginning to flag in my job of supervising. I felt relieved when the bosses decided that we had enough, and we left the water without sustaining any injuries.

In the evening we were joined by our school principal who is also a Buddhist monk. This was to be the official grand finale of the cam; although we had planned a few more activities for the next morning.

The Filipino teachers began the evening’s entertainment by teaching everyone a dance which is popular in their country. They called it the ‘papaya dance’, and it looked great fun ; although I did everything I could to avoid actually joining in. I explained to them that. “Irish men don’t dance”, and when this didn’t convince them I used the excuse that I wanted to take photos of the event.

After the ‘papaya dance’ it was time for the balloon dance. Here the students needed to dance around with balloons tied to their feet. The object was to burst everyone else’s balloons. If all your balloons were burst you were out of the game. It turned out to be great fun although once again some students almost caused injury in their over-enthusiasm.

We ended the night with a ghost story. We turned down all the lights and put on a sound effects CD that I had compiled which contained some very scary sounds. One of our school committee read a ghost story, while some of us teachers crawled around the seated students occasionally firing things into the middle of the group in an attempt to further increase the tension. We realised that we had gone too far when a couple of the younger students became upset with fright. Still, our head of department thought it had been a great success. Despite how upset they can get, Thai students do still seem to love ghost stories.

Despite our lack of sleep the students were still reluctant to retire early so it was well after mid-night before we got everyone to bed. One of my home-room students managed to fall on some glass, and my nursing experience meant that I was left to tend his wounds. Once the blood was cleaned there was only small cuts underneath, and so there was no need for hospital.

The next morning our head of department made the final departure from the schedule by declaring that we could all have a free morning before heading back to Lopburi in the afternoon. We went for a walk along the beach. At one point I found myself separated from the main group, and for my first waking moment in a couple of days I found myself completely alone. It felt odd. I made my way back along the beach and joined the Thai students and teachers who were queuing up to buy some plaa muck which is dried fish and a speciality in Rayong. My wife had made me promise that I would bring some back for her.

In the afternoon we all boarded our coaches and were ready to leave the resort. Once we got back to school I would begin two weeks holiday. I felt happy and remembered how much I had yearned for this moment on the day we had first arrived at the resort. My three days in hell were over; although now that it was over it didn’t seem so hellish. Thinking back it had actually been enjoyable for the most part. I felt relieved knowing that the responsibility for taking care of and entertaining all these kids would soon be over, but I also knew that in a strange way I would miss it. I also realised that come next year I would once again await this trip with dread.

Three days in hell - Part 2

A loud cheer greeted our arrival at the resort. The head of our department was there to welcome us and she was accompanied by some of the more eager students and teachers. Our leader appeared very tense; likely due to the fact that her well-made plans were already becoming unstuck. She herded us to the reception area of the hotel where everyone else was waiting.


The hotel reception looked like something from a disaster movie with students sitting or lying on their luggage in every available space. This group also gave a cheer for our arrival but without much enthusiasm and most students quickly returned to bored facial expressions.


We were now over an hour out of sync with our schedule. The plans had been very tightly time-tabled with no room for delays so activities would need to be removed from the programme. We had an impromptu meeting and by the time we had made some decisions another fifteen minutes of the day had been lost.


Our first task would be to put the students into teams. We had already decided the importance of mixing the teams up and not just allowing students to stay with their friends. Our Chinese maths teacher had devised a method which involved assigning students with numbers and asking them to stand in groups and then changing groups depending on a mathematical formula. This method had seemed clever and innovative when mentioned in staff meetings but now turned out to be chaotic and confusing. The students were tired and bored and this was making the whole process even more complicated, but after about half an hour the students did somehow magically end up in groups which seemed to resemble the image which we had planned.


Now that the students had been put in their groups they were given coloured headbands to identify them with their fellow members. Throughout the rest of their stay the teams would be awarded points for their behaviour and performance at different tasks. They were given the first task of creating their own team ‘boom’. Each group would need to demonstrate this chant later in the evening on stage, and the most unique one would get a prize.


Our leader decided that it would be fruitless to do any further activities until the students had a chance to freshen up. She gave us all an hour to check into our rooms and have a shower. Many of the students tried to go to the beach, but the Thai teachers had planned for this eventuality and were there to block their paths and send the students in the direction of their rooms.

I knew even before arriving at the resort that I would be sharing a room with two of the other foreign teachers. I also knew that I would be sharing a bed with one of these teachers. Sharing a bed with a man was not something that I was looking forward to one bit, and I sort of resented the fact that the school should expect it. When I mentioned my dislike of sharing a bed with a man, during our weekly staff meeting, I was told not to worry as there wouldn’t be much sleep anyway as we would be expected to patrol the resort regularly throughout the night and make sure our charges were behaving themselves.


We had been given a bungalow, and it turned out to be quite comfortable despite the fact that there were three of us. We took turns in the shower. I felt a whole lot better once I was clean and in fresh clothes. I still had a bit of time before we needed to reassemble so I decided to check out the resort and make sure that the other students were behaving themselves.


The youngsters were all excited with their rooms and showed signs of having livened up once again. Everyone seemed desperate to go look at the sea and most were already heading in that direction. I reminded as many as I could that they were expected back in reception in half an hour.


The next activity was pass the hula-hoop. The students had all arrived promptly and now stood with their groups in line holding hands. Two teams lined up at a time with the goal of passing a hula-hoop along the line without letting go of each other’s hands. The students soon got caught up with the excitement of this game, and when the teachers were forced into joining I too found myself enjoying the whole thing and feeling very competitive that our team should win.


We played another couple of activities before it was time for our evening meal. I felt starving and judging from all the complaints of ‘hew khao’ so did most of the students. The teachers were to be seated around the pool where we would be waited upon. The students had a buffet from which they could help themselves. Most of the dishes were seafood and while I normally avoid fishy-food I found most of it tasty.


After we had been fed it was time for the evening activities. The showpiece of this was to be the student’s booms. Each group had hastily arranged a small show which aimed to convince the audience why their team was the greatest in the world. Some of the groups put a lot of effort into their shows and it was impossible not to admire their originality. Thai students seem to always revel when they are given the chance of being creative.


At just after ten o’clock the official days activities ended and the students slowly made their way nearer to their rooms where they formed little groups in which to talk and sing. I joined the other foreign teachers for a chat, but we would frequently need to break up to check on what the students were up to. By midnight all the groups had dispersed and gone to bed.