Thailand To Hire 300 Native English-Speaking Teachers

[stevehaigh]

I have met Filipinos that I can understand easier than some Americans.

Obviously, no offence intended.

and don't get me started on the scots

[salapau]

Hi my name is Oliver.

I am English, 61 years old with a Thai wife and live in Mae Sariang in the Mae Hong Son district. Despite having no official teaching qualifications, I have the commitment and patience and would love the opportunity to teach English to the Thai children at a local school. How do I make contact with the authorities to apply for a teaching post ?

Many thanks.

[dunkin2012]

Pretty sure China is enjoying a bubble right now. That house of cards is ready to fall. Not a bad idea to learn Chinese if you're going to need it but English isn't going anywhere soon.

Let me remind you all that China is not improving their English. If you want to do business with them, you must learn Chinese. English a the thing of the past. We did business with the west, but it looks like business with the west will soon be devoured by the Chinese. Why do you think so many westerners have started to send their kids over to places like Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Hong Kong. etc? What is the education minister thinking? Don't get me wrong. Finding quality English teachers is excellent. I've seen Italian English teachers (who couldn't even speak proper English) teaching in one of those language schools in BKK. It was so ridiculous. Hiring just about anyone off the streets just because they are 'farang'. With that aside, why is Chinese any less important?:ermm:

I have Baby Chinese... English is useless while in China... I found it 's very hard outside Shanghai, Hongkong and Beijing.... to communicate with 'em... Havin' to guess. What are the meaning of the scripts written in front of me... big headache! Nowadays, many Thai study Chinese too... (increasin' ) ......... It's true to trade with the Chinese you need to learn mandarin....

[arrowsdawdle]

Am I mistaken or is'nt the proposed salary at least 200% + greater than what English teachers here generally mak?

Actually, it is closer to 50% of what true teachers make in international schools in Bangkok.

[elshaheen]

First comes this announcment, now come the hoops, rules and so on. Though, according to the headlines, it seems good. But, will the teacher get 83,000B per month or Agencies get 50 or 60% and give the teachers 30B.

I somehow seriously doubt (if the salary figures are correct) that these will be offered to 'Teflers'. No offence intended.

More likely to be 'home-country' certified teachers.

That would be ideal. Qualified teachers from their home country have far more standards to pass and to even qualify to teach.

[adamokeefe]

America invented the computer ? I never knew that. Neither does Google. Think most of us would start with Babbage, Turing undoubtedly the Father of modern computing, (but you wouldn't have wanted to claim him anyway, unfortunate proclivities). And English has only achieved global status because of Hollywood and American culture ? You might be in Thailand but not sure about your planet.....

When I said 'the computer,' I should have been more specific (the Personal Computer). Sorry, I thought it would go without saying. And the PC is most definately an American invention (or maybe Apple might want some of the credit). But then it was Microsoft that went ahead and created the famous software (in English) which caught on and captured the world's attention by storm. Now, add the internet (mostly an American invention) to that and you have a world which needs English just to function and keep up. If you think that computers have had no part to play in why people learn English (including American movies, music,, fashion, sports, politics, money, power and so forth), you are just not about to face reality on this planet.

Unbelievable arrogance.

England colonised a large portion of the World, THAT is why English is so widespread. You think that the whole world learned English in a couple of decades? That kids want to know Lady Gaga's lyrics so they study it at University?

Please.

And if you think Windows only operates in English, I'm completely aghast at your ignorance.

As for understanding Philipino or Indian accents - I have trouble sometimes understanding people from the UK! In the far north of England (Cumbria, Tyneside etc) they baffle me sometimes, and I'm English! I had a friend at uni who talked so fast it took us a few weeks to start understanding him :-)

And i also studied with many from India, who had as clear an accent as the Queen. It's always dangerous to generalise these kind of things, everyone is different. Think how many variable accents there are in the UK - not all of them would make learning easy!!

[steven100]

Hi my name is Oliver.

I am English, 61 years old with a Thai wife and live in Mae Sariang in the Mae Hong Son district. Despite having no official teaching qualifications, I have the commitment and patience and would love the opportunity to teach English to the Thai children at a local school. How do I make contact with the authorities to apply for a teaching post ?

Many thanks.

You head down to Khaosan road and acquire all the necessary docs ... then head on over to the ministry of education and ask to speak to the boss.

Then hand him a brown paper bag loaded with baht and tell him you wanna teach.

Seriously , you would need to contact the ministry of education , however I would think they will advertise these jobs when they become available.

[Bagwan]

I will not apologise for being pedantic as posters may profit from noting what follows.

If your 10 year old daughter came home from school and when asked what she did during her day she answered, "This afternoon we did sex education," you might well be pleased.

If she came home and announced that her afternoon class was Sex Training, you might well have a different attitude.

Don't you wish that you could use good English wot like I does?

[dunkin2012]

Hi my name is Oliver.

I am English, 61 years old with a Thai wife and live in Mae Sariang in the Mae Hong Son district. Despite having no official teaching qualifications, I have the commitment and patience and would love the opportunity to teach English to the Thai children at a local school. How do I make contact with the authorities to apply for a teaching post ?

Many thanks.

You head down to Khaosan road and acquire all the necessary docs ... then head on over to the ministry of education and ask to speak to the boss.

Then hand him a brown paper bag loaded with baht and tell him you wanna teach.

Seriously , you would need to contact the ministry of education , however I would think they will advertise these jobs when they become available.

He might be a bit confusing to get some documents from Kaosan Rd.,.. Are you tryin' to say that he can make authenticated fake documents from there to be eligible for the post?

[KJH]

Hi my name is Oliver.

I am English, 61 years old with a Thai wife and live in Mae Sariang in the Mae Hong Son district. Despite having no official teaching qualifications, I have the commitment and patience and would love the opportunity to teach English to the Thai children at a local school. How do I make contact with the authorities to apply for a teaching post ?

Many thanks.

If youre not a qualified teacher/don't want to do a tefl course etc. just yet... the easiest thing to do, at first, would be to get in touch with the English teacher at your local school and see if you can volunteer there one or two days a week to help out... If you enjoy it, then think about studying for a TEFL (CELTA is probably one of the best ones you can get) qualification.

You don't say whether you have a degree or not. You usually need a degree to get an official teachers liscense/work permit etc... in Thailand...

If you're not confident teaching large classes of children (depending ony your local school, classes will either be huge 40-50 students per room, barely enough room for the teacher to walk between the student's desks, or, if its a very poor rural school that people don't want to send their children to, somewhere between 5-20 students....), another way you could help would be to sit and talk to the Thai teachers - and teach them general conversational English/work on their pronunciation etc.... If they become more confident speakers of English, they might (I'm not saying they will...) even try speaking English (rather than Thai) with the students they teach.

I went travelling around there a couple of years ago and I remember talking to a couple of teachers who were desperate for volunteers to help out in their schools. If I could have spent more time there, i would..... Mae Sariang's beautiful. .

If you're unfamiliar with teaching techniques etc. and you know of any other foreigners teaching in the area, ask whether its OK to go to their school and watch a couple of their lessons, to get an idea of the kind of activities that work well with Thai students.

[arrowsdawdle]

Unless Thailand is willing to adopt some practices followed in Western education, the teachers will not be able to influence the areas which are in desperate need of development. There are a large number of reoccurring problems in Western/Thai classrooms, and unless they are addressed from the top-down, no real improvements are possible.

The fear of failure is a real motivator, but the system for failing students is just a sham here. Students are obviously pushed on through the grades regardless of the academic achievements. Most of the good, certified western teachers I meet over here complain endlessly about this issue.

A much larger difference which continually create problems in "farang-led" classrooms is that westerner students are taught and encouraged to be individualistic and act as free-thinkers. Thais typically do not value those sorts of skills, and in fact they are discouraged subtly and overtly. Raising one's hand in class is often seen a sign that that student doesn't understand - something which is terribly embarrassing in the group-think environment.

Of course, the west doesn't have a corner on education and they're not doing everything correctly, but there has been a LOT of good work done in the last 30 or 40 years which has not been adopted here in the Land of Smiles.

exactly , I agree totally. sadly , unless teaching english is implemented properly throughout all thailand schools there will be a continued lack of school graduates who fail to speak the most widely common language used throughout the world.

How can a well educated thai work internationally when he cannot even speak english ? he can't .......

The government needs to seriously implement english speaking into the school curriculum ...

The government needs to make it compulsary , that every child going to school must learn english ... this will give each and everyone of them a better future through employment in future years.

Some years ago , they introduced the 10k computer deal for students ( cheaper now of coarse ) ... this was in part a good idea , however it didn't go far enough in that there should have been a requirement that any student wanting the computer must learn english also , this would need extensive monitoring through study and exams.

I am not an english teacher , but I do know that if something like this is going to be applied , you need to do it correctly or not at all ... otherwise it will be a waste of time ... meaning , in five years we will be back to square one.

Just my opinion. :jap:

Why would a society of "haves" want to empower their subjects to understand world opinion and differing points of view, not to mention enable them to increase their value in the workplace or to travel interntionally? A hotel owner up north, when given the offer of teaching her employees computer and English skills, said, "You must be crazy. If I do that they will be able to go work for somebody else who will pay them more." She was paying staff around 4,000 per month, managers upwards of 10-12K, and this is a famous hotel.

[AZBill]

Hopefully they get some actual qualified teachers with degrees in education and english instead of all these people who take a 4 week TEFL class and pretend to be english teachers so they can play tourist for a year!

[Bagwan]

This may be of interest to some.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12894638

I would query the list of the 100 most used words. There is no mention of the 'F' word!

[arrowsdawdle]

This may be of interest to some.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...gazine-12894638

I would query the list of the 100 most used words. There is no mention of the 'F' word!

Dead link?

[trisailer]

I think that there is a lot more to it than just hiring native english speakers to teach Thai students. An underlying limitation is the motivation of students to learn regardless of the way a subject is presented. Just as in the US the results is largely determined by the attention/support given by parents.

I think that educators should first focus on identifying those students who have an interest in learning english and will be supported by their families. It will not matter who is teaching a course if the student is not motivated to learn. My wife wanted to learn english in high school and continues to seek to perfect her speach. We have a few friends who could care less about improving their english skills but are interested in other subjects. Educators need to do a better job of matching student interests to subjects and gain more flexibility to teach.

I know that a major complant from teachers is the difference in the level of motivation of students, but I would hope that the process for Thai students can be refined to their culture rather than just copied from the west. If the goal is to produce graduates who are indoctrinated to blindly produce at western levels with it's accompanying levels of stress, isolation and conformity than what's the point? They would be far better off continuing to enjoy the present levels of community and live at their present pace of life.

[engrin]

Mark my words, the schools will hire agencies to provide the teachers. In the end, the teachers will get 40k and the rest of their salary will go to kick-backs.

[Chiang2000]

Sorry to disillusion you, but the main reason that call centres are where they are is MONEY!

Indian and Phillapinos ? You ever noticed the heavy , over-riding accents these people have ? They are being considered to teach English , let the people pray it is understandable spoken English .

Your statements betrays great ignorance. Both Indians and Phillipinos speak excellent english. Why do you think most of the world's call centers are located there? Of course they have an accent. Just because you are unable to understand people with accents, does not mean they do not speak great english. I have been to both countries, and I can tell you from experience the amount of people with great english skills is a pure delight. Thailand could greatly benefit from this kind of language skill. Get your facts straight, please.

[pearl984]

I am a Filipino, and i have been teaching abroad for the last 6yrs or so..

and to be fair, yes there are those of us who have the Filipino accent but trust me, most of the farangs i have met can understand what we are saying.

I am not being horrible, but there are those farangs from certain places who have thick accents as well, some people from australia, NZ, UK, and US have their local accents which i find difficult to understand as well... and I have been mingling with farangs for a long time..

so to say that us asians are unfit to teach english bases on accents alone is highly discriminatory.

i would quote the post BUT i just dont know how to.

and finally, most of us Filipinos who teach abroad are qualified and licenced teachers, which more that i can say for some of my fellow teachers back in Hk who are from a native english speaking country, some of them have no tecahing quals apart from the TESOL/TEFL/CELTA certificates.

[NanLaew]

India and the Philippines?

Stunned and amazed?

Oh, let's take care in our posting. I think we can avoid trashing any particular nationality.

It's unusual for a country to target native speakers from a country where English is generally a second language, even if it is widely used.

I have met/worked with people from both the Philippines and India who had excellent English--both written and spoken. Because of their country of origin, they were required to pass an English Language Proficiency Exam.

A medal winning back-pedal there.

[KJH]

Hopefully they get some actual qualified teachers with degrees in education and english instead of all these people who take a 4 week TEFL class and pretend to be english teachers so they can play tourist for a year!

Sure, there are a lot of backpackers in Thailand who just want to teach for a bit, get a bit of money and move on... Thailand's a beautful country, well worth spending a but of time in, and given that there's a big teacher shortage - in terms of 'native' English speaking teachers - and the fact that when Thai people see a farang they instantly think 'English teacher...' if you were a 20 something backpacker and someone offered you 30k a month for standing in front of a group of kids, saying hello and making a clown of yourself for a hour, would you be pondering over the ethics of taking a teaching position when you have no idea what you are doing???? or would you just make the most of the opportunity, to get a bit of money and have a new experience, teaching for a bit.... And some of the backpackers, despite not really knowing that much about what they are doing, manage to do a good job... their youth and enthusiasm can count for a lot.

But, this situation, the 4 week 'tefler's' teaching for a bit, is in part created by the Thais (and Thai society) itself. Thai's in their desperation to have a nice, 'white' foreigner teach their kids (Thais' can be very racist...) don't really care that much about who that foriegner is or where they have come from.

So, last year the town I worked in had a Russian guy teaching at a school there - a guy who's English was awful and who the native speaking teachers (from SA, the USA, Canada and England) found very hard to understand. He was loved by the locals who's children attended the school, and he taught private classes after school at his house etc... why??? because he was a charming, white person... His actual English and teaching didn't come into it all.. I've also seen black african american's criticised for being bad teachers (one, a qualified teacher working in a private school in BKK) for no other reason than they were black. The same with the filipino teacher who worked as a temp. my old school. She was a brilliant teacher (she had a BEd..), had neear perfect English, and the students (and my old boss) loved her, but other people in the department were against the idea of a filipino teacher working the school.

Until Thai people (teachers/parents etc...) start looking beyond 'pretty young white face = good teacher' this situation's not gonna change.

Anyway I digress.

Back to the point I was originally going to make... Sure there are a lot of backpacking TEFLers out there, but don't forget that TEFL is also a teaching qualification... Sure, it doesn't teach you anywhere near as much about teaching as a BEd does (how could it, its a 1 month course.... a BEd is normally 4 years), but, it does teach basic classroom management techniques and how to plan/devise acticitivies that will get students to practise communicating with each other in another language.

And, there are a lot of TEFL teachers out there who take their qualification(s) and work seriously and really do care about their jobs, their students and teaching them English in the best way they can....

[DoctorG]

Hi my name is Oliver.

I am English, 61 years old with a Thai wife and live in Mae Sariang in the Mae Hong Son district. Despite having no official teaching qualifications, I have the commitment and patience and would love the opportunity to teach English to the Thai children at a local school. How do I make contact with the authorities to apply for a teaching post ?

Many thanks.

You head down to Khaosan road and acquire all the necessary docs ... then head on over to the ministry of education and ask to speak to the boss.

Then hand him a brown paper bag loaded with baht and tell him you wanna teach.

Seriously , you would need to contact the ministry of education , however I would think they will advertise these jobs when they become available.

There used to be an age limit of 60, but not sure if that still applies.

[NanLaew]

Why get native English teachers other than from England ? I am all for teachers speaking English if they actually teach English rather than a derivative of the English language . American English is different , so is Philippine and no doubt different again from Australia . Its all about the accent as well , pronunciation of words . I wish the Thai's luck in what they are trying to do but to start with they need someone to guide the education authority in Thailand, from the English education department in England, then maybe there is a good chance the standard will improve, if of course the students are willing to learn.

LOL.... my English is better than your English?

My sister with her teaching degree and 4 years experience got married to an American and moved to Hawaii. She applied for a couple of teaching jobs there but was turned down due to her Scottish accent. Laughable as it's not near as strong as Billy Connolly's. His television adventures were being lapped up and Trainspotting was box office dynamite at the time.

[Chiang2000]

Thanks for that KJH!

(I am a biased TEFLer so didn't want to start comments on recent posts.)

IMHO TEFL gives a much stronger insight into teaching English as a foreign language.

A BEd may well give more insight into classroom techniques, but it certainly does not cover the same ground as TEFL.

So perhaps the correct solution is that BOTH are required!

Hopefully they get some actual qualified teachers with degrees in education and english instead of all these people who take a 4 week TEFL class and pretend to be english teachers so they can play tourist for a year!

Sure, there are a lot of backpackers in Thailand who just want to teach for a bit, get a bit of money and move on... Thailand's a beautful country, well worth spending a but of time in, and given that there's a big teacher shortage - in terms of 'native' English speaking teachers - and the fact that when Thai people see a farang they instantly think 'English teacher...' if you were a 20 something backpacker and someone offered you 30k a month for standing in front of a group of kids, saying hello and making a clown of yourself for a hour, would you be pondering over the ethics of taking a teaching position when you have no idea what you are doing???? or would you just make the most of the opportunity, to get a bit of money and have a new experience, teaching for a bit.... And some of the backpackers, despite not really knowing that much about what they are doing, manage to do a good job... their youth and enthusiasm can count for a lot.

But, this situation, the 4 week 'tefler's' teaching for a bit, is in part created by the Thais (and Thai society) itself. Thai's in their desperation to have a nice, 'white' foreigner teach their kids (Thais' can be very racist...) don't really care that much about who that foriegner is or where they have come from.

So, last year the town I worked in had a Russian guy teaching at a school there - a guy who's English was awful and who the native speaking teachers (from SA, the USA, Canada and England) found very hard to understand. He was loved by the locals who's children attended the school, and he taught private classes after school at his house etc... why??? because he was a charming, white person... His actual English and teaching didn't come into it all.. I've also seen black african american's criticised for being bad teachers (one, a qualified teacher working in a private school in BKK) for no other reason than they were black. The same with the filipino teacher who worked as a temp. my old school. She was a brilliant teacher (she had a BEd..), had neear perfect English, and the students (and my old boss) loved her, but other people in the department were against the idea of a filipino teacher working the school.

Until Thai people (teachers/parents etc...) start looking beyond 'pretty young white face = good teacher' this situation's not gonna change.

Anyway I digress.

Back to the point I was originally going to make... Sure there are a lot of backpacking TEFLers out there, but don't forget that TEFL is also a teaching qualification... Sure, it doesn't teach you anywhere near as much about teaching as a BEd does (how could it, its a 1 month course.... a BEd is normally 4 years), but, it does teach basic classroom management techniques and how to plan/devise acticitivies that will get students to practise communicating with each other in another language.

And, there are a lot of TEFL teachers out there who take their qualification(s) and work seriously and really do care about their jobs, their students and teaching them English in the best way they can....

[SlyAnimal]

Most Filipinos I've met can speak pretty good English, easy to understand etc

Indians are generally difficult to understand for me, although Fijian Indians are usually pretty easy to understand.

And to address the "Teachers from England/America are better!!" side debate. I think having a variety of accents in a school is going to be better for the students. As speaking English is good, but having had exposure to the different accents from around the world will mean that students can more easily understand everyone who crosses their path. We usually get this exposure in our home countries, and in Thailand too because of the amount of tourists, and I think this is why we can usually understand all English, regardless of accents etc (i.e. I don't speak to many Scottish / Irish people in NZ, but I've spoken to enough that I can usually understand what they say, definitely more than if I'd never heard one speaking before).

Also I think for teaching basic English at primary schools, and even the earlier high school years, it's probably not going to make a huge difference whether a teacher is Filipino / Indian and a "true" native speaker (Assuming of course that the Indian / Filipino is fluent in English, I know a few Indians who immigrated to NZ who weren't "fluent" as such). Since the real difference between a native speaker and someone who has learnt English as their second language, is that they are more aware of the finer differences between words, which vary depending on context. Also native speakers are often aware of the more common slang and colloquial expressions even from other countries / regions.

e.g. Awesome, excellent, very good, amazing, superb, outstanding

A Thai teacher will just explain these all as Dee Makk or Geng Makk, and I'd imagine that most non native speakers would learn them in a similar fashion, whereby they just understand the word as a translation of something which they already know. But a native speaker knows the finer differences between the words, and when it is most appropriate to use each based on context, as well as the varying meanings when used in each context. Although this doesn't make much difference for conveying the basic meaning in a sentence, and so as a result for basic levels of English, it's not necessarily that advantageous to have a "true" native speaker over a Filipino or Indian (And by having the non "true" native speaker they can discriminate against them by paying them 15-20k a month instead of 30k, which allows them to employ 50% more teachers)

But back to the original post, this sounds great, but that 81k a month will never happen imo. Although if it did, it'd definitely be enough to lure "real" teachers over to Thailand, but they'd be better off to just offer 40k and get twice the amount of "TESOL bums" as I think someone soo eloquently referred to the current teachers as. Or better yet (For Thailand), lure over twice again the amount of Filipino teachers at 20k or 25k.

The main problem, in my opinion, isn't the quality of the current farang teachers, but rather the lack there of. There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between most Thai English teachers, and farang/Filipino/Indian teachers in their ability to actually speak English. Also because Thai teachers can speak Thai, they often use it as a crutch when they are teaching, as it's soo easily to just explain something in Thai (Or just conduct the entire lesson in Thai like they usually do lol), but that means that the student thinks of the word in Thai and then has to convert it in their head every time (Which means they have to practice saying it twice as much before they are truely fluent in the word). So getting in more Filipino/Indian/western teachers would be highly advantageous.

Edited March 30, 2011 by SlyAnimal

[Gonsalviz]

I have met Filipinos that I can understand easier than some Americans.

Obviously, no offence intended.

There are people from Great Britain that are impossible to understand. Obviously no offense intended.

[egg]

we might have an ex-pat civil war here ,, what with the British colonising everywhere (more like rape and pillage) and the American inventing everything and being the best at everything(more like watching an empire crumble)its been a laugh reading this ,,, thanks

cheers

egg

[61guitarman61]

Hopefully they get some actual qualified teachers with degrees in education and english instead of all these people who take a 4 week TEFL class and pretend to be english teachers so they can play tourist for a year!

But, this situation, the 4 week 'tefler's' teaching for a bit, is in part created by the Thais (and Thai society) itself. Thai's in their desperation to have a nice, 'white' foreigner teach their kids (Thais' can be very racist...) don't really care that much about who that foriegner is or where they have come from.

Anyway I digress.

Back to the point I was originally going to make... Sure there are a lot of backpacking TEFLers out there, but don't forget that TEFL is also a teaching qualification... Sure, it doesn't teach you anywhere near as much about teaching as a BEd does (how could it, its a 1 month course.... a BEd is normally 4 years), but, it does teach basic classroom management techniques and how to plan/devise acticitivies that will get students to practise communicating with each other in another language.

And, there are a lot of TEFL teachers out there who take their qualification(s) and work seriously and really do care about their jobs, their students and teaching them English in the best way they can....

As one of these "4 week TEFLer's", one who never had a day in a classroom since graduating high school in 1979, one who's career in life has been centered around manual labor for the most part, I have been approached, yes, approached without having solicated anyone, by two school directors and at least 10 individuals after seeing my farang sandy brown hair and white skin. Even after telling the directors that I had no experience in teaching and no degree of any sort, they still asked me to come to their respective schools for a tour and to talk. As for the individuals, I am currently "teaching" at one very wealthy half chinese home. I am teaching one each 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 14 year old students from 4 families all related to the core (money) family. Even though about 50% of my time is spent baby sitting, the families are all happy that I am there in their home speaking English with their children. They asked how much I wanted to be paid for teaching and I thought 350 per hour seemed reasonable, which they also thought was reasonable as they hired me. I teach 7 days a week one hour for each student. I spend another 2 hours or so trying to keep some fresh material in front of them. So for an 8 hour a day investment I am compensated with more than 60,000 baht per month. They call me "teasher" and I have encouraged them to just call me by my first name but they insist on the formal title. Am I doing wrong? They are getting the trophy farang private tutor and I am paid for my time. I think I'll just ride this one out for a while.:jap:

Post Script: By the way, I am teaching in an air-conditioned 20,000,000 baht house with all the trappings of luxury around, in a private tutoring lounge waited on hand and foot by maids bringing in food and drinks all day. I think I'll pass on the government schools until this gig runs its course.

Edited March 30, 2011 by 61guitarman61

[NanLaew]

As it was pointed out to me once, what is the motivation for any Thai to learn english living out in the sticks. But send that little girl to Pattaya and in six months she will have ok english skills.

...not to mention the incredible french skills!

[jonclark]

My god this is a hilarious thread - Which accent is better US / UK / Indian. It's not the accent that is the problem. Its the quality of the teacher and ultimatly that teacher quality is a reflection of the standards expressed in the syllabus that they teach. And therein lies the giant white elephant at the center of this whole issue.

Thai schools (in gerneral) if they have an national standardised English syllabus (which is very unlikely) are very bad at explaining the learning objectives and expectations to their hired foreign staff. Most of the English teachers i know, as well as the major agencies which supply english teachers, however well intentioned, make up the English syllabus they teach in the school. Sure they may have books, but standardised test, expectations, learning outcomes Nope.. The result is that the teaching of English is highly fragmented, disorganised and when one teacher leaves, the "syllabus" is completely reinterpreted by the next teacher and the students are left perplexed, unmotivated and completly confused.

If you are a supply teacher in the UK / US and you go into school for a day / week / month, you don't make it up as you go along, you follow the national syllabus / curricula. Do any English teachers here (Native speakers) do that. Can any native speakers tell me the objectives and standards they are required to meet. Other than 'make the students speak'

Throwing more money salaries might attract a better qualified teacher, but as the syllabus is so weak for English converstaion and English teaching in general, more money doesn't equal better results. As the old saying goes - you can't polish a turd. Which just about sums up the state of the national English Curricula in Thailand.

[ESB7]

It really needs to be U.K. citezens only (Qualified...not KSR idiots)...any other nationality really dosnt have an extensive grasp of the language. Although its probably the greatest export we made to our many colonies, the colonials are 2nd rate to the real Mccoy.