Teachers Lifestyle In Thailand?

[MRDave]

After my first trip of 9 weeks to Thailand I decided to do an HEFC so I can go on and do a teaching degree with tesol.

However I was wondering what sort of lifestyle I could expect? what sort of apartment, would I be able to afford to rent? would it be easy to make expat friends are is it lonely? how many hours a week does an averidge teacher work?

How much are the bills electric ect, any advice from people who have been there and have the teeshirt would be welcome thanks.

I no Im asking a lot of questions, but its the only way Im going to learn.

[dee123]

Average Dave Average

Edited October 22, 2009 by dee123

[Scott]

Few, if any, teachers live well, but it is certainly possible to live quite comfortably. Unless you are recruited from overseas and earn an international salary, which is unlikely since you won't have experience in your own country, you can expect to earn between 25,000-45,000 baht per month. Your expenses will vary according to your lifestyle and location.

[BlackArtemis]

Depends on where you work and what city you live in.

With tutoring I was making 40k+ in Chiang Mai, my wife (Thai) pulled in about 50k.

About 85-95k/month depending is pretty dam_n good IMO. We also worked at a Govt School.

[PeaceBlondie]

I've known one guy with a bachelor's in TESOL, teaching up north. I can't determine that he's ever earned 30K a month, in nearly ten years.

[MRDave]

Thats English studys with TESOL,

thanks for the advice.

[jasreeve17]

Depends on where you work and what city you live in.

With tutoring I was making 40k+ in Chiang Mai, my wife (Thai) pulled in about 50k.

About 85-95k/month depending is pretty dam_n good IMO. We also worked at a Govt School.

Your wife is doing really well. Some of my Thai colleagues (30 years old, Chula MA, GPA 4.0) earn about a quarter of that. As a teaching couple your joint salary is really good; well above average.

Dave would be doing very well to be earning 40k to start with, possible though.

Dave, hourly rates range between 300 baht per hour to 1500 plus, but realistically you're looking at 350 / 400 baht per hour to start with. Or, a salaried contract with a school that's probably around the 30k per month mark.

I find it hard to live comfortably (in Bangkok) on less than 45k per month. I know teachers who earn 30k per month and are happy enough, though I wouldn't want their limited lifestyle myself...

[BlackArtemis]

The funny thing is we both are in America now so that when we go back we can demand higher salaries and be able to afford to send future children to International schools and set up savings.

My wife has her BA in English from CMU and has been studying English for 25 years. Her knowledge of grammar specifics exceeds my own. She was to graduate from payap with an MA TEFL from the international dept. They pulled a few maneuvers and she said screw it. She only had to defend her thesis too, but they well that's another thread.

What my wife excels at is teaching young children, she only made about 12-13k Baht from the school, despite them saying how they wanted to pay her more but couldn't etc etc. Read that as "The older govt teachers would throw a hissy fit despite her being better qualified"

Her tutoring became a word of mouth thing and she eventually left the school and did it full time and still pulled in more than me.

As for me, I loved teaching, but not so much the English and math subjects. I hope to return soon enough with a BSED Biology (this excuses me from the grammar nazis I hope >_<) and a few years experience of teaching here in the US.

Despite that 80K is great in Thailand, I want my kids at CMIS or Prem. I want to have at minimum $1000/month put away for retirement and I want my kids to get into a western University and hopefully I could help provide that for them. To do this we need to make a far sight greater than 80k.

But when I was single and having a good time, 22k/month was fantastic fun in Chiang Mai, as Jasreeve said 45-50k in BKK for the equivalent.

And yes I realize I probably give my speil in every education thread I post in.

[troehr]

After my first trip of 9 weeks to Thailand I decided to do an HEFC so I can go on and do a teaching degree with tesol.

However I was wondering what sort of lifestyle I could expect? what sort of apartment, would I be able to afford to rent? would it be easy to make expat friends are is it lonely? how many hours a week does an averidge teacher work?

How much are the bills electric ect, any advice from people who have been there and have the teeshirt would be welcome thanks.

I no Im asking a lot of questions, but its the only way Im going to learn.

Well, the first thing you should do is brush up on your grammar and spelling. You can expect to earn between 25k and 35k to start. How well you can live depends on where you are teaching and your lifestyle.

Tim

[Ijustwannateach]

OP, most of your questions are not teaching questions. To the extent they are, you can probably find a lot of your salary answers in the pinned Questions About Qualifications thread, which you should read in its entirety. Other questions about lifestyle can be answered elsewhere on the forum (I recommend a search in General). Finally, regarding spelling, I think this thread deserves to be closed according to our rarely used but highly useful guideline #11:

11. Posters who are suspected of baiting the other members through behaviors such as:

a. Starting multiple threads without following up with posts in their previous threads

b. Starting threads with suspiciously contrived spelling and grammar errors

c. Commenting off-topic in a manner which derails threads, especially in ways which go off-topic or break other forum guidelines