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[gusto102]

Just want to see if anyone is interested in teaching English conversation courses for the remainder of the term at a Thai government secondary school. We have one immediate opening for a native speaker teaching M6 (12th grade) and M1 (7th grade) students, approximately 20 hours a week. The students will be taking their final exams around the third week of February and the term will end shortly thereafter. During March, the school may have you teach an English camp or just come in every day, sign in, teach the Thai teachers for two hours, and go home. The school year will resume again in mid-May.

Any applicant should be a native speaker with at the very least a TEFL certificate and one year teaching experience. Preference will be given to applicants with a TEFL, BA, and/or 1 or 2 years teaching experience. You must come prepared to teach as you will have to create your own weekly lessons for two levels. You will have full autonomy in the classroom to teach whatever you like, but you must come prepared as the students learn quickly who is for real, and who is just some �falang kii nok�.

Officially, you are expected to be here from 8:00am until 4:00pm. But as with most things here in Thailand, there is the rule, and then there is reality. You will teach anywhere between 2-5 classes per day. I arrive here Monday through Friday after 8am in order to start the first period at 8:30am. Mondays we teach 2 classes, including an activity class and leave around noon. The rest of the week varies. Some days you may finish at 1:30pm, others you may finish at 4:00. You can usually leave quietly whenever you finish teaching, unless there is a meeting or some activity.

If you are hired under a one year contract, the school will assist you in obtaining a work permit. The pay is 35,000 baht per month including medical benefits. I understand that this may be on the lower end of the pay scale, but I am sure we can agree that Thailand is not the place to come if you are interested in making lots of money in the ESL field.

You need not apply if your sole purpose here in Bangkok is to get blind drunk every night and chase skirts. What you do on your own free time is your business, just be sure that you can make it here by 8:30am Monday thru Friday ready to teach. The Thai teachers here are very flexible, and in my opinion, easy to get along with. However, you will have to prove yourself as there are a lot of bad falang that have given English teachers in Thailand a bad reputation.

I really enjoy the school and the students are great. The lower level students, i.e. M1, M2 and M3 can be rowdy, rambunctious and blatantly disrespectful at times. You must be prepared to deal with this. However, this is just a small minority of students. The upper levels M4, M5 and M6 are much more mature of course, but there are a few exceptions. You must work hard to earn their respect, but once that respect is earned, you will receive superstar status (at least on campus).

The school is called Santirat Wittayalai and is just a two minute walk from the Phaya Thai BTS platform up Sri Ayutthaya Road. Just ask one of the locals. Go to the main office and ask to speak with either Ajarn Sirinat or Ajarn Juraporn, both of whom are teachers in the English department.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to post a reply.