Home Country Teaching License

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

This mostly applies to Americans, but could for other countries as well. Some of you have probably realized you can't stay and teach in the LOS forever. There's the waiver thing, but even without it, there's the stagnant wages and no retirement plans here. For the rest of your teaching career, your best option would be to go home.

 

Getting your home country license has two advantages: 1. A teaching career when you return home, 2. An online teaching career you could start on the side, with an online public school teaching company as you stay in the LOS. The latter is what I was interested in, at least initially. It's a booming industry in the US now, with much talk of virtual or remote K-12 due to their continued, massive teacher shortage, and most American schools continuing to be battlefields. Look up Elevate K-12, Stride, Fusion, Proximity.

 

So, I got the ball rolling on my state teaching license. I found they'll accept a license from another country. I then had to take the Praxis exam for my subject, ESL, which I registered for and took at Kasem Bundit University in Romklao, BKK. I studied my rear end off and got a high score.

 

The final hurdle is the background check. Most states should be able to mail you the standard FBI fingerprint card. They then give you the option of taking it to any police station to have done. I first took it to the big police station here in my Issan changwat capital. They were pretty helpful, but then got on the phone to the big boss who then said no, all foreign police stuff must go through police HQ in BKK. Bah. So I finally waited until the October holiday now to do it.

 

Wife and I took BTS to Siam station and the police HQ. We went back to the criminal records division where I've had fingerprints done before for Thai schools. They then sent us to another office for the foreign card. Here a cop took one look at it and went "Ah, FBI". Good, we're getting somewhere. He had his pad all inked up. He knew just how to roll em. Then he signed the top and gave it the RTP stamp.

 

Then, a brick wall. My state has an additional form for him to sign. A stupid checklist to go down and initial, "Did you verify their ID? Did they fill out the card correctly?" He absolutely refused. He said all he'll do is the fingerprint card. But my state says they won't take the card without the form.

 

So I guess that's that. Now back to looking for other online jobs that don't need the license, or a license from another state that'll just take the FBI card. Or, wait for a trip back home to do it. But like all the Chinese I teach online who keep asking me "How often do you visit home?", hah, I tell them I haven't done so in 10 years, as I'm certainly not one of those tools at Robin Hood or Buddy's Bar who JUST CAN'T SPEAK LOUDLY ENOUGH about their cushy finance or O&G gigs, and taking their Patana or Harrow kids back home every Christmas. Nah, just another lowly Issan govt school teacher here. Heh. Cheers all.

[simon43]

I suppose it really depends on your age.  I never taught in the UK, never did an Education degree, never got a teacher's licence (QTS).  Some years ago, I did consider going back to the UK to study for a PGCE and to obtain QTS.  But I decided against this because I was already 50 years old and never had a problem to obtain reasonably well-paid (100,000 THB net/month) teaching jobs.  

 

For the past 2 years (Covid), I have been teaching online for a similar income.  I have been looking at teaching in-class again for a couple of years until my pension kicks in.  But then I looked at the future online lessons booked with me and see that parents/students have already booked and paid for lessons up to April 2025 (2 months before my retirement date!).  So it makes just to keep teaching online ????

[brewsterbudgen]

Good advice for the youngsters!  Like Simon, I'm in the older age bracket but have been able to make a decent enough living (apart from in the first few years) teaching here.  Can't say I've ever been too keen on teaching kids in government or private schools, and in Thailand, the corporate and exam preparation market pays quite well for substantially less work and without rules about licences and early retirement! 

[BonMot]

That's unfortunate but after all that hassle you're now not going to move to US because you can't get the cop to sign a paper? I guess you really don't want it bad enough.

 

Perhaps that was a signal to pay the man ????

 

I'm assuming this is Florida. Why don't you keep an eye peeled for a cheap ticket and then bolt back there for ten days??

 

I don't know how it works in Florida but I was live scanned in California. The first time perhaps 20 or more years ago it was fairly simple. I let the credential lapse as it was just tertiary. When I renewed it and had to do the livescan again it was a bit more onerous and I recall having to return at least once. Just allot the time accordingly for bureaucratic issues and read the instructions well prior.

 

It's funny how many teachers here are not ccredentialed. Teaching EFL was the last opportunity they had to sort their lives out but then even that slips through their hands of disinterest and disaffection.

 

Everyone is just hanging by a thread or perhaps I should say with the sword of Damocles over their heads.

 

I'm not a fan of teaching English online. I don't think it's effective at all and doubly so for writing. Then again I don't think 95% of foreign EFL teachers here are effective either.