inutil

I wish my fellow Scots would stop bothering about Salmond, I want a YES vote, but a guy who wants homosexual marriages, sucks in to people from the M faith, apart from the likes of Gordon Brown, or Blair, he is the last person I want to see having anything to do with an independent Scotland. I haven't mentioned "call me Dave" or Milliband as they are not Scots.

Youre absolutely right (well, on the first part at least, no problems at all from me on gay marriage. I welcome and support it absolutely. And i also welcome any religious faith - sorry, i thought with the tricolor you were banging on about some protestant sect there for a second and didnt really care about yoru ecumenical matters. It took me a while...).

The correction though that i would offer is that the pro-independence lot arent the people focusing on Salmond. The media are. And its deliberate because they hope that by tapping into the general popularity/unpopularity of Salmond they will a) force the supporters into more hardline nationalist rhetoric and b ) will alienate labour supporters who actually hate him plenty enough. In tying independence to salmond, they hope to pull away wavering labour support (absolutely ESSENTIAL for independence to pass), and turn the argument into one about the pipes, the heather, the glens, braveheart and runrig. The labour argument on the other hand is about redistribution, accountability, and a programme of opportunity for the working class of scotland built not on the foundations of austerity for the poor.

Or rather isnt. Thats what a labour supporter WANTS to hear and talk about. The SLP programme is fear, worry, anxiety, PENSIONS!!!! WHAT ABOUT YOUR PENSION!!! and wholesale negative What IF?-fery.

The labour party should have made this one case: The union is better for the scottish labour supporter because... <insert reason>

Instead they made the case that its a leap into the unknown and Salmond is an arse.

But no one cares. We know this already for goodness sake!

Its why the only halt in the momentum came with Browns intervention and a positive argument at last from the No camp on how Britain will actually move to become a more fair and equal society in the event of a no vote. And now that both the conservatives and labour have scuppered those promises before they even took hold, then its back to salmond is an arse, arent you worried? have you thought about your pension? and whatever else wasnt working for Better together. Which is why the yes vote MIGHT actually end up winning this.

ETA: Just one more thing. Im left of center. Solid left if im honest. Im not full on anti-privitisation or the like. I know the market works best (when regulated and protected against its own tendency to monopolise). But EVEN I know that when scotland becomes a new country its going to be, if anything, MORE pro-business and pander MORE to corporations with tax cuts. The first priority is to shore up our economy. The change any labour supporter wants to see will be GENERATIONAL. It wont be overnight. I think most people understand this reality. I felt it needed to be said though because i think theres a tendency to assume that a scottish labour supporter has pie in the sky dreams about the return of clause 4 and a sudden desire to turn the clocks back 50 years to the time of heavy industry and labour. It couldnt be further from the truth. And thats why better together keep missing their targets.

If it's NO then life will go on, no change, but if a YES, half the Scot populous are going to be very angry being taken into the unknown. If stuff don't work out l can see a huge amount of shit hitting the fan from that huge number of folk.

They won't be angry for long when they see little will change.....a tweak here and there is all we are planning......and never again Tory rule.

They will see the truth quite quickly actually.

You know what, two unexpected victors of independence might be:

1. Gordon Brown.

Last week Gordon Brown entered the foray, and he THUMPED salmond. Effortlessly he tore into him. Almost single handedly he turned a negative campaign from better together into an actual positive vision of why Scotland would be better off with England and with the PLP. It pulled me off the fence and well into the devo max camp. Itll have done the same for a lot of wavering labour supporters. Alas, on reflection, he can only offer an empty promise. The devo max option is already being deflated by Tory backbenchers and even Ed Balls before it managed to get off the ground. But it was a triumphant return to front line politics. In a two day burst of activity he did two things: he brought the word Federalism to the front and center of UK politics. And he rehabilitated the dirty R word, (redistribution) by challenging Alex Salmond on what hed actually done to redistribute wealth to the poor in his last 7 years, and what he was planning to do in his white paper to redistribute wealth? It was an attack designed to appeal direct to the hemorrhaging labour support for YES, and itll be honest, it worked flawlessly. The surging momentum for indepence was halted completely in its tracks as wavering labour supporters had a rethink. The problem is that now theyve had a rethink, they probably realise that devo-max isnt coming. So screw it...

You bet your ass, if Scotland votes for independence, the Scottish labour party, (despised at least by the west coast at the moment for their part in the no campaign and their commitment to austerity), will see a new leader. And Alex Salmond will be shitting himself at the prospect. I know who id want to lead scotland in this transitional phase: Big Gord any day. The man is a political powerhouse. England hated him. Scotland doesnt. He knows that independence will be his way back. And he'll seize on it if only so he can stick it to Salmond and return the scottish labour party to its natural place on the center left of scottish politics.

2. The Scottish conservative party.

Scotland isnt left wing. Its just like the rest of Britain. Theres an equal and opposite reaction of conservatism in scotland. At the moment it struggles to find its message because its so inexorably linked to Thatcher and the bullingdon club elite down south. In devolution it still cant quite cut the ties and stand out on its own to say what it wants to say. Its stuck with that label and very few people want to hear them. But theyre still there, and theyre still holding out that come independence scotland can start looking to the future again. They will be heard, and theyll see a resurgence in support from it. And once again, the big loser will be the SNP who will see their vote squeezed from the right. Conservatives used to do well in Scotland. They will do well again. And it wont hurt them one bit that independence will immediately place them as the party pushing for close ties with their main business partner: England and the Union.

So its kinda fun (to speculate). The big winners could well be the two biggest losers from the referendum vote. And the biggest losers might well turn out to have bee the biggest winners on the night of the 18th. This idea that Scotland is going into some kind of collective sulk the day after is based entirely on a lack of understanding on what independence will mean to both the Scottish Labour and Conservative parties and their supporters. Sure, theyll feign reluctance that their hands are tied and how this is a cataclysmic mistake, but theyll be relishing the change and looking to make their voice the strongest one in the 2016 elections. Salmond might just have to accept that his party are on to a hiding despite having almost single handedly brought about his lifes work. If Scotland votes for independence, theres no turning back and no point to sulk. They make it work and its that simple. And if they cant, the Scottish people will look for someone who can. We're British (in history and culture) and like the rest of Britian we arent just going to leave behind pragmatism on the 18th just because we voted to take control of our own destiny.

How could you forget Rikki Fulton? Thats a real scot right there.

Anyways, yes campaign intimidation/no campaign institutional bias - pick your poison:

http://new.livestream.com/IndependenceLive/BBCBiasV

Dunno how this one will play out. I think quiet outrage would have been a little more constructive, but it is mind boggling when they pan around to the numbers.

Love the picture. Makes me proud to be Scottish. Best friend, looking a wee bit half cut poking at the wry faced victim and probably taking the piss out of the scars he'll be getting.

England has been largely acknowledged only in passing. This isnt about England, its about Scotland at the end of the day. In fact if anything, one of the primary reasons that the labour vote in scotland hasnt collapsed into a vote for scottish independence DESPITE the absolute hatred of the Tories, has been the solidarity scottish labour supporters feel for English labour supporters whom they also recognise were trampled on by the closure of the collieries and heavy industry. The belief for any labour supporter is that the greatest force for change is ultimately the Parliamentary Labour Party. I think Scottish labour supporters and North East labour supporters share far more in common with one another than Blairist New labour and old labour supporters ever will regardless of where they live. And perhaps because theyre old school, they probably feel that change will only come about through collective representation and ahem, bargaining. We are dependent on the support and shared opportunity as well as the success of one another. This is no small side point. Its axiomatic!

To an extent then, an independent scotland would be seen as a backward step in this long shared goal of raised opportunity, social justice and egality that labour has always professed itself to stand for. We COULD do this in Scotland of course, theres obviously still enough resentment at BOTH the tories and liberals to keep things generally center left for the time being, but the project is bigger than just lifting a few million out of poverty and powerlessness into opportunity. Its collective as i say. Its a shared and common legacy of every labour supporter and owes its debt to the force of labour THROUGHOUT the united kingdom. Scotland didnt give birth to the NHS and the welfare state after all. Labour did; The British people did.

Anyways, im not politiking. Im just trying to explicate why maybe political allegiance trumps nationalist sentiment to a lot of people in Scotland. England is way down the list of concerns. Parts of England maybe not so much. But those parts are problems also for people in the regions of England just as they are for the people in Scotland.

Just as you rightly pointed out earlier that England itself wasnt en masse in love with Thatcher, perhaps its fair to also argue that this logic should show that England doesnt have a single will on the issue of Scottish independence. Indeed, a quick perusal of any comments section on independence always has people from England telling us to be brave and vote yes, followed by a reminder that theyre all very jealous. It seems that a great many people in England share similar complaints about political impotence that Scotland feels from Westminster politics and would like to be shot of it too. Its why i think this is a bigger conversation and that this vote is just the beginning. England is just as pissed off with the status quo as Scotland is. But its not with Scotland. Its with other parts of England. I think the main parties now maybe realise (thanks to the surge in support for independence) that the Scotland vote is just the beginning. Were it at 30% they might have taken the wrong lesson that everything was fine. I think they should be rightly worried.

id vote yes if i could obviously. But my instinct tells me when dealing with a change like this, you need to either have a massive groundswell for change (like Obama in 2008), or you need to have a strong and consistent buffer to weather those who have every intention of voting for change right up until they stand in their booth and look at their paper (like the UK General election in 1992 or even Obama again in 2012). Either there has to be a genuine longstanding resentment for the status quo (1997) and a real genuine impetus for change, or there has to be a feeling that regardless of your political ties, youre voting for history. For me, that surge really did push right up until midweek. But i feel the momentum has been halted. It will once again carry on, and maybe even surge again as we approach Thursday. But itll ebb away at the end. Too many people like to flirt with change. But if anything, the problem for Scotland is that theres no clear AWFUL answer. Theres just two really good options on the table (so long as you buy into Devo max). And in that case, i think a lot of hesitant support will drift away when they come face to face with their ballot paper.

Then again, one of my mates is insistent that people will walk in unconvinced, but think "to hell with it! lets do this". Its all up for grabs. Salmond will tell you that every minute every day if he could. In fact the latest poll putting the no's in an 8 point lead will have him ecstatic if only because its kind of against the general trend of the other polls (about 3-5% difference) thus making it a bit of an outlier, but it wil also help him no end make the case that the argument hasnt been won yet, and his campaigners and voters cant just sit back and expect other people to go vote for them. They HAVE to turn out to make this happen. Its music to the YES campaigns ears so close to polling day. Its all to play for... and they cant sit back yet and expect the yes vote to romp it despite his own private polling telling him otherwise.

Not only does the programme enable the development of English speaking and comprehension among Thai students but it also gives English teaching assistants the chance to gain valuable international work experience, learn Thai and integrate into Thai communities.

All this in just 9 weeks, or say ''around 1512 hours as no sleep is taken so as to amass such a vast range of knowledge one presumes.''

Indeed a classic statement worthy of the brothers Grimm and their fairy tales.

Surely the locals will be impressed by those "hundreds of UK students and recent graduates" who get the chance to practice their skills on an apprehensive audience ?

Not really a topic I know much about (if any), but I'm reminded of the good old days when 'we' had the moral duty to educate the less fortunate and so.

Putting away all this bantering, can someone tell me how effective those 9-weeks are, having someone who can speak English as a Native and having didactic skills as well. Is it only mostly good for the teachers and somewhat for the others or can those nine-weeks have some real effect ?

I dunno about efficacy. I dont think thats the remit here. It's probably closer to the stated objectives of the Japanese English Teaching programme: internationalization.

The aim will be to provide a teacher to, I ASSUME, those parts of Thailand where schools are simply too poor or too remote to attract your local tefl backpacker. The community gets an event, the teacher gets a life-changing perspective. Everyone is happy. And at the end of their placement, they probably get a month or so to tour Thailand and SE Asia as well. Sounds all jolly good British colonial paternalism.

Then again, perhaps im wide of the mark. I havent even read the OP. If its just sending people to random schools in BKK or near the beaches, what is the &lt;deleted&gt; point?

The only time i ever had trouble with an unmetered taxi was day 1, carrying a massive snowboard bag (dont ask) and a couple of other bags, arriving in bangkok after midnight, having no idea where i was going, and having no other realistic option except sucking up the bullshit at the airport.

I paid 700 baht. I gave him a 100 extra as a tip. I just wanted to get in my hotel. Plus it was funny money back then. &lt;deleted&gt;, i spent almost 400 i think it was on an atrocious fake Paul Smith belt from one of the market hawkers in those first naive weeks.

Since that day though, every taxi driver bar none has put the meter on at my request. Id always ask them beforehand though and if they said no, id just wait for the next taxi.

FYI ~ A.S.E.A.N. is just around the corner, and spear-headed by the Sino-Singaporeans. Those western (NES) teachers of Thailand (who do live in reality), will quickly get the drift, of things to come. Prepare to pack-up, and be homeward bound. The western school teacher party, is rapidly coming to and end, in East - SE Asia.

Any further explanation to this post????

and you blokes call Thai people stupid! Hey, Dream Lover! Again, in PLAIN English. Just like the gradual vanishing of the former British Colonies of East & SE Asia, Singaporeans are now, officially classified as being the only NES, member nation people of A.S.E.A.N. The Western Expat School Teacher's party, is soon to become history, in Thailand. CAPICHE? Now, if you a further explanation than this, then ask a 5 year-old Thai Kindergarten student, to explain it to you, K? .

Eugh. troll thee not. The party will still be raging. In fact, it'll get into full swing once the gulf in language starts affecting investment.

Hogwash oil is refined waste oil. You find it in the sewers.

To make hogwash oil, one takes the floating oil from sewer water or from leftover food thrown out of restaurants and then refines it...

A-tian monopolized access to the sewers in front of the hotels and restaurants. If business was good, he could retrieve 5�6 buckets of oil. He normally got four buckets a day.

Every day, A-tian carried the buckets home with his bicycle. When he had enough to fill his pond (about four tons of oil,) he would refine the oil. On average, he could earn 150 yuan (about US$20) for every two buckets he took home...

So what's the usefulness of hogwash oil? An insider said, "Some people refine hogwash oil themselves. The better-looking hogwash oil can be sold to restaurants. The inferior, darker looking hogwash oil is sold for frying bread dough. The darkest oil is sold to the chemical industry as raw material.

Others sell raw hogwash oil directly to oil refineries as industrial raw material. There are people selling raw hogwash oil to pig farmers to feed pigs. Except for that sold to the refineries, the rest tends to flow into restaurants."

Hope this helps

Love Thai street food. Im also a terribly fussy eater and have a bit of a germ-phobia (i cant drink out of the same glass, or eat off the same plate as someone else). Yeah, it can be grim. Ive had some real vomit inducing food out there. But it wasnt so much the cleanliness as the awful recipe. And when it rocks, youve just scored a ridiculously tasty meal for a 100th of the price youd pay back home. Whats not to love?

On the other hand, i currently live in China, and dont even dare eat in the restaurants. ive been sick several times (and once, so bad i was hospitalised). I kinda wondered why, until a friend pointed out the hogwash oil thing. Fancy eating food cooked in oil thats been recovered from sewers and filtered (with no legitimate or legal oversight)? Me neither. Chinese food can be yum now and again for sure, but ive rolled the dice enough times now to give up playing.

Thanks for all the responses. Even the tongue in cheek ones.

I feel like I'm starting to understand what to do and what to expect.

Some of you are asking why Bangkok. I have a friend there already, he's a teacher too. Oh, and of course I've met my Thai Soulmate online and we're going to get married... joke!

I'm going to start applying for jobs before I go. Maybe it is super easy to jump on a plane and get a job when you're there, but that would be kinda intense right? I mean, to land in a country where you don't know where anything is, and you don't speak the language, and you don't understand the culture all that well...

I think, at the very least, I would like to know I've actually got the job sorted.

Dont sweat the details man, getting a job is INCREDIBLY easy. It also gives you a month or so of acclimatizing to the whole "holy shit holy shit holy shit!" of it all.

Roll in, book a serviced apartment with a pool for a month, chill out for a few days to get your bearings. Take a few sojurns into town to see the main sights. Then after a week or so of adjusting to the heat (and if youre like me, only leaving the hotel after dusk because crotch rot/chafing is NASTY), get on your computer, post your resume up, send out some applications to agencies. And voila, within a week youll be picked up. If youre quick, well, you get to decide if youre going to suck up the loss on the service apartment and head to your new gig. If not, then youve got a month to score a job. The only people who need a month to score a job are the serious basket cases. And theres plenty of them in Thailand making you almost instantly marketable by comparison.

You'll need at best two days to pick up a paying gig around 30,000.

And none of this even speaks of just popping to nearby schools, dressed sharp, and clutching your CV in hand. Meet the head of English, ask them about their situation. If you have any kind of charm or charisma, you now get to price yourself into your job.

One word of warning:

Many agency contracts will contain a clause that means you are in effect a term by term employee. Understand that outside of those terms, you get paid squat. You need to supplement your income. Understand further, that Thailand schools take rather long holidays. This means somewhere around 9/12 months of pay and 3 months of whatever other work you can get. This is one of the advantages of calling your own wage and doorstepping. Agencies are in competition with other agencies for contracts, so its a race to the bottom. Speculative enquiries arent. If youre there, good to go, and the head of dept likes you, well, you have a bit more leeway.

Of course it also means that you are now beholden to your employer and dont have that buffer we all enjoy with the agency (if you screw up, or if the school just doesnt like you, agencies will look after you usually because they have more jobs than teachers). Swings and roundabouts.

What else?

Ah, if you hate public school teaching, dont fret. Have a crack at another age group or even private lessons. Private lessons usually pay better as well. They're also far easier than public school teaching. Lots of ways to make a buck so to speak. Dont just assume you hate teaching just because public school is a bit more... complicated

One last thing. DO TRY and stick with a contract for a full year. I know you might be tearing your hair out, but having at least one year experience under your wing means that you have the startings of a career. So long as youre still pretty young, one year of experience puts you above the people in your exact situation right now (outside the country, having to pick from a very small number of the actual positions (usually garbage), and looking just to get your foot in the door). This gives you opportunities in countries outside Thailand. If theres one great thing about Teaching in Thailand for me, its that you can get an entry level, no aggro job to at least learn some of the fundamentals and get that valuable classroom experience. Outside of Thailand, things get more picky and youre competing with cats with lots of experience, decent qualifications, and all for a limited number of placements. That one year experience puts you in the running for most ESL positions.

Anyways, good luck dude!

Its important above all to understand this one thing about teaching:

ESL teachers on message boards are often the most holier than thou avatars youll ever likely engage with. Dont sweat it. They dont mean anything of it, it's just something we all do. You'll do it too in a few years

With that proviso aside, let me advise you

Dress smart in your photo.

Refresh your CV on ajarn often.

Accept that with no experience youre not top billing.

But dont accept anything less than 30k.

Public school jobs are SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult... they re

I may have missed the point! The lesson plan still stands though because its too awesome!

Comparative BETTING!!!

Yeah, everyone will tell you its a terrible thing to teach your kids gambling, but its never failed.

Print out some fake money (or just er, photocopy a stack of real money if youre feeling lazy).

Cut it up into individual bills. Each group gets around 10, you need to cover losses in the game (and losses because kids destroy everything that isnt laminated) so figure out your math. I go with around 100 or so.

Anyways. do what youve got to do in the first 10-15 minutes of class to get them to this one tiny lousy easy as hell grammar point:

"A is [adj]~ER THAN B."

(a cat is faster than a mouse).

Thats literally the only thing your kids need to remember: "...~er than..."

Now break them into groups (assuming of course you can move desks at all and there arent in fact 79 kids in four or five lines in a tiny classroom with no gaps to maneuver - if thats the case, this game aint working... or youre gonna need another way to group them (boys v girls? I dunno).

Now you give each group one piece of A5 paper (at the most). On this paper they draw (or write or whatever), their team name.

You need two free desks at the front. Steal them from the students if you have to. It makes things chirpy.

Label one desk A and one B. This is important. Basically, the kids who think that A is bigger than B put their paper and money on the desk marked A, and the groups who think B is bigger than A put their papers on desk B. Simple right!

Now you do an introduction question. You MUST make this one phenomenally simple. Which is bigger, this school or the earth... i dunno. Your call, The funnier the better.

This is where the students learn that on that piece of paper they need to write down the answer. Dont let them use shorthand. You can be all teachery if you like at this point and punish poor spelling and grammar, but i prefer to keep the rules absolutely simple.

The students from each group then bring the paper to the relevant desk. Check check. Send them back until they get it right. This is just the test case. So youre just making sure they follow the procedure.

Hopefully everyone chose the same answer.

Now reveal the (obvious) answer, and start dishing out money. Give each group that got it right a dollar (or whatever currency youre using). At this point, eyes will light up.

Now get them to collect the papers.

Once collected its time to dish out the cash. Give each group however much you want (obviously you need to prep the stacks beforehand).

And now explain that they have to bet on the answers. Cue MASSIVE surge of excitement. The rule is, if they get it right, they get double their bet. If they get it wrong, you take their cash. So simple! YOU MUST RESTRICT THEIR BETS. Keep them on a super tight leash on how much they can bet. For example, first and second rounds are 1, third is two fourth is three. By the fifth round, youre close to the end anyway. Let them go all in (because its a trick question).

You can find your own comparisons on wikipedia (country sizes, animal speeds, celebrity birthdays, even teacher vs random student birthdays). Anything at all. Or...

Now everyone is primed, its time to kick off.

Q1: Which is faster, a pig or a chicken?

After the easy question, watch the dumbfounded looks. Its a moment to savor

Make sure they all give you 1 of your notes (i usually work in multiples of ten rather than 1s for the dramarama).

A: Pig = 17.6kph ; Chicken = 14.4 kph (use a bit of showmanship to draw it out and build tension).

Q2: Which is bigger, Thailand or (pick random country that everyone is going to assume is bigger than Thailand).

Go wikipedia the hell out of it.

Q3: Pick a random student and ask everyone whose birthday is earlier/later (depending on yours of course - you dont wanna make this easy!).

Q4: Pick a few celebrities. I always go with lady gaga. Who is taller, lady gaga or random normal height Thai soap opera star

Lady gaga is amazingly teensy tiny at 155cm. Just find anyone you like.

Q5: which is newer, the car or the motorbike?

Car 1889 ; Motorbike 1885.

Q6: do a local one. Anything they know about.

Whatevers for any other questions to push time:

But LAST QUESTION regardless of time:

Which is bigger, Bangkok or Washington DC. Play up how easy it is and youre being nice. Throw in that youre comparing one of the worlds biggest countries with Thailand.

Bangkok: 1567 sqkm ; Washington DC: 177 sqkm

Anyways, if you arent mean like me, you can throw in a few easier ones to get a few cheers and not cripple their interest. Think of it like playing pully games with a dog You need to let them win sometimes. Pick something from Thai history and pretend you thought it was reaaaaaallly difficult...

Sorry im not giving you the whole thing. Im not doing the thai research on celebrities and the like. Plus, the more local stuff you can add (particularly school stuff - they LOVE teacher comparisons - "who has been teaching here longer?" for example - if you have a co teacher, its a great way to bring them into the game by putting them on the spot for a random school based question).

Anyways, this game ALWAYS kills! its one of my absolute guarantees! you need to sell it a bit, ham it up a bit, and possibly have a bit of mischief about it. If you want, you can make the students come up with their own questions. Ive tried it though, and it does slow down the pace a bit (from my experience - though im more the showman type, maybe a better teacher-teacher will fit that style more and would rather feel more in control of the material).

Have fun. Hope i havent got you too late

What a load of nonsense, and whats this about sky fairies?

The simple fact is that nature, god, aliens, sky fairies (take your pick) have created a human reproductive system where you need 2 people of the opposite gender to have sex in order to reproduce and have babies. This is not a gay rights issue, it never has been and never will be because 2 people of the same sex cannot make babies!

Your example that 2 loving parents of the same sex is better then an abused child from a family comprising of mother and father is a childish comparison at best.

I would argue that a child brought up by 2 loving parents (mother and father) is better for the child then being raised by 2 loving parents of the same sex,, so if you are going to make comparisons make them real.

This is not homophobic, it is my opinion and I have no issues with people being gay at all. The only point I agree with you on is that people do not chose to be gay, you are either gay or you're not,, i don't think anyone wakes up one morning and choses their sexual preference.

I posted earlier that I am sure there are many gay couples who could create a really good argument as to why they should be able to raise a child with same sex parents. But, for some reason my heart tells me this isn't right,, I know people will shoot me for this (not literally) and i am generally pretty liberal about these kind of things but its the way I feel about it.. I cannot see how the child will not have a difficult time with it at some point in their life and also what effect it might have on their upbringing overall. Maybe at some point someone will convince me otherwise and I will change my view, sadly your post is not it.

Anyway the surrogacy point just seems very wrong to me.

Youre absolutely right! If only there was, i dunno, some kind of modern wizardry whereby we could fertilise an egg outside of the actual physical act of love making! I guess until such a magic exists, we'll just have to concede the point that it is physically impossible for two people of the same sex to, in any way, create a baby from their actual biological self! Just as its physically impossible for a human to take flight in some kind of gravity defying contraption and cross thousands of miles to do it! Are we now to believe ourselves birds? What utter nonsense! if we were intended to fly, then we would have been born with wings! If we were intended to breed outside of the confines of physical procreation we would have invented procedures and testable methods in order to do so! Absurd! I will send this message to you on the morrow by carrier pigeon!... Once of course i figure out what all these confounded symbols mean!

"And if they start giving me shit... Ill quit the old fashioned way: No show, no phone call!" (doug stanhope as president!)

You arent an indentured servant. No one has a gun to your head. Theres no organised blacklist. If you ever want to quit, then quit. If it requires a runner, then run.

Contract or no contract, so long as you can blag the gaps on your CV no one cares.

I suspect though this is more about getting paid for hours worked. Look at YOUR contract. Does it say anything about this? Are you willing to challenge the vilidity of x clause versus Thai labor law Again, contracts mean shit unless YOU can enforce them. If someone wants to screw you out of money, you have to make the decision if you have the time to dick around with a lawyer or not and take this to court. The easiest path is to get what youre owed, give notice and leave. If you dont trust them, get what you can, and leave. And if you think theyre pure scum and want to punish them, take them to court or threaten them with court.

What does your contract ACTUALLY say. Is there a clause that states the THAI version of the contract supercedes the English version? Can you read Thai? No? Get a lawyer who can, and ask them what they think. If theres a clause where they can demand reimbursement for fees (to a recruiter or airfare and the like), if you leave in the first six months, then you're going to have to get legal advice. Genuine legal advice. Not advice from teachers or forum users in general. Alternatively, no show, no phone call. Move. Problem solved. No one is chasing you across the country unless you owe them a tonne of money.

Dude, you got no money. You got no means to access money. You cant or wont get a plane ticket to go home.

Youve got all the information you need to make your choice.

You either get the money together and get out before you break the law.

Or you dont.

You arent a special case with super mitigating circumstances. If you run the risk of living in Thailand without a visa, you deal with the punishment when youre caught. Be a grown up and stop bitching. I dont care if you live beyond your means or not. I dont care if you decide to live in Thailand illegally or work illegally. I aint the police. I also couldnt care less about how much money you had. But youre now the one responsible for your next step. So man the <deleted> up and own your decision.

Truth is no one knows if they take to teaching until they actually give it a whirl. No reason why he shouldnt get his feet wet. It might take one whole class for him to tell everyone to go themselves and storm out, or he might just kill it and realise hed really like to do this a bit longer because its actually a blast!

Just as with every other fun TEFL site waste of time discussion, ive seen good teachers without degrees, awesome non-native English teachers who could teach circles around everyone else (despite having a bit of an accent), and amazingly charismatic teachers who came here for a gap year or two to see Asia, stayed a bit too long, and stumbled into a career entirely by accident. No one really knows if the spark is there and in what way until you give it a go. Maybe you just like to perform, and though you have naff all interest in the subject, youre just born to fire imaginations and inspire students. Maybe you just like the shenanigans of kids and can tailor your student-centric lessons naturally to them in a way that Mr.bigstick grammar translation cant or wont. Maybe you think intrinsic motivation is OBVIOUSLY far more important to your students than hanging a test over their heads and delighting in failing 30% of them.

I dunno. Maybe its exactly the opposite. Maybe you LOVE giving students a clear, structured groundwork with obvious standards of success and achievement instead of just waffling on about 'intrinsic motivation' or 'student centric approaches' whilst your class descends into chaos... etc etc. Ive seen teachers of all styles and shapes, and the only bad teachers i ever saw were (are) those who think that one size fits all. Then again, im all hippy 'intrinsic motivation' so er, glass houses etc.

Still, if youre even up for considering it, no matter your motivation (yes, even boredom), have a go. I really believe you should have a go, because for me, its the most fun job you can do. You might love it! Which means boredom will no longer be your motivation (i genuinely defy you to be bored teaching, anyway!). And if you find you actually hate it, everyone wins as well. Now you'll know from experience just how hard working a job it is trying to get 20-60 young teens all with their own varying interests, motivations, and skills on point and learning something they didnt know before they walked into your class. Love it! love it! love it! Exhausting, demoralising, hilarious, frustrating, exciting, energising, maddening, draining and rewarding in the space of a single lesson. Its a ridiculous job

TEFL does teach grammar. Of course it does. Well, contingent on just how gung ho your tefl agency is i guess... its just basic stuff though: Tenses, parts of speech, um... hang on... im sure there were other things...

...

...nah, lost it.

Anyway, it teaches grammar. It gets a day or two of your month long course. Not a ridiculous amount by any stretch, but genuinely, its sort of right. I'm an experienced teacher. I've got plenty of classroom experience whilst almost everyone i did the course with had no classroom experience. Six demo lessons got them over that bunny in the headlights terror. By around demonstration 10 they were really getting their fluidity and confidence in front of their classes. Realistically then, observed teaching just feels more of an appropriate use of the time. You get feedback, its constructive, its all safety net and actually lets you start the new gig with a bit of confidence and some decent classroom experience.

I know the grammar nerds get mad about it, but you get your basic grammar down reasonably quick (allowing for further study and professional development later on if you want to go into a bit more depth). In terms of training and observed lessons from there on in, i can tell you (anecdotaly) that observed classroom teaching (where I am the actual subject under observation (and not my coteacher)) has been around... ooooh... 6 or 7 lessons... in about 9 years of teaching. Whee! so screw the grammar component. That classroom experience and observation is gold dust!

Particularly in Thailand Public schools, you're going to be thrown into the deep end. Well, more like the shark pool to be honest. Yes yes, no one seemed to care what i did in my class, so there is that. But for that 1 hour where youre on your own with a class of 50 plus students (and barely 10% of them are in any way focused or can be regarded as 'keeping up with' the material (let alone surpassing it)), you're going to be eaten alive. The tefl wont save you of course, but it will at least give you that safety net those first terrifying few times where you spectacularly screw up your timings, or lose your temper, or lose your materials, or forget what youre doing, or have absolutely no response to your 15 minutes you set aside for your self intro Q and A and have nothing else left on the table to pull you out of a hole except er... hangman??? Bingo??? Um... HALP?!??!!! A little look back to the twelve or so classes you taught, and the classes you saw your mates teach at least gives you some ideas on how to switch things up a bit.

Also, for Non native ESL teachers (as in teachers who learned English as a second language), grammar should be the LEAST of your worries. Unlike most of us, you actually learned all this stuff. I mean, someone physically explained it instead of said "right, in today's English class you're going to write a book report on yadayadayada" (followed by lots of red pen corrections and random "Paragraph!!!" or "Sp!" interjections). That's what i remember from English GCSE... Then again, i &lt;deleted&gt; around a lot in school... so you know...

You know what, Thailand blows my freaking mind on that exact point for the exact opposite reason you gave. 

Schooling is a clusterfk (at least it was for my short stint). 

Ive taught in Japan (6 years), Korea (2 years), and China (1 year), all middle school. The students I taught in Thailand (P4-M3) had far and away the lowest level English. Far and away! 

I was gobsmacked to watch M2 students struggle to read a P4 passage ("This is my sister. Her name is... She likes... Her birthday is..."). 

I was jaw on the floor when they couldnt answer questions beyond "what's your name?" (what do you like?, do you like...?, do you have any brothers or sisters? - these are the very easy warm up questions i usually give to the students in the middle or low sets to try and ease them to the comparatives, pronouns, tense, direction questions et al). It was wide-scale. I even had to get my co-teacher to come sit-in on some of these tests (and even do some) to make sure a) it wasnt my speed/deliver/terminology; and b ) That i wasn't imagining it. 

But you know what i found most amazing?

I can pretty much get around anywhere in Thailand without a lick of Thai. Theres enough survival English in the general population to make speaking Thai utterly unnecessary. Its far more prolific in the general population than either of the countries already mentioned. I mean, i can get by wherever, but i dont even need some basic workaround phrases. Its just not an issue at all. In Korea youve got a bit of a chance if youre in a big city or speaking to some uni aged students. In japan, no chance, and in China, its pretty much non existent outside of schools (but inside schools, its kind of amazing). 

Its a weird weird thing that i could never wrap my head around. Either its the tourism industry at proper work, or every Thai person above the age of 23 has to go to an English boot-camp for 6 months as some kind of pseudo military service. Its just ass backwards. Schooling is incredibly poor. But after school, it just blossoms. Amazing Thailand. :)