17 And Migrating To Bangkok

[nick26789]

I am 17 years old from England and im enroling on a course to teach English as a foreign language in Bangkok. I would love to learn about the Thai culture and ways of living. It will be my first time living alone and travelling. At the moment i dont know much about the country and i dont want to get into any trouble when i arrive. I was wondering about the things i should be aware of and if this is a good idea and would be a good experence or not? Thanks in advance Nick

[mmcsusnret]

Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict the future and what will happen in your case. My first question would be "Why?" While it may seem like a good idea, you need to take a good, hard, and honest look at yourself.

Do you have the life skills, discipline, work ethic and responsibility to deal with the multiple items that you will need to take care of the day-to-day details of doing everything for yourself. Do you have a safety net? For example, what if you have problems? Do you know any people here in Thailand that can be relied upon to help you? Do you have the funds to provide for yourself, for an extended period of time and maintain an escape plan to be able to return home if things do not work out? Are you skilled in dealing with a sometimes non-sensical (sp?) system to do the things that will need to be taken care of to live here?

Do you merely want to come here for a good time, wine, women and song? You'll need to find out early on that if you have a job, that you must be at early each day, that puts a damper on the fun. It is easy to fall into a trap and getting caught up in bad things here. A young man that I know (19 year old) from the UK got a job where I work, but did not have the work ethic required to go the distance. He tried but failed because of marginal qualifications, not being able to care for himself, not knowing when he was being taken advantage of, but mostly because of getting involved in illegal drugs. which while illegal, are readily available. He had little to no self-control and ended up leaving in the middle of the school year to go to a drug rehab program, which disrupts the education of the 28 childern that he was responsible for.

To sucessfully be a good teacher you must be able to dedicate yourself to the effort and resposibility that you take for the lives of your students. It should be the highest priority in your life. If you want to come here only for the fun and easy life style, I would advise you to stay at home. There are many people who see teaching as a way to stay in Thailand so they can party all the time, and for the most part are not good teachers and are easily distracted from the teaching by the partying. These indiviuals give the dedicated good teachers a bad reputation, as the Thai people will lump all of the foreingers together and assume that we are all that way.

You seem to be facing a catch-22 situation. You probably don't have the experience and skills that you need but the only way to get the skills and experience is to do it, but it is hard to do without the skills and experience. This is circular logic, but that's how it is. In the 4 years that I have been teaching here (with previous teaching experience) I have seen good and bad things happen. I have had the same job and class of students in an English Program for the entire time, but the pay is low for full time resposiblity. I enjoy the work, but must make ends meet relying on a retirement pension, which makes it possible. Many young people come here with good intentions but no experience in having to take care of everything in their life. You have to worry about the budget, pay the bills, do the laundry, take out the trash, etc. You need to be able to step up the whiteboard and challenges of dealing with a large group of young learners, with little or no guidance or support from your school.

In the end teaching here can be rewarding, but the pay and the support in many areas is lousy. You have to do an honest assessment of your life skills and decide for yourself if you can do it.

Either way, good luck.

Edited August 16, 2009 by mmcsusnret

[beano2274]

you are only 17 and want to leave the UK wow big decision.

In what course are you going to enroll, as to work as a teacher you would need some qualifications and seems that at 17 you may have just done GCSE's.

Bangkok is a nice place but it can be hard if you have never been away from home for a long period of time, the language barrier might be your biggest problem to overcome. I left home at an early age and found myself in Germany, a better place than Thailand for a person who has just left home, and also closer to the family if anything goes wrong.

Edited August 16, 2009 by beano2274

[Changian]

Unfortunately no school / language school will take a 17 year old with a TEFL seriously when they apply for a job. So, if you are planning to get work as a teacher then dont bother. Whichever course provider sold you on the idea of a 17 year old taking a TEFL course should be shot for giving crap advice.

[Robert44]

The advice you are getting is good - unless you have family here in Thai or old friends I would seriously advise that you rethink your plan to come and first get a job closer to home.

To come to place like Thailand at 17 with little experience, poor job prospects and no real money is asking for disaster.

Cannot believe your parents and friends have not already told you the same, if they have LISTEN to them - this is a really bad idea that looks nice only in your head.

[britmaveric]

Get your uni degree and come back in 4yrs. This is what you should be concentrating on!

[junki3korean]

TROLL!

[Mario2008]

There seems to be 2 topics on this one. As the other one has the most responses, please post further coments there: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/17-Migrating...ok-t289229.html

This one is closed.