kitjohnson

I'm not being facetious asking these questions because if you write like this on your course you're going to have a lot of problems!

I think you are judging his post too severely: he is not writing his thesis, just expressing his opinions on a forum. We all learn on our TEFL (or whatever) courses that it is crucial to be clear about who the target audience is when teaching or evaluating writing.

It is not good to write-off an institution or course just because it's offered in Thailand, and it's also not good to assume a course will be good just because it's from a well-recognised university. However, balancing the options, I do believe that a distance course would be time and money well-spent, and probably carries more clout long term (both within and outside Thailand). I currently teach in a university and most of the Ajarn Thai here got their post-graduate education abroad. Regarding actual learning, I am sure there are several advantages and disadvantages of learning by distance.

I'd be really grateful if people would let me the result of your research and experience. I've started my own researches, and some institutions are being fussy about which country I'm actually studying in. If I study in the UK, it will cost this, but if I study outside, it will cost more. Funny, it being a distance course.

What are your conclusions regarding the universities you named, with reference to both cost and quality (as much as it can be judged without actually studying somewhere). The Applied Linguistics / TEFL masters at Nottingham is going to cost 6,300 pounds, and they said that scholarships are not available for distance courses. 6,300 pounds is a lot of Baht!

With respect to all posters,

Kit

Good to hear about some peoples' experiences at Payap. I have a friend who was also dissapointed, but from an academic quality point of view.

My decision in the end is to study an online masters from one of the many respected English institutions offering them. This was I get to enjoy life in Chiang Mai whilst studying, yet also get a certificiate that will be respected throughout the world. The best of both worlds!

Sorry for the dumb question... the pdf file said the move is for 'sub-division 1'. It then listed the following services: residence certificate, visa and alien registration. For a humble foreigner who wishes to do his 90 day report, is this alien registration? Do I go to the new place or stay at Suan Plu?

Cheers.

Wallen at sipsong huay kaew

Prolanguage along Nimmanheiman

have both been doing this for a while.

That's great thank you, I'll check it out. If anyone has any reviews, that'd be cool too.

I want to study a distance course (MA) from England whilst living in Chiang Mai. To get a Thai visa, my ideal option is to do one of those 30,000 Baht per year Thai courses, 4 hours a week, 1 year visa. I know that Chiang Mai University Language School offer these. The options in Bangkok are of course great, but I'm sick of the city smoke and am set on Chiang Mai.

However, the one year courses are generally for beginners... แต่ผมพูดไทยไดั...พอไช้ครับ. I'm conversationally fairly fluent (if I'm speaking to someone who can speak nice clear Bangkok Thai), can read fluently (if the vocab is not too fancy or formal), but my writing is not good because I've never really used it. Also I would like to systematically improve my vocabulary by studying spoken/written texts.

Does anyone know of a language school that will qualify me for a education visa, preferably only 4 hours a week, but importantly, run more advanced courses?

My first choice would AUA, but I've read that they explicitly will not qualify you for getting a visa. Shame.

Any advice is really appreciated, thank you.

Wouldn't it be hard to take a test in Thai?

Good question. There's a central government exam for all undergraduate courses, but this is postgraduate, so it's really up to the faculty what test (if any) they impose. There is a 20,000 Baht 'foreigner fee' per semester, which I'm sure will encourage them to be lenient, i.e. let me use a dictionary. However I think if there was a difficult exam I'd probably fail.

I know of a Chinese guy who's studying a masters in linguistics at Chula and his Thai isn't too good. In conversation he always reverts to English, but all of the text books/written work is in English anyway, so it's actually easier than you'd think.

Hi,

I'm an English teacher here at a university in Bangkok, and am looking to further my qualifications. I want to move to Chiang Mai. There are two options for study there: the international TEFL Masters run by Payap University, or the TEFL Masters run by CMU (taught in Thai). There is a massive difference in cost, and I don't like Payap's no students-riding-motorbike regulations ( I own two). The other difference is that studying in Thai would seriously improve my own Thai langauge skills, so I'm tempted to go for CMU.

If anyone has any experience with either of these courses, or of studying a degree program taught in Thai at CMU, I'd be super-grateful for reviews.

Oldmankit

The visa question answer is no. You have to study at a school/university licensed by the Education Ministry to get an ED visa.

The teachers forum might be a better place to get your other questions answered.

Thanks for your quick reply. In this case, I would need to enroll on some basic 4-hour-a-week Thai course to get my visa.

I'll get posting on the other forum...

Hi,

I've got two questions about studying a TEFL masters degree.

I'm an English teacher here at a university in Bangkok, and am looking to further my qualifications. I want to move to Chiang Mai. There are two options for study there: the international TEFL Masters run by Payap University, or the TEFL Masters run by CMU (taught in Thai). There is a massive difference in cost, and I don't like Payap's no students-riding-motorbike regulations ( I own two). The other difference is that studying in Thai would seriously improve my own Thai langauge skills, so I'm tempted to go for CMU.

If anyone has any experience with either of these courses, I'd be super-grateful for reviews.

My visa question is this. For a more internationally-recognised masters degree, I'd love to get one online from a UK University. I want to study from Chiang Mai. Can I get an education visa whilst studying for a degree at a non-Thai university? (I'm British.)

With thanks for any help.

Oldmankit

Will look it up tonight, I think I still have it.

I'll be right here waiting!

Ok, I now have a complete and free solution!

To solve the automatic form submission problem I installed the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox (this is very, very cool - allows you to run custom scripts against particular websites) and I found an excellent auto-login script which submits forms if Firefox has been previously told to 'remember' their details. So the whole set up finally consists of:

1. Install the Greasemonkey addon for Firefox (lets you install/automatically run custom scripts on visiting a certain web page).

2. Install an Greasemonkey autologin script (just visit the link and Greasemonkey will automatically offer to install it for you - but be sure to view the source code first!)

3. A small windows batch file, which pings a reliable website as a test to see if my internet connection is live or not. If it gets no response, it assumes the connection has been cut and launches launches Firefox with the login page URL as an argument. I have previously told Firefox to 'remember' the username/password, so Firefox autocompletes the form which triggers Greasemonkey to submit it.

4. Set up Windows Task Scheduler to run the batch file every 10 minutes. So, when my ISP cuts me off my computer will detect it and login again within 10 minutes.

The final batch file:

@ECHO OFF
PING insert-reliable-website-ip-here |FIND "Reply from " > NUL
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 ECHO You have an active connection to the internet
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 cd "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Mozilla Firefox" && START firefox.exe "http://url.ofyour.loginpage"
EXIT

This looks useful. The link to the greasemonkey script is broken. Don't suppose you could post the code please?

Thanks.

As far as I know, the 'illegal taxis' are the ones that get new passengers from the departures level, instead of arrivals. At arrivals they whip you with a 50 baht ticket (at least the last time I went they did), plus arguments about whether they'll "let" you use the meter or not. I always get taxis from departures, because they're just regular taxis: no (official or otherwise) price increases just because you're at the airport. They are always happy to sneak you into their taxi because everyone knows it's officially against the rules.

Put it this way. I used to work at AOT (Suvanaphoum airport). If I wanted a taxi, the legal route meant I had to go up to arrivals and pay 50 baht extra. Did I ever do that? No.

So let's just hope this crack-down is as efficient as most things in this country.

Oldmankit

I daily check craig's list and the Thai Visa section. Kinda decided that a 10,000 Baht saving for one year's usage wasn't worth it for me, so to go for a new one.

Well I've decided to take the plunge and buy a new one.

Anyone got any advice to get a better deal?

From the subject of this thread, i would have thought it obvious - get a nearly new second-hand one and save yourself over 20,000 baht. No brainer.

I wouldn't exactly call it a no-brainer. I went in to a second-hand place at the weekend. They were offering a one-year old one for 72,000 Baht. It looked it good condition, except the chain was rusty. A rusty chain on a one-year old bike? I'm guessing the owner had cared for it less carefully than I plan to.

The problem for me is that I'm not an expert. I can spot exterior damage but if there's some way it's been abused that doesn't jump out to the untrained eye, I could easily end up buying a dud.

Well I've decided to take the plunge and buy a new one. Went to the Honda dealer on Rama 4. I was hoping to get a deal, or at least some free extras (e.g. bags). Check out the responses:

• free fixtures to put my rear luggage box: no
  
• free side bags and fixtures: no. The original Honda leather ones cost 5000 Baht and she says they've stopped making them!
  
• free king or queen foot pedals: no. 1000 Baht each.
  
• discount on 88,000 Baht? no.
  
• anything? they will not charge me for servicing in the first year, only parts.
  

Hmmmm, I was kinda hoping I wouldn't need any parts in the first year.

Anyone got any advice to get a better deal?

They advised that theft insurance would cost 2,500 for two years. They will do all the papers for free.

PS: I forgot to check at the dealer what style gear changer it comes with. Is it the one-sided type, where you press down with your toes to shift up, and press up with your toes to shift down? Or the double sided-type, where you can press down at the back to shift down?

The new Fire Editions are having mechanical problems, especially the last two model years. The rumor I heard was that Honda Thailand started using much cheaper parts in the last two year models and the bikes have been having much more trouble than the previous editions. Just hearsay of course, but I have a Phantom and that's what my Thai mechanic told me.

Should I believe this? Would this explain why people keep selling them after only a year or so? Or is it the small engine size : weight of bike ratio?

If it's true, I would be better-off looking for a second-hand edition about 3 years old, before the fire edition came out.

Thanks for all the input guys! I guess I just wasn't sure why people would buy it and sell it 6 months later. Didn't they take it for at test drive?

So for these Kawasaki bigger bikes, how much are you looking at (new)?

Hi,

just wondered why so many people seem to be selling 'hardly used' Honda Phantom (fire edition). Is there something wrong with this model?

My brother in law got a fire edition phantom about a year ago, and we had our bikes side by side looking for differences, which were actually quite minor. They both still used the same carburetor, so no fuel injection, unless they just changed it this year which I very much doubt. Mine is more than 6 years old, and I bought it when Honda stopped making it with the 150 cc 2 stroke and started making it with the 200 cc 4 stroke. My neighbor had the 2 stroke but couldn't afford the gas for it and sold it after only about 6 months.

I've also heard about the cam tensioner problem, but have not done anything about it as I really don't have that many km on the odometer (about 30k) and I think it only becomes a problem when the bike is ridden pretty hard, which I do not do. However, I do keep a very good ear out and am specifically listening for any and all abnormal noises. Unfortunately, the price for waiting until it breaks or the sprokets jumps a few teeth would be the cost of a new engine.

I'm good for about an hour or so before my ass really starts hurting and my hands start feeling numb from the vibration, but that could be coming from my advanced years as well as the bike.

I would probably go for the older edition if you can find a good one, know the bike's history and/or how it was ridden, or if you know a mechanic you can trust who could check it out for you, or better yet if you could check it out yourself. Unless you are a personal friend of the seller, don't believe anything he/she may tell you. And that goes for buying a new one too.

That's great advice, thanks a lot. I actually prefer the look of the older editions, and I've hired one out for a few days and know I love it. I was riding all day for two days with very little saddle-soreness.

I don't ride particularly hard, but that is one reason to be careful buying a second hand bike I guess... if I find a good-looking one, 5 years old, 45,000 Baht and hand my money over, it could have been ridden really hard and be ready to kick the bucket.

I do have a mechanic but unfortunately I don't fully trust him! He always does a shoddy job - just good enough and never any more.

One last thing - why are second hand bikes so expensive! They only drop 10% in the first year, unlike 50% or more in the UK. People love new stuff in Thailand so I really can't get my head around it!!

Old TA150 is a 2 stroke watercooled 150cc bike. New TA200 is a 4 stroke aircooled 200cc bike. AFAIK, there has been no advances in the mechanical bits, just a fancy new set of graphics. Don't know if the older 2 stroke has more peak power, but I can't see it being better due to the 4 stroke's broader torque range.

Do beware of the cam chain tensioner problem that seems to be endemic to this model.

Thanks for that. I was specifically asking for any advances between the TA200 as it's been pumped out for the past few years, and the new fire edition. I'd never buy a 2 stroke because of the increased fuel wastage.

I've heard about the cam chain tensioner problem, but I can see that the Phantom is the only affordable bike that will take me on longer trips outside Bangkok. So is this problem something I can do anything about? Or just wait till it goes wrong and try to fix it?

Hi,

I've decided to get a phantom and am currently deciding between a new fire edition, or a second-hand older edition. Does anyone know the key improvements for the fire edition? Does it have fuel injection?

Thanks,

Kit (BKK)

Thanks very much for the replies, much appreciated.

If I understand correctly, I should be able to get the passport in the UK and re-enter Thailand without a problem, but that does not necessarily mean that there will be no problems.

I'm not worried about losing my re-entry permit, as it's only a single re-entry. I just don't want some moody immigration official saying I can't use my visa, if I present them with an old and a new passport. I can't imagine the hassle of entering on a 30 day visa-waiver stamp, and then having to get a new non-imm visa. The expense and hassle would not doubt be high.

It's great that the cost of a new 48-page passport has dropped to 8,000 Baht.

From the UKPA page (http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/fees.asp) the cost of this passport would be 85 pounds, or 4,420 Baht (at 52 Baht per pound exchange rate). So it's not exactly double, but in fact, not far off.

But perhaps I should take the advice offered, bite the bullet, and fork out for a new one here.

Hi,

Interesting question that stumped the immigration officials I asked this morning.

I'm on a non-imm B visa, and am leaving the country over Christmas. I have a new shiny re-entry permit to cover this.

The interesting part is that I need a new passport, because my current one is running out of pages. The UK passport authority kindly does not permit adding new pages, you have to buy a whole new passport. This will cost a whopping 10,000 Baht here in Thailand, but less than half the cost in England.

So, if I buy a new passport in the UK, can I still enter Thailand under my non-imm B visa?

Thank you.

Kit