Teaching In Thailand On A Tourist Visa

[sriracha john]

Teaching in Thailand on a tourist visa

Fed up with his job as an overworked English teacher at a private school in the Philippines, 39-year-old "Danny Abad" (not his real name) packed his bags and opted to teach at an all-boys' boarding school offering an intensive program for selected students in Bangkok, Thailand.

Armed only with a tourist visa and his teaching skills, Danny uprooted himself and left his job at the Catholic school in Mandaluyong City, earning in the process a monthly salary of 45,000 Baht (P62,100) compared to his former monthly wage of only P15,000.

Danny said he was lucky. “I was a walk-in applicant [at] an (employment) agency here in Bangkok.”

He said it was the normal way to apply for a teaching job as agencies hold the task of hiring teachers at government-owned, international and some private schools in Thailand.

However, he was also confident as he held a teaching license aside from bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and in Elementary Education. Danny added that he was also completing his Master of Arts in the English Language at the Philippine Normal University.

“The phone number of the agency was given to me by a Filipino friend,” he, referring to a colleague who said that a Bangkok school needs a science teacher.

At this employment agency, Danny said he met his “agent," a kind-hearted Thai lady who only cared for a teacher’s ability, not his nationality.

But that wasn’t all.

Danny said: “Most importantly, she pays her teachers high salaries. Much much higher than the others. That means, she doesn't keep much from the salaries of the teachers and she bargains for high salaries for her teachers.”

She got him a job and Danny threw caution to the wind and transplanted himself to Bangkok where he first went as a tourist.

Life in Thailand proved easy for the former would-be priest. He immediately called a single-room condominium unit "home." It cost around 5,000 Baht (P6,900) furnished with a huge bed, a sofa, dresser and an airconditioning unit.

According to Danny, the school where he taught English provided free housing for teachers with three meals a day.

Vegetables, fruits and other food items, toiletries and beauty products were also sold cheap. Vegetables are mostly sold in their "talat" (equivalent of "tumpok" or small mounds in Philippine markets) and not per kilo. A kilo of mangosteen is around 20 Baht (P27-P28) while three pieces of medium-sized tilapia costs 10 Baht (P138).

Once every month, however, Danny has to travel all the way to Laos and reenter Thailand.

“Before, Filipinos and other foreign teachers went to Cambodia for their exit and reentry. This we do if we don't have the work permit yet. (Danny's permit is still being processed)," he said.

"This trip to Cambodia would normally cost about 500 to 1,000 baht (P690-P1,380). Travel time is not more than four hours by bus. You could return the following day,” Danny said.

Unfortunately, Cambodia imposed stricter policies and closed its exit and reentry services for teachers in Thailand.

“So we now go to Laos. We spend around 2,000 to 3,500 baht (P2,760 to P4,830) for this. This includes accommodation and visa. Food excluded. And we have to travel for 10 long hours by a van or bus. This is usually through group tours,” Danny explained.

Although discriminated against by Thais, Danny said: “Our edge over the other races is that, we have mastery of the English language because it is taught in the Philippines as a second language, not as a foreign language. English is practically all around us in the Philippines. Signages, school curriculum, practical use, day-to-day conversation, in the media, etc.”

Danny said that some Europeans and other Caucasians go to Thailand as tourists and have mastery of the English language but not of the teaching profession.

“Not a very few cases have taken place too where these native-speakers abandoned their jobs even before the termination of their contracts. This is because they could not cope with the demands of the teaching job,” Danny said.

He said the fact that Filipino teachers in Thailand were once employed as teachers in the Philippines provides them with an edge over the other teachers there.

“They could not cope with the actual teaching problems and the demand of the work in terms of teacher-learner relations,” Danny said, adding there is also “our deep-seated values of patience, perseverance, loyalty, hard work, resiliency, flexibility, malleability even.”

Besides, Danny said, being a teacher in Thailand is different from being one in the Philippines. In Thai schools, there is almost no extra paperwork unlike in the Philippines “where teaching jobs would kill you with tons and tons of paperwork that are not really very important.”

Danny also said that, “We come here (Thailand) to teach and not as tourists. The whites (Caucasians) come here and go for the teaching job just so they could earn for their stay and adventures.”

He said Caucasians do not even understand or simply refuse to understand the reason why one has to stay in the workplace from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.when you only have a class at 11 a.m. or at 2 p.m.

“We are used to following a certain schedule of reporting to and leaving the workplace. And this we do even if we only have one, our only class for the day, before lunch time.”

“We can be flexible and even do some extra work that the whites and other Asians would normally refuse to do because they say these things are not part of their work or that they do not understand the significance of these things. It's because we are used to doing even odd jobs in our schools there as the need arises,” Danny said.

- ABS-CBN News (Philippines)

[Loaded]

Some sweeping generalisations about race. But I guess the obvious conclusion from his experience is that you have a great time here if you're a farang but you don't if you're Fillipino.

Edited June 11, 2007 by Loaded

[Ijustwannateach]

What resentful twaddle. It's no easier for many native-speaking foreign teachers to get full paperwork. Filipinos, almost uniformly, are *not* native-fluent speakers or writers of English- no matter how much better they are than the Thais. In coming here because the wages are higher, Filipinos have no better justification for their presence here than "white" foreigners, if that justification is a better life of one kind or another. There are bad Filipino teachers, as well as good native-speaking teachers- I doubt "Danny" has any statistical backup for his generalisations favouring Filipino pedagogy. And it's not impressive to me that he recommends Filipinos on the basis that they let their employers dominate them and do things that aren't part of their job- like giving glowing recommendations to their agency employers, perhaps?

"Steven"

[Flow]

What resentful twaddle. It's no easier for many native-speaking foreign teachers to get full paperwork. Filipinos, almost uniformly, are *not* native-fluent speakers or writers of English- no matter how much better they are than the Thais. In coming here because the wages are higher, Filipinos have no better justification for their presence here than "white" foreigners, if that justification is a better life of one kind or another. There are bad Filipino teachers, as well as good native-speaking teachers- I doubt "Danny" has any statistical backup for his generalisations favouring Filipino pedagogy. And it's not impressive to me that he recommends Filipinos on the basis that they let their employers dominate them and do things that aren't part of their job- like giving glowing recommendations to their agency employers, perhaps?

"Steven"

Well said, bud.

[DragonQuest]

I agree with Ijustwannateach.

[otherstuff1957]

This article paints a rather rosy picture! Most Philipinos teaching in Thailand that I've met earn anywhere from 15K to 30K. I would guess that the only reason that this fellow gets 45K is that he's a qualified Science teacher. Even so, he's talking about multiple visa runs while his WP is being processed. If I were him, I would hold my breath. I would guess that his employers are stringing him along with promises and would dump him in a moment if a qualified Native Speaker showed up.

Given the whole tone of the article, I would guess that the reporter's cousin is an agent supplying Recto Avenue Degrees and one way tickets to Bangkok.

[Scott]

I've been here quite a number of years and in general would employ a Filipino without much hesitation. In my experience, most of them are excellent teachers and hard working. In the past, there were just a lot of unqualified farang teachers who were not particularly dedicated to the job of teaching. Please remember, these are generalizations and I've seen some noteworthy exceptions.

I am not trying to put anyone down and I don't think it's a racial thing. It's just that Thailand has had a shortage of the kind of farang teachers we should have--that is, people who are teachers because it is a career choice and not a method by which they can stay in Thailand.

Where I work, Filipinos aren't English teachers. They are hired as subject teachers and that is where they excel. We have some top-notch science, math and social studies teachers who are Filipino. All English language and conversation type classes are taught by farangs.

I have noticed that since they tightened up on the visa regulations, we are getting a much better "class" of farang teachers applying for work.

[PeaceBlondie]

Indeed, 45K is a huge monthly salary for a Filipino teacher, although if he were qualified as a science teacher, it would be a standard starting salary in BKK for a native speaker, I suppose. In Chiang Rai, where an EP school couldn't get a farang science teacher at 34K, they hired a Filipino at 19K, as I recall. The OP mentions no qualifications to teach science, only that he's qualified as a primary teacher in his home country.

One reason that Filipinos work well in Thai schools is that they take orders from their superiors without much problem, they have a Thai-like attitude toward mass education, they were trained in rote methods, etc. As for the 0750 to 1630 work schedule, most farang do that. It's called 'full time employment.' As Scott points out, there's the added incentive that these teachers chose education as a profession. It's good to hear from Scott that he's getting a much better class of farang applicants, too.

[Jimjim]

Of course people who have been teachers in Philippines would make better teachers in Thailand. Same goes for Americans or Australians, etc. who have been teachers already in their own countries.

I think that guy failed to see that a lot of Filipinos come here to teach, too, and aren't qualified. Same with some of the farang.

However, if I had a school for kids, I'd want some good farang teachers in there, for sure, and I'd want several Filipinos. They will do extra work for school programs, etc., more readily than other nationalities. He was spot on about that. And they'll do it with no complaining. I don't see how you could complain about that. Hard working teachers who go the extra mile and work extra hours are to be sought after and congratulated. That has been my experience. The ones who always had the most complaints at my school were the Canadians and Americans. About every little stupid thing.

There were bad generalizations in the article, but some truth. Of course is salary is not normal for Filipino teachers. But he typifies the good attitude towards teaching that I have seen in the majority of Filipino teachers. A few bad seeds and those with bad English skills, yeah. But just because most Filipinos will make a few glaring mistakes in their English, even if it's often, doesn't mean they can't be great English teachers. They certainly can.

With his qualifications, though, that's one teacher who should be able to get a work permit.

[DragonQuest]

I agree with Peaceblondie.

[Johncat]

[

“Not a very few cases have taken place too where these native-speakers abandoned their jobs even before the termination of their contracts. This is because they could not cope with the demands of the teaching job,” Danny said.

“They could not cope with the actual teaching problems and the demand of the work in terms of teacher-learner relations,” Danny said, adding there is also “our deep-seated values of patience, perseverance, loyalty, hard work, resiliency, flexibility, malleability even.”

Danny also said that, “We come here (Thailand) to teach and not as tourists. The whites (Caucasians) come here and go for the teaching job just so they could earn for their stay and adventures.”

He said Caucasians do not even understand or simply refuse to understand the reason why one has to stay in the workplace from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.when you only have a class at 11 a.m. or at 2 p.m.

“We are used to following a certain schedule of reporting to and leaving the workplace. And this we do even if we only have one, our only class for the day, before lunch time.”

“We can be flexible and even do some extra work that the whites and other Asians would normally refuse to do because they say these things are not part of their work or that they do not understand the significance of these things. It's because we are used to doing even odd jobs in our schools there as the need arises,” Danny said.

- ABS-CBN News (Philippines)

Danny sounds like a right pr.....!! The type of person that gives filipinos a bad name!

We have 2 new filipino teachers at my school. You will never see them at weekends at the school, and they only work their contracted hours. Whereas the Western teachers come in UNPAID to get on with their lesson planning etc, because they care about their students not how many hours they work.

I have yet to see any original lesson material used by the Filipino teachers, everything has been copied from me so far.

I know the filipinos are only here for their contract to gain experience, so they can move on to higher paid jobs in Bangkok later.

So cut the cr.. most Westerners care more about their students and school than the filipinos.

[WapiJohn]

[

“Danny sounds like a right pr.....!! The type of person that gives filipinos a bad name!

We have 2 new filipino teachers at my school. You will never see them at weekends at the school, and they only work their contracted hours. Whereas the Western teachers come in UNPAID to get on with their lesson planning etc, because they care about their students not how many hours they work.

I have yet to see any original lesson material used by the Filipino teachers, everything has been copied from me so far.

I know the filipinos are only here for their contract to gain experience, so they can move on to higher paid jobs in Bangkok later.

So cut the cr.. most Westerners care more about their students and school than the filipinos.

I agree ! All the filipinos I have met are only in it for the money and most I have met are so full of their own self importance they rarely even notice their students ( My name is MR. ...... and you WILL call me MR )

I know there are some good ones around, but I haven't met one yet !