Saturation Point?

[kenkannif]

Cough cough....errr no comment

[withnail]

Cough cough....errr no comment 

On what Illegal backpackers or bad employers?

[kenkannif]

Cough cough...both...splutter splutter!

[aqua4]

Cough cough...both...splutter splutter!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, lets get to the point.

[phormio]

...

Oh and don't get me on the subject of bad employers.  

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Isn't there a graylist (that's been mentioned)somewhere hereabouts?

[KhunLing]

Can I just ask when people refer to qualified or unqualified teachers here in the LOS are we talking legally qualified to work or highly qualified in the field of education?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I e-mailed Stick a week back and asked him this. He replied that a qualified teacher, in his eyes, is someone who can teach in the west. Ie, "real" teaching qualifications. That means a Dip. Ed.

Out of curiousity, how many of you have those qualifications?

BKK Phil, Ken etc...you are all qualified to teach in the west also?

I am 'guessing' there's not a high percentage of Ajarns in Thailand who are actually qualified to teach in the west?

[withnail]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was also under the presumption that stick himself wasn't qualified to teach in the west.

I think it's ludicrous to suggest that to teach TEFL in Thailand (which is probably as countries go pretty low down on the TEFL ladder) you should need to be a fully qualified teacher. That would be like advertising jobs for nurses only available for brain surgeons but don't expect any job satisfaction or a decent salary.

I'm not qualified to teach in a UK school, but then why would an English school need an EFL teacher?

Perhaps he should remove his guide to teaching English in Thailand (which to be fair is very informative) from his website and replace it with the words "go home all you unqualified xxxxxxs".

[kenkannif]

No, I'm not qualified to teach English in the West to English kids in a 'proper' English school per se, but I could certainly get a job teaching EFL/ESL in the West as could most of the 'unqualified' teachers Stickman refers to! So he's kind of right and also kind of wrong!

[withnail]

Exactly, whilst an English secondary/high school would not take me I could still legally practice EFL because I'm a qualified EFL teacher, whether or not I could get a job teaching English speaking kids is completely irrelevant because generaly speaking that's not the industry we're talking about here.

So I'd say he's completely wrong.

[mbkudu]

Exactly, whilst an English secondary/high school would not take me I could still legally practice EFL because I'm a qualified EFL teacher, whether or not I could get a job teaching English speaking kids is completely irrelevant because generaly speaking that's not the industry we're talking about here.

So I'd say he's completely wrong.

I totally agree here. Thailand is not the West, Thai people are not native English speakers nor are the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans who seek private lessons.

Some teachers are qualified to teach non-native speakers and some are qualified to teach native speakers. They are two totally different qualifications.

[gisele]

Out of curiousity, how many of you have those qualifications?

BKK Phil, Ken etc...you are all qualified to teach in the west also?

I am 'guessing' there's not a high percentage of Ajarns in Thailand who are actually qualified to teach in the west?

I am qualified to teach in the West, I taught in Canada several years.

Then I moved to China, where I taught at an International School for 5 years.

I have a Bachelors of Art degree, Graduate studies in Education, International Baccalaureate qualifications.

Now I am teaching at Walailak university, I wanted to have a different experience for awhile, teach older students than High School kids, live near the beach with air that is not polluted, live a quieter lifestyle.

I may go back to an international school next year, for the money.

[kenkannif]

Some of people that find teaching EFL/ESL most difficult IME are the people that have taught in Western schools (although a lot of recent grads from teaching degrees do cover elements of EFL/ESL in their courses, but they didn't used to). As in the West TTT (teacher talk time) is generally what it's all about, in EFL/ESL really the more the students talk the better. And it can take a while to come to terms with this, old habits and that!

[mbkudu]

In other words, it's all relative. Some of the best English as a second language teachers are ex plumbers, journalists, carpenters, electricians, secretaries, restaraunt managers or taxi drivers. It's the person who can teach, not the paper he or she has in hand.

Think back to your high school years and try to remember a really crappy teacher you had. Now if you were a Thai student looking for a good teacher, would you want that high school teacher to teach you? Probably not.

[Ijustwannateach]

Sigh. This sort of pissing contest always comes up in a discussion of teaching qualifications, primarily because the stakes are so small. It's not as though we were competing for 7 USD figure CEO salaries.

The problems with a discussion about being qualified to teach in the "west" are manifold:

1. There are different qualifications in different countries- for example, the various kinds of qualification in England, and the various kinds in EACH STATE of the United States. For example, technically in Georgia I'm qualified to teach Vector Calculus to students in high school or lower grades, because I passed it on my college transcript with an "A." However, since Algebra is not on my college transcript *and* I don't have an education degree I can't teach it to junior high students in Georgia! And in some other states, without an education-specific qualification, I'd have no qualification at all!

2. Even teachers IN the west (in certain areas) do not have the right qualifications to be teachers- for much the same reasons as here- shortage of supply of properly qualified people for the monkey peanut wages that these places are offering, added to the undesirability of the location and the hard work and responsibility of the jobs.

3. Even the teachers IN the west who have HAD the right qualifications find it a struggle to keep their jobs- check out the quotation I started another thread here with (this comes from an American education-related board):

I'm in elementary school. Our district has cut the top and the bottom of the teaching pool. The top teachers were credentialed under previous requirements that don't fit the new "highly qualified" criteria. That doesn't mean that they aren't highly qualified; just that they didn't take the specific tests or courses required by NCLB. So they aren't offered a contract for the following school year, because they haven't met the new criteria. In the past, whenever credentialing requirements changed, anybody with a previous credential was "grandfathered" in. Not any more. Teachers who earned "lifetime" credentials are finding out that they aren't good for a lifetime, after all. People who got a liberal arts degree and waiver from subject matter testing are finding that their waiver is no longer in force. So many teachers at the top of the chain, with 10 or 15 or 20 years worth of experience, are not invited back. Teachers at the bottom of the chain, those with emergency credentials so that they work while they finish all of the requirements, are also not invited back this year. That leaves those of us who came in recently enough to have to take batteries of tests to prove subject matter competency, those who didn't take the liberal arts waiver, or those brand new credentials that jumped through all the hoops before the new requirements weeded them out.

There is a shortage of "qualified" teachers of whatever type in every country in the world, due to the chronic low pay and eye-rollingly unreasonable paper hoops that must be jumped through to "qualify." I tend to doubt the value of such education-specific "qualifications" in particular- who'd be better at math, me or some 4 year B.Ed.? It seems that at the same time that better quality teachers are needed in every subject, every country is determined to make it impossible and undesirable for people to become teachers- and after all, is the profession of teaching more learned from theory or from practical years of experience in a classroom with students?

Furthermore, I think it's particularly unproductive for folks who are so vocationally vulnerable as us farang here in Thailand to be backstabbing each other more than necessary. If a teacher is incompetent or abusive, sure, get rid of him. But if he can do the work, there're far more important things to worry about than whether he has the same pieces of paper that everyone else has. And that's what every understaffed school in the world, including the ones in the U.S. eventually has to understand.

I'm probably more qualified to teach the things I do than about 80% of the working farang I've met here are to teach what THEY do- but I have no beef with them and more power to 'em if they're doing their jobs well. In the end, everyone is a beginner at some stage (as I was some time ago), and it's just the way the world works that the poorer, more rural schools will almost always have the youngest, most inexperienced teachers.

"Steven"

[dr_Pat_Pong]

In other words, it's all relative. Some of the best English as a second language teachers are ex plumbers, journalists, carpenters, electricians, secretaries, restaraunt managers or taxi drivers. It's the person who can teach, not the paper he or she has in hand.

Think back to your high school years and try to remember a really crappy teacher you had. Now if you were a Thai student looking for a good teacher, would you want that high school teacher to teach you? Probably not.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

and he / she thinks that the plural of you is youse ( or yez )

[kenkannif]

It is youse in Liverpool. The thing is if we taught kids 100% proper lardy dah English you'd have a situation like in India where the English is superb......but a tad outdated.

So I personally think in some ways teaching 'slang' or realistic English is kind of okay? I mean if they're going to Oz they need to know what a lolly, ute and arvo are right? Although maybe not what a dag is

I'm looking forward to Mockney ESL by Jamie Oliver to be released soon! Sorted chap! Pukka and dat.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I prefer "pulling your/my plonker"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Particularly if you don't fear blindness

[mbkudu]

I get it. That's what my grandmother told us; we'd go blind. I've still got 20/20 so maybe I haven't been pulling the plonker enough.

Sorry ladies, I was dragged in by the Doctor.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

I get it. That's what my grandmother told us; we'd go blind. I've still got 20/20 so maybe I haven't been pulling the plonker enough.

Sorry ladies, I was dragged in by the Doctor.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ken started me off ... sorry to the ladies and others easily offended

[kenkannif]

^ Same as that. Will be a good clean chap from now on.

Right just off to shave my palms!

[PeaceBlondie]

Steven's right, although the part about the B.Ed. may be misleading, especially to those not familiar with the USA. To get a B.Ed., you take courses in both education, and your teaching field. My daughter almost majored in education, science, and math, but gave up on the math because there were so many courses, she'd have needed a fifth year. She got certified to teach all subject areas of science in all grades K-12.

But yes, many of the 'professional' teachers in the West aren't the cream of the crop, academically. Of course, my daughter is.

I could go teach temporarily as an ESL teacher in Texas or California because they have millions of students who need ESL. But I'd probably never get the permanent teacher's license.

It ain't that easy teaching math to Matayom 1 without having taken algebra at university, but it ain't that hard, either. I write Steven when I'm stuck, as when the Thai math teacher told me one of the subjects was "renial equations." He meant "linear."

[Ijustwannateach]

I still say he was asking you about his heart!

Good to see you back on here, PB!

"Steven"

[lambada]

Just thought I would add something here. I teach on the PNET program in Hong Kong, along with 3-400 other teachers. The vast majority of these are from Australia and New Zealand although Canada, UK, USA et al are included. Not entirely white faces but mainlyand all native speakers. The HK govt pays between 120-200, 000 baht per month ie 30 - 60,000 HK. Even with those kind of salaries, they are finding it hard to recruit teachers with Post Graduate Certificate in Education, degree in Education along with a Celta or equivalent. This is partly due to the miserable working conditions (lunatic school administrations and unfriendly / destructive local teachers) and the cost of living and is also in part due to the fall in the value of the HK dollar against the Ozzie dollar along with increases in salaries in Oz etc. In fact the attrition rate is 40%! Realistically I can't imagine that people with the qualifications and experience, that I know many of these teachers have, would consider anything but an International School in Thailand.

I personally believe that teaching children requires more than a passing knowledge of ESL and / or child Pedagogy. Sorry for typos etc but I've been out all night celebrating my birthday.

When I was in Thailand doing a CELTA I was amazed to see schools asking for teachers who were good looking and young! Is this widespread?

Also anyone trying to sell a language school?

I think I'm drifting now but I would be interested in your opinions.

[PeaceBlondie]

Well, I think I'm catching your drift. Yes, it helps to look good and young. It's not that widespread - my first school was desparate enough to hire me at age 60 when two early-20's female teachers went home to South Africa. This year, that school lost their early-20's male Australian teachers after one semester. At least I don't have the trouble they have, getting respect. And I'm not tempted to date the cutest M6 student(s).

They don't want beards, body piercings. How they tolerate my ponytail is a mystery.

Back to the topic, I agree that a teacher needs more than a passing knowledge of learning methods, cognitive psychology, child pedagogy, adolescent development, testing and measurement, administration, etc. That's why a good TEFL program will try to highlight several of these subjects, although four weeks is just too brief.

I have a lot of respect for professional B.Ed. and M.Ed. holders who took their studies seriously and applied them judiciously.

[Ijustwannateach]

I applied for that HK program initially, but was discouraged when I found out they were discriminating against people who ONLY had MEds without BEds as well in favor of those who had both (well, lar-dee-dah!). Naturally, the worlds have collided poorly, as I doubt the Chinese are any less corrupt than any other Asian countries in terms of their education system and probably much of what we post and complain about here obtains in China/HK as well.

A number of Thai "upper-crust" schools have already been through the routine of hiring the "bestest of the bestest" from abroad, only to lose them because the SCHOOLS were not professional enough, or the teachers were shocked to find the administration telling them they had to pass their students (by government rule!)

So, what's left? Those of us who are on the ground, who understand we must work within the system if we want to stay. Naturally, despite years of contact we must know NOTHING about pedagogy, child psychology, etc.- after all, we only deal with related issues every day at work. We just don't have enough THEORY! I'm really sure that a newbie out of an BEd program could just wipe up the classroom with me, after 10+ years of teaching.

Well, *I* think that those rootin'-tootin' fully qualified Western psychologists are completely UNprepared for working with Asian kids in an Asian school- as your OWN POST demonstrates, from the high turnover rate cited- and therefore I think before you guys decide to judge us folks teaching out here in the trenches, maybe you should take a few years of courses in "Asian (mis)management," "Asian child psychology," and "Life in a foreign country," to get yourselves up to our speed with our experience. Or maybe you could just drop the attitude and admit that experience is really the important thing in ANY environment and what you've been taught in these expensive Western paperwork programs is really only slightly applicable to real world teaching situations here in Asia.

Tired Of The Prima Donnas,

"Steven"

[PeaceBlondie]

Thanks, Steven, I needed that. I guess I learned a little child psychology when I raised all my kids and did all that youth work. And these kids aren't like my Western ones in the first place. Yeah, I can handle this. In fact, I'm doing all right.

Never did want an M.Ed. anyway.

[Whitey]

You can be qualified to teach temporarily in Nevada with just 60 semester hours of study(2 years) at any university. Enough said about qualifications.

About saturation point: Many people apply from out of Thailand on a whim and never come here and never go far in the process. Wait till next April and May, there will be tons of jobs available.

Greg

[PeaceBlondie]

Thanks, Whitey. Wow, Nevada must be desparate (of course, Las Vegas was by far the fastest growing metro area during the 1990's).

Speaking of April and May - I've noticed that in November, two of the EP programs in Thai govt. schools in Chiang Mai are already advertising for next school year (May)! Promising visas and WP, and 25K to 30K/month. But this second semester began on 1 November, so the openings now would be at schools where a newcomer tried and failed - not a good situation to walk into.

I'll write my daughter about qualifications for ESL and Spanish teachers in Texas....but I have no plans to leave Thailand.