I'm sorry if this topic has be covered before. I'm currently studying for the TEFL certificate teaching English as a foreign language without any other qualifications. My course has told me you can become a teaching assitant with only the TEFL certificate. is this true and will i be able to maintain a decent lifestyle as an assistant teacher? Thanks in advance. Nick

You do not need to have a Bachelor's Degree in order to teach. You will have some limitations on where you work with only a TEFL, but you can teach. There are several pinned topics on qualifications that you may want to review.

Best of luck to you.

Stay away from the popular cities as they are more competitive, and you'll be OK. Provincial towns and cities are crying out for teachers and will employ you if you can get on the bus. They don't know how to find foreign teachers though and either rely on walk ins or agencies to find their teachers. They don't advertise on the large farang teacher websites.

We used to play that English game in the remote province: "Get on the bus!"

The teaching assistants are very poorly paid Thais in bilingual or government schools, and quite poorly paid Filipinas or Thais in international schools, as far as I know. Or are there any international schools out there who employ qualified native speakers as assistants?

Firefly. It's all in the wording for Labour Dept. So if a school puts you as an assistant teacher, you don't need the degree. Easy and simple.

I am not so sure. I tried that some time back, as a method of getting around the regulations that we have for a Work Permit. It was a non-starter (for us). No degree, no WP, very simple.

I doubt that the gov't is going to buy the 'assistant' part as anything significant.