Thread For New Teachers - Draft

[SlyAnimal]

Hi All,

Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be rewriting the sticky threads which we have in the teacher's forum. Starting with one for new teachers, which basically summarises what they need to know when they first come to Thailand looking for a job teaching. There will be various other threads, relating to TCT exams/culture courses/licences and a few other things (maybe more specific details regarding work permits / visas etc).

I've prepared a draft below, and wanted to get some feedback from you guys as to whether I've missed anything, or over/under stated anything. As I am based in Isaan, and have only taught in government schools, so some things I do get wrong.

When I have a finalised version, I'll close this thread, open a new one, sticky it and lock it (So that it's more for reference, rather than for continued debate). Members can then pm myself or Scott if situations change, and the thread needs to be updated.

Anyway, please take a quick read, and then leave your comments below (Particularly regarding a title for the thread.)

Thanks,

SlyAnimal

The Basics of Teaching in Thailand:

Introduction:

This thread is designed to answer many of the initial questions which new teachers will have regarding teaching in Thailand. Once you have read this thread please feel free to post any questions you may have, regarding teaching in Thailand, as a new topic and our members will do their best to assist you with your enquiries.

Education Requirements:

To obtain a work permit, and thus be legally allowed to work in Thailand you generally need to have either a Thai Teachers Licence or a Provisional Teacher’s Licence (Waiver). Language Schools & Universities don’t necessarily require either in order to obtain a work permit, as they are private institutions.

To obtain a Provisional Teacher’s permit, you need to be a Native English Speaker (NES) and have a Bachelor’s Degree (or equivalent). Applicants from countries other than USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and Ireland, must submit a TOEIC/TOEFL or IELTS proficiency test certificate. A provisional teaching permit is valid for 2 years and is tied to the educational institution (So if you move schools, a new permit is required).

To obtain a Permanent Teacher’s Licence (Renewed every 5 years), there are various different paths. Most of which require you to hold a Bachelor of Education, Graduate Diploma of Teaching and/or a Teacher’s licence in your home country.

For more detailed information regarding Teaching licences / waivers, and the processes/documents you need to go through, please refer here.*

Character Requirements / Police Check:

Part of the requirements for your visa, is that you provide a record from your home country showing that you don’t have any convictions. This is rarely asked for; however you should have this ready just to be safe, as it can otherwise be quite time consuming to obtain while not residing in your home country.

Experience Requirements:

To obtain your visa and work permit there are no experience requirements. However schools may specify a minimum level of experience when they advertise positions.

Age Requirements:

In Thailand, people generally retire at 60. Therefore it is very difficult to get a job when you are 60+, and you may even have difficulty finding a job if you are in your 50s, although this will largely depend on your qualifications and experience.

Ethnicity Requirements:

Some schools prefer people to be Caucasian, regardless of whether they are Native English Speakers (NES) or not. Most aren’t going to discriminate, however many will prefer to take applicants who don’t look Asian.

Expected Salaries and workload:

Salaries vary by region, however a general expectation would be 25,000 – 35,000 THB per month when working outside of Bangkok. And 35,000 – 45,000 THB per month when working in Bangkok, as the cost of living is generally higher in Bangkok (Fringe areas of Bangkok are likely somewhere in between). International schools, can potentially pay substantially more, however you can read more about international schools here*.

Workload generally ranges from 18 – 24 teaching hours per week. Some schools will expect you to stay on campus from 7:30am – 4:00pm, while others may allow you to leave campus when you have free time.

Likewise, some schools will require you to sign in, and sign out every day, even when the students are on holiday. While others will allow you to take this time off. Every school is different, and you likely won’t know until you start working there.

Where/When to apply:

The Thai academic year, for government schools and universities, usually starts in mid-late May, and finishes in late early – mid March. With a 3 week mid semester break in October. Therefore your best opportunities to look for work, are in March/April/May, or in September/October, as vacancies often open up around this time.

You can find many websites online, which advertise teaching jobs online. A quick search using local key words associated with teaching, should provide you with many websites related to working as a teacher in Thailand (Remember both “Ajarn” and “Kru” roughly translate to “teacher” in Thai).

However the best method is often to simply turn up at schools and ask them. Make sure that you’re well dressed, have a copy of your CV and are prepared to teach a demonstration lesson if required. You then have a decent chance of finding a school which is open to the idea of hiring a new teacher, even if they wouldn’t necessarily advertise the position (Or they may know of other schools nearby who are looking).

Also when you apply for a job, you will need include a colour photo with your CV when you send it to schools. Also be prepared for large amounts of photocopying of documents, which you will then need to sign and date every page to verify the copy. These are both standard practices in Thailand which differ from the west.

* This will direct to a link to another sticky topic. As I develop other sticky threads, I'll likely link all of them to each other in one way or another.

[ClareQuilty]

I wasn't aware that it was difficult for people in their 50s to be hired - the majority of farang teachers I know in Isaan are over 50.

[Phatcharanan]

Seems good.

Title could be 'Teaching in Thailand - What you need to know'

The link for the International's is not working.

[SlyAnimal]

I wasn't aware that it was difficult for people in their 50s to be hired - the majority of farang teachers I know in Isaan are over 50.

"May find it difficult, depending on experience/education" e.g. If you're 58 and have never taught before, you're probably going to be turned down by a lot of schools. Whereas a 28 or 38 year old, who likewise has no experience, will likely find a job much faster.

Title could be 'Teaching in Thailand - What you need to know'

The link for the International's is not working.

Yep, the links are just there for example, the sticky threads which they will link to haven't been created yet.

And yeah that's a good suggestion for the title, I might use that (Unless a better option comes up)

Anyway, I'm going to leave this thread up for a couple of days until I post the real sticky. Then I'll start working on the next one.

[Scott]

Seems good.

Title could be 'Teaching in Thailand - What you need to know'

The link for the International's is not working.

A good title.

Thanks, SlyAnimal, for your hard work. It's appreciated.

[siampolee]

Certainly in my view a helpful topic, the content is good and covers the areas that newbies and perhaps some oldies need to bone up on.

Certainly when I arrived here some 22+ years ago it was an interesting path to blaze, luckily I did have a position to go to.

Salary wait for it 12,000 baht a month and free accommodation too.

It was a great year in which I found my feet and have never looked back, but it was a challenge as there wasn't any internet and forums then.Fax machines were the hot communication medium then. Happy days

[ClareQuilty]

...some 22+ years ago ... Salary wait for it 12,000 baht a month and free accommodation too.

One wonders what the cost of living was back in 1991 in Thailand - your 12,000 might have gone a lot further than a modern farang teachers salary (typically 30-35,000 without free accommodation, or 25-28,000 with accommodation) does now.

[Yooyung]

Certainly in my view a helpful topic, the content is good and covers the areas that newbies and perhaps some oldies need to bone up on.

Certainly when I arrived here some 22+ years ago it was an interesting path to blaze, luckily I did have a position to go to.

Salary wait for it 12,000 baht a month and free accommodation too.

It was a great year in which I found my feet and have never looked back, but it was a challenge as there wasn't any internet and forums then.Fax machines were the hot communication medium then. Happy days

Interesting stuff. I started on 20,000 per month in 2001. I seem to remember always having money in my pocket....but 22 years ago. Tell us more, you must have some interesting memories.

Good topic by the way. When I stepped off the plane for the first time and started looking for a job I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I got a job soon enough though, being young, white , British and handsome to boot....

[siampolee]

I certainly seem to recall I led a pleasant life and had money in my pocket but none in the bank in the early days.Life was much as it is now in schools with the normal in school politics.

Beer was cheap as was food too and the original Thermae was open full of bad girls and they were the best too never did like good girls they were boring..

Air con buses were cheap however taxi's were a bit of an extravagance then as they were in relation to my salary expensive.

I lived then out on Onn Nut in Prawet and those delightful little green buses were my mode of transport in to and from work.I always got a seat as the buses started about 200 meters from my home and on the return journey I was about a kilometer away from the start area so I often caught the bus inward and remained on it for the return journey.One of the bus girls and bus boys fell in love with me and would let me ride fre a dubious compliment when one looks back at it.

Two and a half baht fare for a 15 kilometer ride to work and a ride worthy of any white knuckle ride in a theme park.Bus races, red lights were run, truly a wonderful bowel moving start to ones day.

Happy days as they are now too.

Edited February 16, 2013 by siampolee

[aidenai]

To obtain a work permit, and thus be legally allowed to work in Thailand you generally need to have either a Thai Teachers Licence or a Provisional Teacher’s Licence (Waiver). Language Schools & Universities don’t necessarily require either in order to obtain a work permit, as they are private institutions.

Working in educational institutions in primary, secondary and tertiary education require a university degree. For primary and secondary education the profession of teacher is for both foreign and Thai teachers a licensed occupation. Working in that field requires a teacher license issued by The Teachers' Council of Thailand. If the teacher doesn't hold a teacher license, the teacher has to apply for a provisional teaching permit. Holding a university degree and a teacher license/ provisional teaching permit if applicable, are requirements enforced by both Immigration and the provincial Labour offices. For teacher placement agencies and language centres, other rules apply.

To obtain a Provisional Teacher’s licence, you need to be a Native English Speaker (NES) and have a Bachelor’s Degree (or equivalent). If you aren’t a NES, you need to sit an exam in order to prove your proficiency in English.

To obtain a provisional teaching permit, applicants from other countries than the USA, CDN, AUS, NZ, UK and IRL must submit a TOEIC/ TOEFL or IELTS proficiency test certificate. A provisional teaching permit is valid for 2 years and is tied to the educational institution.

To obtain a Permanent Teacher’s Licence (Renewed every 5 years), there are various different paths. Most of which require you to hold a Bachelor of Education, Graduate Diploma of Teaching and/or a Teacher’s licence in your home country.

To obtain a teacher license from The Teachers' Council of Thailand applicant must hold a degree in education, or hold another degree plus a graduate diploma in education/ teaching profession or hold a teacher license from the home country or have passed the Professional Knowledge Tests conducted by The Teachers' Council of Thailand. Further more, applicants must have teaching experience of at least one year and hold a Thai Culture, Language and Ethics Certificate. The teacher license is valid for 5 years and can be renewed by submitting a declaration of educational development during the 5 previous years.

[aussiebebe]

Overall, congrats to SlyAnimal for tackling the task of writing - it's no mean feat.

A few things I'd add:

1) I'd echo aidenai's comments - you may as well expand the Education Requirements part to explicitly state residents of which countries are considered native English speakers - I have a South African friend who was surprised that she had to sit an English proficiency test that was so poorly worded as to be incomprehensible. Still, it was better for her than staying in South Africa and being told she couldn't have a job because she is white.

2) Add advice about being properly insured; travel insurance from your home country for the first month would be prudent. You can buy cheap home insurance policies for wherever you rent in Thailand - adding details about this would be good, especially in the age of laptop-priced smartphones.

3) embedding a passport-style photo on your CV/Resume

[SlyAnimal]

Ok I'm going to post up the completed copy, sticky and lock it.

I think I added most of the points which you guys commented on (Although a bit of the extra information about teachers licences I didn't put in, as I'll try to do up a more detailed thread regarding that later, which will include required documents/processes etc)

For comments on the sticky thread, you can just comment here and then I can edit the sticky thread if needed (I updated the section here to reflect the changes I'm making to the sticky thread).

Also Aussiebabe, I didn't add anything about insurance, as I think it's a potentially complicated issue (e.g. A lot of travel insurance won't cover you if you're living in a country, rather than travelling, and since schools are meant to issue you with Thai social security or similar, it could be a complicated issue, which is really more worthy of it's own thread in order to explain it all, as it would detract from the other information in this thread.).

[bangkokburning]

I would really find the following very, very valuable:

A checklist of how to navigate all the nonsense for teaching public, university and private. Flowchart would be stellar.

A basic minimum contract - how much, insurance, who pays tax, living exp, visa runs, wp fees etc.. Dealing with agencies. How to avoid setting yourself up to get screwed. Also, how to get work when you are O visa based on marriage and font need visa.

In addition to above, typical hours for typical settings including ofgice hours and any addl expectations.

Sample resumes for typical noob job seeker - say, men in 20, 30-40 and esp in their 50s. Preferable format(s), what is (not) important, how to list other job experience, importance of past life and or college experiences. Keep it super basic or use proper English with big words and verbs. Sample cover letters.

How to pursue a job...do and dont. Things important to do. Things important to not do that would not seem obvious by even someone familar with Asian or Thai culture.

Links to the cream of online ESL learning (top ten lets say).

Thanks for the consideration.