ausdave

Khun Kawtot,

Just a quick remark. It is not just the price, also look at the ownership of the school. If you want to attend a school owned by a Thai person that can work perfectly well and there are great many great Thai schools owned by Thais, they however may not relate to you as much as another farang.

Not the most important, but still our teachers are generally younger and prettier than at other schools . I find that this is a very good combination when it comes to quick language acquisition. Don't be fooled by their youth, they know what they are doing. Of course we run open house so everybody can come and sit on a free lesson or even the whole day. Talking to other students also helps as you can get real opinions. Also we teach directly in Thai, no Romanization of Thai at all. Easier than people think.

Walen School of Thai - incredible value!

www.thaiwalen.com

Ps. All those who got upset by my posts, please forgive, no offense meant.

Off topic. Rings of racism, sexism and discriminatory employement practices.

I was involved in the Cultural Exchange Program. Unfortunately, I had to be hospitalized for emergency surgery in August, and got a 90 medical extension for my visa instead of the ED extension.

I purchased expat insurance here in CM just incase I had a medical problem. They refused to pay the 266000 baht hospital bill, which I am now fighting. In the interim, I have found out that the Socialized medical insurance in my home country would pay the entire bill if I can supply a letter from CMU or the Cultural Exchange Program confirming that I was volunteering in Thailand.

I contacted Matt, and he said the he could not write a letter for me because he is not employed there, and he is forbidden to sign anything that involved the cultural exchange or CMU. He suggested that I contact the new head of the department and the President of CMU, which I promptly did, explaining the need for a letter for insurance coverage.

They refused to help me.

Any suggestions of where to go to next in this saga that could be solved with a simple two sentence statement on CMU or CMLI letterhead would be appreciated. We are talking of about $9000 which could be paid by Universal health care and would not have to come out of my own pocket even though I tried to protect myself with purchasing local health insurance which seems to be a waste of money.

I am really sorry to hear of your troubles. It's beyond belief that CMU would not help you with a simple statement of fact on paper, but I don't doubt your story.

I hope someone here can suggest something useful...

To anyone following this story it's kind of confusing and a big giant clusterf*ck as you would expect when lots of angry smarmy expats get involved with Thai administration types. Can someone summarize what happened and what the resolution is/was?

On the Cultural Exchange Programme, your 'smarmy expats' were teaching in Thai government schools too poor to be able to hire native English teachers, working with Thai autistic kids at Suan Dok, doing musical therapy with Thai deaf kids a a special school , designing economical school buildings and accommodation for mountain village kids on Phrao as well as teaching them, and giving their time and expertise to help a great many other organisations working with the disadvantaged. They had also paid good money fro the privilege of giving and sharing where it was desperately needed.

Where were you all this time? In a local hostelry?

This is the real tragedy of this entire mess - that the Thai authorities at CMU don't give a dam_n about the people, both children and adults, who were being helped.

Same with the Thai classes and the TEFL courses - most people learn Thai in order to more fully understand the culture in which they have chosen to live, and TEFL courses are taken, in the main, by people who want to teach Thai kids. Yes, there are always a few who will use these opportunities to get an easy ride, but ....

The truth is that Chiang Mai has always been a hub for NGOs and others who are helping the people that their own government , both local and national, doesn't seem to care about..

Think about it, Wintermute

I would really have liked the oportunity to participate in some of those exceedingly worthy programs!

I signed up for the cultural exchange program. I am a qualified teacher and hold a bachelors degree with honours.

After 2 1/2 months, many emails and vists to the institute, they did not find me a placement. I'm back home now.

I did the TEFL and found it satisfactory but really looked forward to the volunteer work. The cultural exchange program was so poorly organised I just gave up...

I was given insufficient information about the need to apply for a 3 month visa extension and ended up on a 4 day overstay and had to pay an additional 2000B + 7 day extension fee. I was told not to worry... I was even told it might happen again if the paperwork wasn't ready in time, in which case they would cover the overstay fees. Nevermind the fact that I would have been liable to have been locked up if found to be without a valid visa!

I left the country soonafter.

I really feel sorry for anyone whose plans, let alone finances are in disarray over this debacle.

p.s. On leaving my rental accomodation before my contract had even expired, I was given a pro-rata refund, without asking, and certainly without expecting it! I returned my motorcy early as well, and was handed 500B for returning it a week early (I'd paid a month on a contract). This would never happen in the west. My experience is that Thai's are not at all stingy! (LICMU excepted)