Thai Culture Course

[khazaddoom]

Just been informed today that there's a seminar for foreign teachers to attend Aug 8-10 in Sukhothai. I've been give the option og going to it or going to it. My school will pay all costs. But It's 8 bloody hours away from my school. Is it really important? Should I come down with the flu? What's it all about?

The timetable looks like a complete waste of time. I've been living here ten years, i've got a kid. What am I going to learn in a weekend that I haven't learnt over the last decade.

Sorry about the rant. It's been a long long day.

Steve

[twschw]

Take a look at the first pinned topic in the Teacher's Forum.

[PeaceBlondie]

From recent reports, this Thai Culture Course may embarrass Thailand and your wife. You are fortunate not having to pay for it. You may have to dance (literally, dance or sing Thai cultural stuff - and you thought you had gone beyond the talking monkey-dancing monkey). It appears that you have to do it because you are practically Thai by now but you will never be Thai in sixty more years. Even if it makes no sense, you must do it because you are a farang ajarn in Thailand, and the Thais who embarrass farang teachers say you must do it. Do your wife and child have passports, or are you stuck here forever? Planes leave Thailand daily.

[mizzi39]

Just bite the bullet and do the course especially if your school is covering all costs it may be in your best interest to get it over with. The teachers in my EP are taking it at the end of August (all expenses payed) of course no one wants to do it, but we will all be playing this stupid game anyway. Although scheduled for 20 hours my director said that it is no more than 14-15 hours total including coffee breaks, lunch etc., yet they sign you off for the total 20 hours.

[culicine]

Just bite the bullet and do the course especially if your school is covering all costs it may be in your best interest to get it over with. The teachers in my EP are taking it at the end of August (all expenses payed) of course no one wants to do it, but we will all be playing this stupid game anyway. Although scheduled for 20 hours my director said that it is no more than 14-15 hours total including coffee breaks, lunch etc., yet they sign you off for the total 20 hours.

And if you don't have an education degree, it's not over by a long shot, unfortunately...

At the end of the day, I see two groups of teachers - those properly registered through the TCT and those 'in transition' to proper registration. It's likely the first group will make up only 10% of teachers - and the rest will be in transition for whatever period of time the TCT will allow this to happen. Obviously it will need to be a long time as I don't see many BEd teachers coming here for 30K a month or for teachers already here shelving oput over 60K for a course worthless outside of Thailand..

[PeaceBlondie]

At the end of the day, I see two groups of teachers - those properly registered through the TCT and those 'in transition' to proper registration. It's likely the first group will make up only 10% of teachers - and the rest will be in transition for whatever period of time the TCT will allow this to happen. Obviously it will need to be a long time as I don't see many BEd teachers coming here for 30K a month or for teachers already here shelving oput over 60K for a course worthless outside of Thailand..

At least three groups, let us say four. Then you have the group of reasonably well qualified farang teachers who work in provinces where the locals pay no attention to mandates from fools in Bangkok. And at the beginning of every day, you still have the vast hordes of illegal teachers who have been here for donkey's years, who will always work here illegally because the Thais cannot run an educational system. The last group includes many eminently successful semi-professional sober, non-fiddling fathers of leuk krung, who find themselves stuck in Outer PasadalaChang with a wife who cannot pay the mortgage if Ajarn George goes home to Winnipeg.

[culicine]

At the end of the day, I see two groups of teachers - those properly registered through the TCT and those 'in transition' to proper registration. It's likely the first group will make up only 10% of teachers - and the rest will be in transition for whatever period of time the TCT will allow this to happen. Obviously it will need to be a long time as I don't see many BEd teachers coming here for 30K a month or for teachers already here shelving oput over 60K for a course worthless outside of Thailand..

At least three groups, let us say four. Then you have the group of reasonably well qualified farang teachers who work in provinces where the locals pay no attention to mandates from fools in Bangkok. And at the beginning of every day, you still have the vast hordes of illegal teachers who have been here for donkey's years, who will always work here illegally because the Thais cannot run an educational system. The last group includes many eminently successful semi-professional sober, non-fiddling fathers of leuk krung, who find themselves stuck in Outer PasadalaChang with a wife who cannot pay the mortgage if Ajarn George goes home to Winnipeg.

I agree about these last groups. Out in the boonies there will always be unqualified teachers, as I guess things aren't so heavily regulated. I'm in a well known private school in BKK so I've been caught in the loop. I'm a bit of a scardy-cat and got the wind put up me 5 years ago when there was talk of these teaching credits we were supposed to have - so I opted to do a teaching course, via distance, and just finished it, luckily, last year. I dread the thought of returning to OZ - though I think my son like playing on the beach at Burleigh heads last time we were there. Petrol's up to $1.70 a litre!

[PeaceBlondie]

culicine, we mostly agree. I am saying that inside and outside BKK, there are hundreds or thousands of well-qualified, illegal teachers. Not PGCE or California qualified, but better qualified to teach English in major cities of Thailand, than many of the Thai teachers of English are. You had to dance or sing Thai culture because you are in a certain school in BKK. Equally qualified teachers in Chiang Mai have not had to dance or sing.

[Scott]

It's the singing in dancing at the Cultural Training that I dislike; it's the song and dance at school that pushes me towards the edge!

But maybe that's really part of the training--let's see if they are stupid enough to get up and dance--sort of a Thai version of Skite hunting!

[PeaceBlondie]

If they insisted that I dance and sing, I would do a really camp, wild, over-the-top version of what my son used to bring down the house with, a very animated "Funky Chicken," complete with sound effects and gestures that would make them regret they asked for it.