Education Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech informing about the delay of Tablet Computers. (photo by Thiti Wannamontha, Bangkok Post)

According to Education Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech, the devices will be at least two months late — and that seems like a very optimistic estimate.

You may remember that this tablet project was one of the promises the Pheu Thai Party made during last year’s election campaign. Once in charge, the party took action to make the promise a reality. The cabinet approved the purchase of 1 million tablets in February. All looked great for the lucky first graders who were supposed to be the first recipients of the devices at the beginning of the school year. Until now!

It turns out that the contract with Shenzhen Scope, the Chinese company chosen to manufacture the devices, has not been signed yet. The supplier also has failed to post the required deposit to guarantee delivery and apparently only has capacity to produce 1,000 units per day as opposed to the initially stated 24,000 units per day. The reason why Shenzen Scope is reluctant to sign the contract is that they want to change the terms of the agreement by reducing the warranty from 2 years to 1 year and the number of service centers in Thailand from 30 to 12. That, of course, is a bait-and-switch strategy which would make any purchasing agent unhappy.

It seems like this is a rather difficult company to deal with and perhaps not enough due diligence by the procurement committee during the selection of a partner for this project.

If you are one of the teachers who was hoping to start the school year with your students armed with tablet computers, you’ll have to be patient.  I guess very patient, as it is possible that the current agreement gets scrapped and the process starts on square one again. Take it with a smile. Can you say ”Mai Bpen Rai“?

Take 7/11 for example. This is one very successful business in Thailand. At this moment, there are roughly 6,500 7/11 stores in Thailand, about the same number that you find in the United States. The predicted growth will put this number above 7,000 stored by 2013.

Now, let’s assume each of these 7/11 stores conducts 1 transaction per minute. This is a very conservative guess. If you’ve ever been to Thailand, you probably have noticed that there are some stores with 3 or more points of sale, each doing about 2 transactions every minute. But lets stay with an average of 1 transaction per store for simplicity’s sake. That would be 60 transactions per hour and 1,440 transactions per day. In a year, that total comes to 525,600 transactions. Now multiply this number to count in all 7,000 stores and you’ll get 3,679,200,000 transactions per year.

That’s 3.7 billion (!) transactions per year. That’s certainly great news for 7/11, but hardly for the environment. You see, the staff at 7/11 automatically puts your purchase into a plastic bag, even if you just buy a can of soda or a pack of chewing gum. They automatically reach for the dreaded plastic bag, unless you tell them that you don’t want one. In my very conservative calculation, that’s almost 3.7 billion plastic bags! Chances are, the number of plastic bags used by 7/11 is several-fold though.

While researching for this post, I found a rather informative Prezi online. Seems I’m not the only one that views 7/11 as a big source of the problem, while at the same time thinking they could use their power to initiate change on a large scale.

Don’t hold your breath while waiting for a giant like 7/11 to proactively tackle the problem though. Start on a small level; start with you. Whenever you go shopping, (not just at 7/11, but also in your local market) tell the clerk behind the counter “Mai ao thung” (ไม่ เอา ถุง) and you will save the environment from one more plastic bag floating around.

There are many ways to learn Thai: formal classes, regularly meeting with a private teacher in person or on Skype, making Thai friends who do not speak English, self-study with books and audio programs, and increasingly on the internet.  This post focuses on a few of the free resources available online.

Women Learning Thai… and some men too ;-)

This is by far my favorite online destination to immerse myself in the study of the Thai language. The frequency and quality of posts is unmatched, resulting in the most comprehensive collection of resources and tips that will make learning the Thai language easy and fun. The author, Catherine Wentworth, is an expat living in Bangkok and an avid student of the Thai language. She is known as @WomenLearnThai on Twitter and also has a Facebook Page. I highly recommend to connect with Cat on either or both of these social media sites to not miss any of her frequent blog posts. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed of the blog.

Learn Thai Podcast

Although the full course is subscription based, there are enough free lessons on the site that warrants listing them here. When I first learned about this site, I’ve consumed all the free content available, and then subscribed to the paid course for a few months. Each lesson is structured in a logical format. Phrases are displayed in English, Thai script, and transliterated.  My only gripe with the program is the method of transliteration used, which is a moot point as soon as you have some understanding of Thai script. The authors of this program also have a Facebook page and can be found on Twitter as @thaipodcast.

Learning Thai with Mod

Mod is an experienced Thai language teacher that offers one-on-one lessons, either in person or via Skype. Naturally, those are paid lessons, however, she is very active on Facebook, where she offers free language tips and readily answers any question you may have. She also has a YouTube channel with short video clips teaching a range of subjects in an upbeat and humorous way and can be found on Twitter.

AUA – Learn Thai Language Videos

The classes at AUA are taught using a rather unique approach. It’s based on listening and watching. All of it is centered in experiences, similar to when we learn our mother tongue. Observe, absorb, and start to make meaning of the words you hear. I’ve attended several classes at AUA’s school in Bangkok and found their approach refreshing and effective. Watch the videos and judge for yourself.  You can also find AUA on Twitter and Facebook.

Thai-Language.com

Although the heart of this site is an online English-Thai dictionary (the one I use most often), their lessons section offers a wide range of topics, ranging from basic conversation all the way to reading and writing. I especially like the reading exercises, which includes more than 50 short stories to practice your reading comprehension. And if you want to learn how to type on a Thai keyboard, check out the Thai Typing Tutor Game.

There are numerous other useful destinations online to learn Thai, including FSI Thai Language Course, the program used by American diplomats before moving to Thailand, and Spoken Thai, a collection of video and audio clips that will teach you many new words and sentences.

I hope that these resources will help you to learn Thai in the comfort of your home.  Do you have some favorite sites that I didn’t include in this post? Please feel free to list them in the comments.

On first glance, this may look like bad news for foreign English teachers in Thailand. Are they doing this to make the Thai teachers more proficient and thus position them to replace the foreign English teachers at their school? I don’t think so. To get Thai teachers to the level of a native English speaker would require much more than 100,000 baht and one month of training abroad. I rather read this article as good news for foreign English teachers. It shows that Thailand is starting to take English more seriously to prepare its citizens for the upcoming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC).

The article also mentions an initiative to provide a 30-hour English language course to people in other occupations, provide a monthly budget of 10,000 baht for schools to hire foreign English teachers, and ease the regulations concerning the need for licenses for foreign teachers.  To me, this news article looks very positive. These new initiatives will most likely provide expanded opportunities for foreign English teachers in Thailand. What are your thoughts?

Fast forward to 2012. Although Father Ray has died in 2003, his work lives on. The Father Ray Foundation has grown tremendously during the last three decades. It now takes care of about 850 orphaned, abused, and disadvantaged children and students with disabilities. One of its projects is the School for the Blind on Naklua Road, Soi 16. I visit this school a few times each year at special occasions to sponsor lunch or dinner, bring snacks, and spend some time with the students.

Yesterday was my girlfriend’s birthday and we therefore stopped by to visit the children during their dinner.  As always, it was a touching experience. Check out the all photos from this special day.

If you would like to visit or make a donation to this school, or any other project run by the Father Ray Foundation, check out their website.

Although the applications have been developed mainly for tourists, they will most likely be appreciated by foreign English teachers in Thailand as well — as long as you either have an iPhone/iPad, an Android device, a Blackberry, or a Nokia smartphone. Some applications are available for several different devices while some applications are only available for a specific platform.

Some of my favorite applications I have downloaded for my iPhone include:

• Amazing Thailand, which provides useful information about the most common destinations in the country, lists events, provides shopping tips, and explains the most popular dishes in the Thai cuisine.  There are also versions of Amazing Thailand for Phuket, Chiang Mai, Blissful Honeymoon, and Golf Paradise.
• Top 50 Amazing Experiences in Thailand provides great ideas for places to see and things to do while in Thailand: the Hall of Opium in the Golden Triangle Park, the National Elephant Institute, and the whitewater rafting tours in Kaeng Hin Phoeng. If you ever wonder what to do during a long weekend, this app will come to the rescue.
• Speak Thai is a personal translator with over 2,500 words that helps you communicate with Thai people anywhere and anytime. Useful sentences are grouped in nine categories, including shopping, travel, eating out, and leisure & sports. Each of the terms and sentences is shown in English, Thai, and transliterated Thai, as well as spoken to ensure you will get the pronunciation right.

The site also has links to some fun games like Som Tam Sukjai, with which you can make Som Tam on your iPad, and Muay Thai, a boxing application with a Thai twist.

If you have a smartphone, head over to TAT’s mobile applications site.

Copyblogger posted a great info graphic that lists the 15 most common grammar goofs. Perhaps you can use it in one of your next lessons to make sure your students know the differences?

Like this infographic? Get more copywriting tips from Copyblogger.

When you start digging through these search results, you’ll find a wide range of different course options, ranging from rather inexpensive online courses to full 120-hour classroom courses taking several weeks to complete.

Avoid online courses

Acquiring knowledge online has its clear advantages: you can study at your own time and in the comfort of your home. However, teaching is a skill and like any skill, you can’t really learn it by just reading about it, watching videos, and doing written exercises. Imagine trying to learn how to ride a bicycle by simply reading about it. If you want to develop a skill, you’ll have to practice it. A classroom-based course typically includes a number of evaluated practice lessons in a real world environment. The feedback you gain during those lessons will be invaluable and are guaranteed to prepare you well for your first day of teaching.

If you want to teach in Thailand, get your TEFL certificate in Thailand

Although your own home country may offer a number of high quality TEFL courses, there is a distinct advantage when you take your course in Thailand: you will learn about Thai culture and the specifics of teaching in a Thai classroom. You will also meet others who will start teaching in Thailand at about the same time as you do. Supporting each other with ideas and discussing your experiences is an important benefit, especially during the first few weeks of teaching.

A high Google rank or pretty website are no guarantees

Just because a TEFL course provider has figured out how to get a high ranking on Google doesn’t guarantee that their course is of the highest quality. Look beyond just the first page of search results. The same is true for a visually appealing website. Look beyond the sizzle. How much real information do you gain by reading a website? Do you get a feeling for how life will be as a teacher in Thailand, or are you just intrigued by the beautiful photos of the beaches you can visit during the course?

How long does the course last?

I recommend to take a full 120-hour TEFL course that will include at least 6 observed teaching lessons at a Thai school. When you look around, you will find many course providers offering 120-hour courses, but the duration of these courses vary greatly. If you see 3 weeks, this means that you’d be in the course 40 hours per week. This either will make for some very long days because you also need to spend time preparing your practice lessons or the preparation of those lessons will take up valuable classroom time. I believe 120-hour courses that stretch over 6 weeks are ideal. They leave enough room to prepare well for your practice lessons and digest the material you’ve been taught during the lecture phases.

How responsive is a course provider?

I recommend to create a shortlist of course providers you want to further explore. Then, send each of them a brief e-mail with a couple of questions like:

• How many hours of observed teaching practice does your course offer?
• What is the venue for the practice lessons? Will I be able to teach in real schools?
• Can I talk with some of your past participants about their experience during and after the course?

The responsiveness and completeness of answers will tell you a lot about each institute. If you get thorough responses in a reasonable time frame, you most likely will get the same attention during and after the course.

Ask others about your chosen TEFL course

Before committing your hard earned money to a course provider, feel free to ask others about them. There are numerous places online where teachers in Thailand exchange ideas and opinions. A great place to start is the Newbie Zone on the Ajarn.com Forum. Before doing so, however, please read the guidelines for this type of question.

May the force be with you to find the right TEFL course because it will build the foundation of your new life as an English teacher in Thailand.

If you are a teacher who has taken a TEFL course in Thailand, please feel free to share your experiences (the good, the bad, and even the ugly) in the comments below.  It will help others either finding the right TEFL course for them, or avoid the wrong one. Thank you!

I have helped to recruit teachers for a number of schools and over time have received hundreds of resumés and application letters. This post will deal with some of the most common mistakes I have seen people make.  Some of these mistakes may just be minor inconveniences for the recruiter, but some of them may cause a recruiter to delete your application right away.

Mistake #1:
Using poor English

The spelling and grammar you use in your application tells a recruiter a lot about you.  See my previous post How to NOT get a job as English Teacher for an example of a horribly composed cover letter.  Sure, that cover letter is an extreme example of poor English language skills, but as an English teacher looking for a job, you won’t be given too much room for bad English.  You will be judged by your spelling and grammar more than for most other jobs.  Make sure you double check the language in your resumé and cover letter.

Mistake #2:
Adding too many attachments

The purpose of your initial e-mail or online submission is NOT to get the job. The purpose is to open the doors and get to the second step in the recruitment process: the job interview.

All too often, applicants send e-mails with way too many attachments. I’ve processed application e-mails that had a whopping 20 MB worth of documents attached: in addition to the required resumé, they’ve included copies of their passport and even drivers license as well as all their degrees, diplomas, and certificates. In addition, some of those applicants felt compelled to send numerous photos of themselves in various school settings. Not only do such attachments take valuable disk-space on a recruiter’s computer, they also slow down incoming mail drastically.  Your first e-mail to a recruiter should only contain your resumé with photo and a cover letter. If it is compelling enough, you’ll get to the next step in the hiring process and will be asked to show your qualifying documents.

Mistake #3:
Assuming your e-mail and your resumé will stay together

I have seen many resumés that didn’t include an e-mail address and/or a telephone number. This information was only on the cover letter or in the e-mail body.  I can only assume that the applicant thought that the e-mail and the attached documents would forever stay together. They often don’t. Recruiters often save resumés on their hard drive and either archive or even delete the original e-mail (especially if they are several megabytes in size).  If a recruiter later opens your e-mail and they don’t find your contact information on the resumé, they will either have to look for the original e-mail to contact you — or worse, they simply won’t contact you.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to include your contact details (phone and e-mail) on your resumé.

Mistake #4:
Attaching your resumé in an uncommon format

Do not send your resumé or other attachments in an unusual format, like Open Office’s .odt or Apple’s .pages. Recruiters often aren’t all that computer literate and if they can’t open an attachment, they often ignore your application rather than contacting you to resend it in a format they can open. Also, do not attach your resumé as an image file (jpg, png, gif). Recruiters sometimes copy information from your resumé and paste it into their database. This is not possible with an image file and a recruiter will have type in your information. In such a situation, some will opt to just ignore your application. The best format for your document is PDF, because it’s readable across computer platforms (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux). Alternatively, a Word file (.doc or .docx) will work as well. 

Mistake #5:
Not giving your resumé a meaningful name

The most common file names I see for resumés is either “CV” or “resume”.  Recruiters typically save your document on their computer’s disk and this will require them to spend extra time adding your name to the file. A good way to save your resumé is to put your first and last name in file name of your resumé. For example “JohnSmith_CV” or “Resume_JohnSmith” or any other document name that will include your first and last name..

Mistake #6:
Submitting your application repeatedly

Don’t submit your resumé several times for the same job – it makes you look desperate, impatient, and pushy.  Trust that your submission made it the first time.  If you don’t hear back immediately (or at all), your resumé might not have matched the criteria of the recruiter.  If you do want to send it a second time, wait four or five days and then send it to the recruiter again with a note that you didn’t hear back from them and want to make sure they’ve received your resumé.  If you still don’t hear back from them, it’s safe to assume that they are not interested.

Mistake #7:
Assuming recruiters won’t look at your Facebook profile

Try this experiment: enter your e-mail address on Google as a search term.  You might be surprised at all the results you’re getting. The top links often include a link to your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profiles. Now imagine that a recruiter is doing the same thing when they receive your application. Whenever I’m helping out recruiting teachers, I do a quick search for all the candidates that have made it to the short list.  I’ve just recently removed a candidate from the short list and added their resumé to the much larger stack of rejected applications because they listed their languages on Facebook as “English, Drunk, and Gibberish”. This just sends the wrong signal to a recruiter. What may be funny to your friends may be a red flag to a recruiter.

Whenever you are looking for a job, prepare your documents and then step back and look at them through the eyes of a recruiter. Put yourself into their position of having to sift through hundred(s) of applications and do anything you can to simplify things for them while at the same time putting your best foot forward.

Good luck on your search for a suitable home for your teaching talents!

A question I often get when I talk with people interested in teaching English in Thailand is “Do I need to be able to speak Thai to be effective as a teacher?”

My answer to them is a resounding “No.”

When I went through my TEFL training, I was taught to never use the local language in the classroom. I fully agree with this advice.

I’ve discussed this point with many foreign English teachers. Those who speak some Thai and use it in the classroom defend their position by saying: “Using English in the classroom saves a lot of time. How could I possibly explain some of the things in English when the students don’t speak it all that well yet?”  I always wonder if those teacher have considered that they may be teaching above their student’s level?

A poll at Ajarn Forums back in 2005 resulted in 54 % of teachers saying “Yes, it makes a huge differene,”  23 % of teachers saying “It helps, but it’s not a big deal,” and 23 % of teachers saying “No, it makes almost no difference.”

To be clear, I highly recommend learning to speak Thai fluently to anybody who lives in Thailand. I also agree that it will make a huge difference for English teachers to speak the language well. You will not only be able to build better relationships with your Thai colleagues, but also understand what your students are gossiping about…

Nevertheless, I hold on to my opinion that Thai should not be used in the classroom.  Here is why: as I wrote in “Why do kids learn languages so easily?”  research suggests that learning words by inference is more powerful than just being told their meaning. In other words, refraining from speaking Thai in the classroom forces your students to use different muscles in their brain. They will discover the meaning of a word based on your pictures, drawings, realia, gestures, and descriptions.  Sure, it is a bit more work for you, but the results will speak for themselves, and will make you a better teacher in the long run.