Tefl Course, Questions And Comments

[utalkin2me]

I could not give a holy flying F if I am a better teacher.

There are far too many foreign teachers in Thailand with this attitude. Imagine depending on a teacher with this attitude and these language skills to educate your child. If I overheard one of my children's teachers speaking like this, I would be very angry. After living here many years, I know this attitude is fairly common - sadly. One of the biggest problems with English teaching in Thailand is the significant proportion of foreign flotsam it attracts.

I think you are not understanding - it is about the course making you a better teacher or not. I guess you are right in that I don't care about the course making me a better teacher if the money is the same. But where you are wrong is I am not saying I don't want to be good. Being good means getting paid more. That is, and should be the incentive. If that isn't there though, and a teacher is stuck at 30k no matter how good he gets, who wants to do a tefl. Show me one person and I'll show you a moron. And if you feel bad your kid is being taught by somebody like me, then get together with other parents and fight to raise teachers salaries in your school or deal with it.

Self righteous people like you bug the hell out of me anyway. Take your opinion and apply it to yourself. Work is about salary.... if you don't understand that point, then learn it or just keep being wrong. Up to you.

[Scott]

Please keep the discussion civil. This is the teaching forum. It is for the exchange of information about teaching.

[Loaded]

I could not give a holy flying F if I am a better teacher.

There are far too many foreign teachers in Thailand with this attitude. Imagine depending on a teacher with this attitude and these language skills to educate your child. If I overheard one of my children's teachers speaking like this, I would be very angry. After living here many years, I know this attitude is fairly common - sadly. One of the biggest problems with English teaching in Thailand is the significant proportion of foreign flotsam it attracts.

I think you are not understanding - it is about the course making you a better teacher or not. I guess you are right in that I don't care about the course making me a better teacher if the money is the same. But where you are wrong is I am not saying I don't want to be good. Being good means getting paid more. That is, and should be the incentive. If that isn't there though, and a teacher is stuck at 30k no matter how good he gets, who wants to do a tefl. Show me one person and I'll show you a moron. And if you feel bad your kid is being taught by somebody like me, then get together with other parents and fight to raise teachers salaries in your school or deal with it.

Self righteous people like you bug the hell out of me anyway. Take your opinion and apply it to yourself. Work is about salary.... if you don't understand that point, then learn it or just keep being wrong. Up to you.

I'm glad I bug you and don't worry, as my children never meet 'teachers' like you. I make sure of that. If 'teaching' for you is just about money, you have no right to call yourself a teacher imo. That's my opinion and I apply it to myself.

You equate higher salaries by themselves to higher quality. I disagree. However, I agree that higher salaries could attract better trained, qualified and motivated teachers. This could be a major problem for you though.

[TEFLife]

To become a teacher you are expected to go to university for 4 years. However, people who have never taught before think they can walk into a classroom and teach English as a foreign language and their only belief is that they can because they speak English.Teaching English as a first language is different to teaching it as a foreign language. I think the point that is being missed, is that to go into any profession you take a course to gain knowledge and help you to understand how to teach. A TEFL course is there to help bridge a gap and help understand how to teach English in a tested way without having to try out methods that you think will work and experiment untested methods on students. This is not being fair on your students.

[aitch52]

Like digglesdunc I took the course in Khon Kaen, like him I rated the course and the instructor very highly. A good part of my former career was as a technical instructor, teaching mechanical systems. Compared to teaching English that is a piece of cake. Prior to booking the course I had quite a lengthy correspondence with Text and Talk. The cost of the course then was 43,000 Baht, but that was for the 6 week course. My main reason for taking the course was I wanted to see how to tackle how to teach such an abstract and complex subject.

The practical teaching portion of the course was free for the students who were invited to volunteer to attend, so there was no double ended profit making there from the Learning Centre. The instructor drip fed grammar to us in short spells. He had a huge wealth of knowledge to pass on to us about how to teach various aspects of the English language. Money is not a motivating factor for me although it is nice to be adequately rewarded financially. I have not been out of work since I finished the course, having worked for just over a year for ECC and 3 years in a government school.

As to standards of dress, yes I sometimes wear a tie and long sleeved shirt, the students and parents seem to like it. Yes I know, to some it is bs, but if you have a smart presence and speak clearly in the classroom, the lessons do tend to go smoother. Even though I am quite long in the tooth, I still try to improve my methods and techniques. It is all a matter of personal choice to do the course or not. Different people will have their own opinion as to the value of the course. For me despite having 17 years experience of formal classroom and engineering practical instruction experience, it was worth its weight in gold.

[isawasnake]

Like digglesdunc I took the course in Khon Kaen, like him I rated the course and the instructor very highly. A good part of my former career was as a technical instructor, teaching mechanical systems. Compared to teaching English that is a piece of cake. Prior to booking the course I had quite a lengthy correspondence with Text and Talk. The cost of the course then was 43,000 Baht, but that was for the 6 week course. My main reason for taking the course was I wanted to see how to tackle how to teach such an abstract and complex subject.

The practical teaching portion of the course was free for the students who were invited to volunteer to attend, so there was no double ended profit making there from the Learning Centre. The instructor drip fed grammar to us in short spells. He had a huge wealth of knowledge to pass on to us about how to teach various aspects of the English language. Money is not a motivating factor for me although it is nice to be adequately rewarded financially. I have not been out of work since I finished the course, having worked for just over a year for ECC and 3 years in a government school.

As to standards of dress, yes I sometimes wear a tie and long sleeved shirt, the students and parents seem to like it. Yes I know, to some it is bs, but if you have a smart presence and speak clearly in the classroom, the lessons do tend to go smoother. Even though I am quite long in the tooth, I still try to improve my methods and techniques. It is all a matter of personal choice to do the course or not. Different people will have their own opinion as to the value of the course. For me despite having 17 years experience of formal classroom and engineering practical instruction experience, it was worth its weight in gold.

Good for you. Maybe more courses are in your future seeing as how helpful it was.

IMO, I agree with another poster in a way. If you take say an accountant, nobody is telling the accountant things like "you should be ashamed of yourself for not wanting to be a better accountant" etc. For some reason, I do see people put teaching in a sort of different category as other professions, and - objectively speaking - I don't think that is the proper thing to do. People work for money, bottom line. If you aren't working for money, then you really should have no problem whatsoever.... there are certainly plenty of students to teach for free out there.

In any profession, the rewards for time put in for improvement have to be weighed against the financial benefits, and one then acts accordingly. If you are a qualified accountant, making a certain salary and don't see the financial incentive to improve, that is your prerogative. Absolutely nothing wrong with a teacher feeling the same way, and stating they don't have a penchant for improvement. But then of course, I think it goes without saying, that no matter what profession you are active in, you are probably improving everyday, whether you like it or not