Should A Woman Be Allowed to hold the office of President of the USA?

[ESLProf]

Hi All,

I'm wondering how easy it is to get part-time work in CM, including private tutoring. I have an M.A. in TESOL and 10 years of teaching experience, including being full-time faculty at a top school in the U.S.--teacher training, curriculum development, etc. I also have a few contacts: a former student from CM, and two colleagues who did research for their Ph.D.s there.

Are schools regularly looking for people? Is finding private students simply a matter of putting up flyers? I haven't lived in Thailand, so I have no idea what to expect. Any valuable insights would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[miltonbentley]

It seems to me that overcoming the work permit issue is your first major hurdle and should be examined prior to anything else. Sorry to sound so negative but it is not just as simple as finding clients.

[PeaceBlondie]

Yes, I do not know how a self-employed sole proprietor, non-employer can get a WP or a visa, even with the Thai-US Amity Treaty.

You could lecture at CMU part time, for peanuts, unless you get really lucky. For tutoring - whom would you tutor? Most Thais are not serious enough to want a serious English tutor. International school nonThais need help in science, math, social science (they already speak English), unless you want to go house to house teaching ESL to new students,.

I would think that having a close, old buddy on the CMU or Payap administration - PhD, tenured, connected - would help.

I am often mistaken, though. Language schools pay about 280 per hour part time, no WP, no visa help.

[ESLProf]

Thanks for the responses.

So are you saying, PeaceBlondie, that there isn't really a market for private instruction or that there simply isn't much of a market for "serious" tutoring? I'm taking a semester off and thought it might be possible to work a bit to offset living expenses. I don't mind teaching conversation groups--it wouldn't have to be SAT/TOEFL prep, or anything like that.

Maybe I'm behind the times. From what I've read, it sounded like even backpackers with little more than a B.A. could essentially show up in Thailand at any time and get PT work.

[RakJungTorlae]

Thanks for the responses.

So are you saying, PeaceBlondie, that there isn't really a market for private instruction or that there simply isn't much of a market for "serious" tutoring? I'm taking a semester off and thought it might be possible to work a bit to offset living expenses. I don't mind teaching conversation groups--it wouldn't have to be SAT/TOEFL prep, or anything like that.

Maybe I'm behind the times. From what I've read, it sounded like even backpackers with little more than a B.A. could essentially show up in Thailand at any time and get PT work.

some people have told me, they normal go to some agency and they have paid for there service witch gets them a work permit and a position if there lucky, but I see a lot of job positions around the internet, even on here in the job section teaching positions come. But after overcoming all that then if you are smart and sneaky you could prob find some privet teaching lessons.

That was from word of mouth and I take no responsibly in mislead information.

Please Sign here-

Edited July 11, 2008 by RakJungTorlae

[PeaceBlondie]

Thanks for the responses.

So are you saying, PeaceBlondie, that there isn't really a market for private instruction or that there simply isn't much of a market for "serious" tutoring? I'm taking a semester off and thought it might be possible to work a bit to offset living expenses. I don't mind teaching conversation groups--it wouldn't have to be SAT/TOEFL prep, or anything like that.

Maybe I'm behind the times. From what I've read, it sounded like even backpackers with little more than a B.A. could essentially show up in Thailand at any time and get PT work.

Prof, I do not know. This is the land of mai kojai, where nobody knows nuttin' some of the time.

Where and how are you going to get your students - from word of mouth? From Thai wats, Korean churches, Japanese temples? By posting flyers and handouts for Immigration to find? SAT/IELTS/TOEFL prep tutoring through a good agency pays you 350 per hour, as do most private lessons, not including down time, commuting time and money, etc. And technically, it is taxable, though I do not know anybody who pays tax on PT wages or tutoring. As for serious students, that is right. For 99% of all Thais, English is much too serious to take private lessons. English teaching here is often a sick joke. You are not likely to find a goldmine within a few months. If you have top-notch connections at universities already, you are in like Flynn (whose father was a zoology professor). Otherwise, you are more or less just another English teacher -newbie. Being elderly will not help, although it did not keep me from earning 25K per month (full-time) illegally in the boondocks..

You are not behind the times; you have never been here in the old days. Things have not changed much. Chiang Mai is still overloaded with retired pensioners like me, backpackers, eastern Europeans, Burmese, Sierra Leonians, and Peruvians who will work for peanuts at places that do not treat them well. If EFL ever paid well, maybe it was in Bangkok in the 1990's. Before my time and place. This may be the graveyard of TEFLers.

Wait just a moment, I did not tell the whole story. Chiang Mai has great international schools, which might pay full time wage of 50K to an EFL professor. We have a small handful of half-decent schools and language centers who do not abuse their staff, and who have selected students who are half-serious about learning English. Payap Univ. has an MA-TESOL program. If you just need to supplement a pension, you might luck into a good position after a year here.

[ESLProf]

Thanks again for the helpful feedback. It doesn't sound like it's as easy as I thought it might be to just pop in and start making a few bucks on the side I'm not really looking to relocate to Thailand; I'm just taking a term off to work on an educational website project.