hellfish

The main issue with schools hiring more Fillipinos will be selling it to the parents. I have taught in Bangkok for 8 years, in a school which has a staff of around 50 Fillipinos and 15 native speakers. It is no secret that the school would much prefer the staff to be entirely Fillipino, who work for half the salary of a native speaker. However, we are still there because the parents seem to feel that being taught by a native speaker with the correct accent is what they want for their kids. In the past we have even had parents complain because their child comes home speaking with a Fillipino accent. I'm not taking anything away from the Fillipino teachers. They are almost without exception hard working, dedicated teachers who are fully qualifed with many years of experience. Unfortunately this is not taken into account by the parents when they look at who is teaching their children. Until this attitude changes, there will be a place for a native english speaking teachers.

The foriegn teachers on the other hand are almost without exception not qualified teachers! This is not to say they are poor teachers. In my experience those who should not be teaching rarely last longer than a couple of years. The teachers who have stayed for more than five years are mostly dedicated, competent teachers. They may not have correct qualifications, but we regulary discuss teaching methods and improve our teaching techniques. Experience counts for a lot. As with any profession, you do not come out of school ready to go, but learn and improve through practice. The teachers earn the salary they are paid. They do not teach technical subjects, they teach English speaking, reading, listening and writing, which they are more than capaable of doing! If they were properly qualified they would not be working at this school, but would have moved up to higher paying, international gig.

It seems something has to change, unless Thailand will loose many capable teachers. I like the idea of a government sponsered program, but hey who cares what we think. I think for lower end schools work permits could be issued on reccomendation from the employer also.

thank you!

I have a 90 day report coming up. As Chang Wattana is closed, do I just send it to Lad Prao instead?

Does anyone know if Nimitmai road is completely passable?

My son is enrolled at a thai school and I would like to know the required documents for him to obtain an education visa.

He is currently on a tourist visa. I have tried to look at the MOFA Thailand website but it doesn't seem to be working!

Tablet computers in China and India have a price range of Bt3,000-Bt6,000, and Thai schools could get a cheaper price by buying in bulk, he said.

I wonder if the tablets are the same as the "$10 Tablet PC" the Indian government developed for their students:

Government Of India Unviels Sakshat $10 Tablet PCs for Students

i also got a great deal with air asia flying KL-STN, 15000baht return, with 25kg luggage and exit seats both ways.

they do some fantastic deals if you know six months in advance the exact dates you wanna go. if you leave it till the last minute though, they are nothing special.

I have just tried to do this with my lao g/f in thailand. thai law requires both of you to have an affirmation of freedom to marry, original and a thai translation. to get this for her, you do have to go back to her home village in lao. you need to get it stamped by the village chief and in the district office. we had alot of trouble getting this done because the village chief had never even heard of this document! but we eventually got what we needed. she also needs a copy of her family book, ID card and residence documents. then you have to take this all to the lao embassy and have them stamp it. here we had problems - the embassy in bangkok will only stamp it if she is marrying a thai! this is something i don't understand - if a lao marries a thai its still marrying a non-lao national so it is the same law! do they have a seperate law for marrying a falang?!? so we will now try again in another lao embassy.

Also a friend recently told us there is a new regulation in lao - if we get married abroad and regester it a the lao embassy, it still wont be legal in lao. we would still have to apply for the marriage permit there! so i'm thinking maybe it will be easier to do it all in lao!

does anyone know of any shops in bangkok for tall ppl?