What you can learn working with colleagues from different countries
Everyone has something to offer you
Overall, I really enjoy having a true international environment at work. The chance to work and meet people from so many countries has improved me as a teacher and allowed me to learn a lot about other cultures.
Great Expectations
When parents of students are simply too demanding
The demands and expectations that some parents burden their children with are alas often too great. At the moment I’m teaching a kid who hasn’t even turned six, yet his life revolves solely around learning.
How to land that job
Tips for getting a teaching job in Thailand.
Thinking of interviewing for teaching jobs? What's the best way to go about it? What are the questions to ask at an interview and what kind of answers should you be looking for?
Can you start on Monday?
What lies behind that oft-heard request?
This request often means the organisation you are joining is less than adept at hiring procedures and is pressed for time. The ‘power-dressing princess’ delegated to find new recruits may have had little aptitude for the practicalities of recruitment.
Finding the poetry
English teachers, Sonny's outcry, and finding the poetry
Governments and Immigration officials in various countries, including South Korea and Thailand, are finally starting to crack down on English teachers who have proven themselves to be less than desirable.
Colored education
The road to becoming a teacher
Bobo Metei came to Thailand as a fresh graduate on the lookout for different things. So being a young man with little money in his pocket, he decided to take up teaching.
Bangkok vs Chiang Mai
How do the two biggest cities in Thailand measure up?
Read a terrific account from a teacher who gave up the Chiang Mai lifestyle to go and work in the capital Bangkok. It's very much a tale of two cities - and how one dedicated teacher fared in both.
Person of odd jobs
Let's hear it for the good old head teacher
Why is the head teacher the topic of this month’s column? Because I became one at the beginning of this year, CE* 2006, at a newly opened branch of the language school I work for. Instead of giving a mission statement in this article and explaining in detail what my job involves and what the difficulties and the perks are, I have tried to make it a little more interesting and easier to read by putting on paper what others say about me.
We work for the room
ESL ghosts of the past
There's been so many bad experiences, I don't know where to start. Forget the times I was ripped off hundreds of dollars from unscrupulous Korean hagwon owners and Taiwanese recruiters. That might take too long and it's another column entirely. I'm still trying to forget the time when one of the nine million Mr. Kims barged into my class and, in front of the students, told me in Korean what a horrible teacher I was.
Welcome to the heart of nowhere
Running a language school with no teachers
Running a school in an upcountry hamlet is not for the faint hearted. The main sticking point is how to attract teachers. Those already in Thailand are too savvy to leap at the "opportunity of a lifetime" however it's a different matter for those languishing abroad. A guide on how to use the internet to attract teachers to work in the back of beyond. Success guaranteed.
