Andrew108

Actually I think this is the thing that I get triggered by - you only have 200 baht to your name. And you live in a foreign country.

I guess there are quite a few teachers in Thailand living from pay check to pay check. Why do they do this?

I can't imagine how stressful this is. You absolutely have my sympathy, but come on Thailand isn't working out for you. 

Why not go gack to the States and if you want to continue teaching get some training and look at China for example where salaries and students are much better than Thailand.

I left Thailand in 2002 and decided I would never work there again. I love the country but only to visit. I speak and read Thai and have Thai friends in my home country. So I know some things and I know that in the Thai context you wont have any success. 

Apologies for being so brutal. Just hope you can suck it up and make some plans to get home. Best wishes.

This thread is turning into a train wreck. You mentioned you have 200 baht to your name - you need life advice.

Seems like you got caught up in a crazy situation. You should just walk away. Talk of getting a lawyer is absolute nonsense. And you've been in Thailand for seven years?

I've never had the kind of problems you are having because I would never let myself get into that situation.

Are you a teacher? You said you joined the school as a marketing guy. 

Anyway.......there is nothing you can do except work on yourself. Get some proper teacher training if you intend to continue teaching in Thailand. If you want to be an environmental activist then the U.S needs you more than Thailand does and of course you are American so you know......

You are drifting into dangerous waters and that's why I'm replying to you. You have 200 baht to your name man! Get a grip! 

Hold on.....

#1 So your salary was 35,000 baht per month working for an 'International' school?

#2 You have 18 classes a week and you had to design a different syllabus for each of your classes? Why? This makes no sense.

#3 You were asked for brief lesson plans. Why couldn't you provide them?

#4 What do you mean when you say "And the school won't give me my money because the head teacher wants to have a mini lesson plan for each of the 18 core syllabuses.." What 18 core syllabuses? What is this? 

I mean lets say you were teaching grades 1 through 6 (which is a tough ask) and you were teaching 18 lessons a week this means you would need to develop 6 different courses. Each lesson would have some reading and some listening and some speaking etc.

2 hours ago, TeacherKenAyutthaya said:

 thank you for thank you for mentioning this. ......................................... What do you think?

I think you said you couldn't teach a grammar course. Why do you think you know about teaching? 

Remember that you are a guest in Thailand. It isn't your country. Do we westerners have a superiority complex where we over estimate our actual worth and potential? Perhaps.

My advice is to get properly qualified. Make a change in your own country. Expect that 'for profit' educational establishments will want their pound of flesh and need you to deliver.

So you don’t like your home country and you have chosen Thailand as a place to live and work. And yet.... you don’t have money; you don’t have fluency in the Thai language; you don’t understand the culture (just have a rosey fantasty about Thailand being buddhist); you don’t have a long-term visa; you are not qualified to teach. 

I lived in Thailand for 5 years and met a suprising number of foreigners who kind of talked like you do. They all left Thailand within a year or two. And all of them became bitter about Thailand and Thai people. And importantly ALL of them wanted to be loved. Yep. They were all looking to have their souls mended. To be loved and to make a difference in the world they felt alienated from. 

But it doesn’t work. So you have to mend yourself. You can’t rely on other people. 

Look at the root cause of your situation and get yourself back to the U.S. Love yourself. Get properly qualified. Then you can make a difference. Right now you lack authenticity. 

Just to chime in here. Teaching is not about inspiring or motivating kids. That’s definitely not the focus. I often hear bad teachers saying that the kids like them and so on, when in reality the teacher is just acting the clown and the kids are happy to let the teacher perform. 

Getting proper teacher training is much more important than you realise. Online marketing cert? Why? What?

Walk away and take a trip back to your home country. 

My guess is that she was teaching in a kindergarten. If so, a high TOEIC score wouldn't be that important.

I'm also guessing that some parents complained about their kids being taught by a black woman. The amount of racism in Asia is insane.

My suggestion is that she looks for work in kindergartens that have a history of hiring non-native speakers. Good luck to her and I can't imagine how she feels. 

You have a Delta and a CELTA? Great! Well done! I’m sure you’ll find a decent job soon. 

23 minutes ago, ozmeldo said:

Maybe ECC, unsure.

Pretty sure the OP didn't do a CELTA. Probably did some generic TEFL course. Anyway......I guess he is just venting. 

I don't know of any CELTA course providers in Thailand who offer jobs after course completion. Are you sure it was a CELTA course?

More than anything you want to be loved and taken care of. BUT you can only be loved if you learn to take care of yourself. Taking care of yourself means being able to control your mind and push through the laziness of self-obsession. 

So.......realize that you have innate value and toughen yourself up by learning how to be happy where ever you find yourself. 

Most people are conditioned by circumstances and lack the mental strength required to rise above their situation. At the moment you are a leaf blown around by the wind. Nothing you do will result in happiness.

Well there is one thing. Learn how to let some of the ridiculous self-defeating nonsense that is your current thinking subside by itself. Meditate on letting your thinking release itself. Don't grasp at your thoughts or develop some strategies that are obviously dumb and a result of your misaligned thinking. 

Go back to the U.K. Learn how to deal with self-defeating thoughts. Change the way you see yourself. Recognise your innate value. Lose your addictions. Become free. Or be a <deleted>.

Most people aren't happy because they are habituated to see happiness as only coming from outside to in. Obviously when we consume things we have moments of happiness - but in truth natural or innate happiness is required before we can find satisfaction from objects. Without a natural level of happiness objects need to be ever more stimulating to cause us to feel happy. When we have natural happiness even simple objects like a piece of fruit can make us feel happy.

Then in the absence of this inner happiness we get addicted to anger and negativity because we able to find some physical pleasure in having a strong emotional response to something.

Inner happiness comes from recognizing our inherent value. Many people feel empty inside because they haven't understood the great fortune that is life itself. Once you appreciate being 'on' instead of 'off' you can start to build on that feeling and appreciate even the simple things in life - then you are happy wherever you are.

Lets create some demons. Everyone needs someone to hate right? Blacks up to no good and PC brigade telling us what to do. And all the while there was me thinking that as a white guy I'm innocent and that for example prostitution isn't illegal in Thailand. 

Truth is that we all come to Thailand with hopes and dreams and a set of specific desires. Best not to judge. Be strong snowflakes and let the Thai authorities take care of it. No need to mount your charger and ride into some ideological battle that's of your own making. Damn PC brigade and feminists telling us what to do. Not like it was in my day.,

Not sure if this is a troll topic but........you'll end up in prison and then deported. This means you wont be allowed back in to Thailand and if you love Thailand that much then seriously think whether you want to be barred for an extended period of time.

You would do better if you were homeless in your home country. So get back to your home country as soon as possible and get some support.

You didn't work in October right? Do you think they should pay you? Were you owed any holiday pay? 

Get a very light weight merino wool t-shirt to wear under the polyester one. I always used to wear a vest under my shirt when I was teaching in Thailand. Merino is better than cotton. 

22 hours ago, certacito said:

CELTA qualified and yet you don't know that Thailand is an EFL environment, not an ESL one. Big difference.

True. I made a mistake. 

Well, I think its not just about low pay. There is also the issue of professional development and being able to move into senior positions.

My definition of skilled work is that you learn new skills, gain more experience, and eventually move up the career ladder. With low-skilled work you're essentially stuck repeating the same tasks throughout your working life with no chance for development.

In Thailand, I would say that ESL teaching is much more like low-skilled work because in most cases there is no clear career progression. And that's the real problem for me.

Also about salaries... If you aren't able to save 30,000 baht a month, then you're going to have trouble later on in life. You need to save this much money every month to cover unexpected health care costs, pension contributions, relocation costs and so on. In Thailand I imagine its quite rare for teachers to save this amount. 

The absolute minimum salary I would accept in Thailand (20% higher in China) would be 45K with accommodation and/or food benefits thrown in. Then I would pick up the extra income I need by doing some p/t teaching. That's for a CELTA qualified C2 level ESL teacher with 5 years of relevant experience. In China, I would expect 14K (about 65K baht) with accommodation thrown in.

Not sure that schools in Thailand commonly offer these kinds of salaries

(of course some do). But anyhow..., because of the professional development issue I'll be throwing myself into the Chinese market.

18 hours ago, Airalee said:

If she wishes to be the poster child for underpaid teachers, she should expect to receive some amount of well justified criticism.

Well this is enough vitriol right here. Poster child? I think she was just breaking ranks and making public her difficulties. You haven't explained why the criticism she received was well-justified. it's simply your bias that says she deserves criticism. And why exactly? Why should she be criticized? You might not agree with her but why should she be criticized in such a negative way? I don't get it.

So what's the problem exactly? Is she too materialistic? Too much desire? Too focused on money? What is it exactly? Should she work for free? Perhaps she should not have other interests. Bizarre.

Like I've said the starting salary in BKK should be 20K and after 10 or so years an experienced teacher should be making 30-35K. That's with continued training and a proven track record of success. 

4 hours ago, Airalee said:

Cost of living in Bangkok is probably double that of most other provincial cities.  So it’s good to know you’re ok with 10k everywhere else.

Ah putting words into my mouth. The cost of living in Bangkok is not double that of most provincial cities. A better estimate would be a third more expensive. 15K would be a good starting salary outside of BKK. 

The reason I keep returning to this thread is that I'm surprised by the vitriol. I can't think why anyone would be critical of a hardworking educated person asking for a higher salary. But of course lots of people smoke cigarettes and I have no idea why they do that either. I can only assume that some people get into addictive cycles of negativity that they find impossible to free themselves of. 

Anyhow I guess that's ThaiVisa for you. 

Not surprising that we get the Thai’s are lazy, vein and feckless narrative. Lack of empathy here just shows how distant some foreigners are from ACTUAL involvement in Thai culture. They might think they know about Thai culture, when in fact they are outsiders who have been exposed to only a few limited situations that have distorted their view. 

Certainly support networks are extensive in Thai culture and money is required to keep the exchanges going. But not every Thai has access to a supportive family. Some do have to struggle by themselves. 

Also its obviously not enough to just survive on a salary. You have to be able to save and invest for the future. A surplus is always necessary. 

I think 20K is reasonable.

A request for fairer pay shouldn’t bring out the nasty and negative comments seen here. These negative comments have their root in something else - could be racism, could be about not having authority but wanting some, could be from feelings of alienation, perhaps the feelings of being an outsider are painful, being rejected, maybe from past feelings of being exploited - whatever the cause, the negative responses say more about Westerners in Thailand than the logic of giving teachers a pay rise.