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[martinphipps]

I am writing a book about teaching English in Asia, but my experience only relates to Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines. Tell me about teaching English in Thailand. I have some specific questions.

Do you work with a local teacher? Is she in the classroom with you or does she teach the same class at a different time? Is he or she considered your boss or your equal or does this depend on how much experience you have?

When in Thailand, do people expect you to learn the local language or are they surprised whenever you use Thai at all? Are you forbidden by your school owners from using Thai in class? Do the students seem to expect you to understand Thai and get frustrated when you don't understand Thai?

Do most people work in private cram schools or in government sponsored public schools? Do they provide you with textbooks and a syllabus or is that entirely up to the teachers? Do you get in trouble for using Thai in class or by not playing enough games or are teaching methods left up to the teacher to decide?

If it isn't you who makes the decision as to how to teach your class then who's decision is it? Your co-teacher? Your supervisor? The owner of the school?

What is the biggest problem that Thai students have? How does the local language affect the way they speak English? Are there any words they especially have trouble pronouncing? Do they have trouble adapting to the fact that English uses a different alphabet or do they pick it up fairly quickly?

Thank you.

Martin Phipps,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Applied Foreign Languages,
Chungtai Institute pf Health Sciences and Technology,
Taichong, Taiwan

[Sheep-Goats]

Do you work with a local teacher? Is she in the classroom with you or does she teach the same class at a different time? Is he or she considered your boss or your equal or does this depend on how much experience you have?

I do but my assistant is a robot. Obviously I usually tell the robot what to do, such as, PUNCH FACE ROBOT, but the robot is more qualified than I am and so the director often sides with it when disputes arise.


When in Thailand, do people expect you to learn the local language or are they surprised whenever you use Thai at all? Are you forbidden by your school owners from using Thai in class? Do the students seem to expect you to understand Thai and get frustrated when you don't understand Thai?

In Thailand most people are deaf or otherwise unwilling to speak. This extends to school owners, except they usually are willing to issue the class robot orders. The students have learned to communicate with myself and the robot rather well, either through myself or the robot.


Do most people work in private cram schools or in government sponsored public schools? Do they provide you with textbooks and a syllabus or is that entirely up to the teachers? Do you get in trouble for using Thai in class or by not playing enough games or are teaching methods left up to the teacher to decide?

Whether we work in private or cram schools is up to the teachers. We get in trouble for leaving things up to the teacher to decide.


If it isn't you who makes the decision as to how to teach your class then who's decision is it? Your co-teacher? Your supervisor? The owner of the school?

I'll give you one guess. The answer to that guess is the robot.


What is the biggest problem that Thai students have? How does the local language affect the way they speak English? Are there any words they especially have trouble pronouncing? Do they have trouble adapting to the fact that English uses a different alphabet or do they pick it up fairly quickly?

The biggest problemt thta Thai students have is that their teacher is busy writing robot stories on the internet. They can't say "rice" very well. They don't worry about the English alphabet too much because I haven't bothered to teach them yet.

Please place a link to this site as an invaluable reference to your well researched book -- which you worked so hard on researching, being sure to get a good range of reliable information from accountable sources, and all.

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Dear Martin Phipps:

The TEFL market here is very large and very diverse. EFL teachers are probably spread out about equally among the public schools & universities, the private language schools, and within the corporate sector. My hunch is that if 10 people were to reply to your questions, you'd have 10 very different sorts of replies, reflecting that diversity.

Cram schools, as they are known in Korea and Japan, do not really exist here.

Speaking only for me: I teach strictly within the corporate sector. I have no co-teacher, no office hours and no immediate supervisor. I basically spend my working day commuting between 5-star hotels and a variety of company HQs & offices. The school I work for is small, more of a consulting agency than a school, really. We employ only 5 or 6 teachers at any given time. The director of our school prefers the Speed-Callan Method for most clients, so the course materials are generally pre-set. Some clients require specialized courses, which we develop on a case-by-case, per-needs basis. I work for an Australian, and most major decisions are reached by discussion & consensus, but his word is final. He's the boss.

As for speaking Thai: Thais are usually surprised and quite impressed when foreigners make an attempt to speak their language, although proficiency in Thai is neither expected nor required as a prerequisite for TEFL employment at any Thai schools I know of.

As usual, learning a bit of the local language serves more to endear you to your students (and to make life in general more pleasant) than it does to produce tangible classroom results.

The biggest problem for Thai speakers? Well, they have many problems with English (including a general and widespread inability to put concepts of grammar they have learned into practice) but if I had to choose one problem that stands out above the rest, it would be lousy pronunciation

Thais have huge problems pronouncing the dipthong 'th' as well as the letter 's', when it's a final consonant. They also have problems distinguishing the more subtle differences between the 'ch' and 'sh' sounds. The letter 'x' also presents a problem because they don't recognize the 's' sound, which is part of the pronounced letter 'x'. (i.e., letter x = eks) Thais will say 'bok' instead of box; sik, instead of six; nek, instead of next; lat, instead of last; and even 'hou' instead of house.

Three is pronounced 'tree' by Thais, and Thursday becomes, um ... Turdday.

I always take time to explain in detail what a turd is, so I am beginning to make progress with that one.

And, much like their Asian neighbors in Japan, Korea & China, Thais also manage to confuse the letters 'r' and 'l' and sometimes even confuse the letter 'l' with the letter 'n'. Don't ask me how it happens, but when a Thai sees the word 'little', he will often pronounce it 'litten'. Go figure.

Anyway --- Good luck with your project!

PS: For additional information to support your research, I'd suggest clicking on The Master Index (located at the top of this forum). If you scroll all the way down to the TEFL THAILAND category, you'll find several links that should help.

[AsiaTraveller]