I was talking to my Thai teacher recently. She works for the school I recently attended (a small school in Jomtien) and 2 other schools in the area. She has a degree and a teaching certificate. There is a certain school in the area which has opened fairly recently, and aggressively advertised student visa service to capture a portion of the market. Unfortunately for the degreed professional teachers here, this school refuses to hire any of them. My teacher says the only qualifications for employment she knows of are being able to dress well. She speculates that the school does not hire degreed certificated professionals because others will work for less. And she speculates that the "dressing well" requirement is to attract more male clients.

There isn't a lot of work in the area anyway, so the teachers who have spent so much time and money getting their degrees and certificates are having a rough time. She and her fellow teachers are very upset with this school, and would like to see it shut down.

But the reason why I write this post is because she went on to say something else that surprised me. She says that the Ministry of Education requires Thai teachers to be degreed and certified. She is convinced that there is something fishy going on. So I would like to know - are Thai language schools really required to hire degreed and certified teachers?

I'm certain from my own experience of them that 'real teachers' are not required- in practice, if not in fact- for teaching Thai at Thai language schools. Not that they are really necessary- if you'd seen how Thai is taught in many schools, you might be thankful you're not learning it that way.

All I can say is that I have attended many different Thai classes at many different schools. I have not once been satisfied with the approach and methodology applied. You either learn how to talk like a formal idiot making sentences that aren't actually said or you are taught by good looking bimbos that have no idea of how to teach and just follow the formula given to them.

I think that your friend the teacher should count herself lucky not being hired for these types of schools. I am certain that she will find work but will be much better off doing her own private lessons rather than being forced to teach a methodology by language schools that are so out of date and innefective that it destroys all the creativity out of her.

I think that your friend the teacher should count herself lucky not being hired for these types of schools.

You make an excellent point. But she probably looks at it the same way I look at my profession. A new company comes in and captures a portion of the limited market, and essentially eliminates that portion of jobs. The teachers that loose their jobs make it more competitive for the remaining jobs. A tight market gets tighter.