Teaching in Udon Thani

Hi,
Over a year ago i was asked to do some teaching in Udon. At the time i had just read on the board that full time teachers in LOS were only getting 10,000B a month. So i declined. Not worth the effort.
The bloke next door, his father is English and mother Thai, has just started part time teaching in N.K. this term. He works 22hrs a week and his pay is 25,000B a month. He lives in N.K. now, and has just been back for the half term holidays.
Moral of this story is, don't believe everything that people say on the board. Check it out for yourself before deciding. I think i might have taken the job based on the facts i know now. But the horse has bolted.
Cheers Doug.

I must admit that I cannot recall a post where someone said that the salary of teachers was 10K a month.
That is certainly not a figure that would have entered my mind if anyone asked the question. I certainly thought that the figure was far closer to 30K a month - even in Issan.
I think anyone who has taught in Thailand would have told you to have been wary about the hours quoted though. My understanding is that a 22 hour week quickly actually stretches to many more hours than that due to the requirements of the job.

If the teacher pay question was asked I would have thought that someone would have mentioned the couple of English language web sites that are only related to teaching positions. There are also a couple of companies who produce salary earnings by profession on a yearly basis that are extremely reliable.

Personally I have always found the map a very good source of reliable information. BUT you have to be very careful that a poster is comparing apples with apples. A slight change in details can result in a very different outcome & experience. Personal experience is always a good starting point for a discussion but, as you discovered, believing that 1 experience will mirror your own is a dangerous thing to assume..

I have never read a post with the salary so low.I am surprised you accepted it at face value,I live in NK and know the schools very well.That pay scale of 10k sounds like a private school pay for a relatively new teacher that is Thai with other benefits included!
25k seems to be what the going rate here is for falangs and then many,though reasonably competent,don't get a contract renewal.
My daughter has finished her high schooling,so I am not in touch with what is happening this year.but there is an International program that started last year and I was told by a local falang involved in education in Thailand a long time,that the school had asked him to help them find good teachers for their program.He made some calls to Bangkok to teachers of International school classes that were really interested in leaving Bangkok.But he was embarrassed when the school offered them no more than 25k!
He said that he bowed out of the situation with apologies to those he called!
I know that they pulled the English speaking teachers out of my daughters classes to fill gaps in there IP last year,leaving my daughters classes with no teachers and class most of her last year as they wandered around campus all day just hanging out.
I don't know any of the students in the IP,but I do know most of my daughters so called teachers and although some had partial English language skills,my daughter always had to interpret my conversations for them!So I wonder how they were of any effect in the IP program?

hiya Doug
as an ex Bi Lingual teacher, I have been following the teacher vacancies in Thailand for about 5yrs now. Generally the lowest wage price is 25,000, but 30, 40 and 60,000 are there everyday on International Teacher sites. I was looking yesterday and saw a number of 30,000 positions for English Teachers, 7.30am to 4.30pm, no accomodation, you pay the taxes, but they will get your visa, and work permit..

I can only assume that perhaps the post you saw should have read 10,000 a week, and not a month, because 40,000 baht was the going rate, before the Government tightened up on foreign teachers qualifications...if you want a job teaching they are there. I have met fellas who have just walked off the street in Udon, and presented themselves to a school, and got a job with no previous experience..

its not an easy job thats for sure, hours do blow out, and weekends are taken up, so you need to be 100% committed.

Hi,
Thanks for your replies. I thought this was a bit low. The lady out of my daughters school asked me, i had just read a post the night before about a new rest. openning and the top class chef their, was getting above 60,000B a month. Can't recall the exact figure. The people who replied to this, thought this was a bit high as teachers only got 10,000B a month. I know i should have asked her the wages etc., but at the time i was not interested.
I used to work in a College, for the last 18 years of my working life. The pay for, part time, lect. up to and including first year university level in electronics and electricial was 25GBP an hour, in 2005. Mind you, you did not get paid for all the pre-work you had to put in. First year was the hardest, after that it was a lot easier if you had kept your notes.
I think as i am now past 70 i should take life easy. House car and all else is paid for and my pensions now come to over 15,000GBP per year. Time to rest and let the young bucks take care of the work.(sorry for swearing by using that four letter word.)
Cheers Doug.

Hello Douglas,
The usual salary per month for an English teacher (N.E.S.),is 30,000B.Usually for 18 hours of teaching per week.In a really good school,this can go up to 32,000.These are for Govt.schools in and around cities .Out in the sticks,the wages are around 25.000 or 26.000B.But with more teaching periods.There are teaching jobs being advertised on the Ajarn website at 15,000B.per month.You would have to be insane or desperately broke to work for 15,000B.

Doug, I cannot recall a post that said 10k Baht either; I would have commented had I seen one. The norm is 30k+. In an International School, up to 90+ is the norm. Sorry, but as you are 70 you would almost certainly not get a teaching job at a school anyway.

Still, it's all nonsense. If OT was a teacher - which he often is here - he'd donate anything less than 47k a month for a 25 hour working week, depending on the exchange rate and what currency we are talking about, to charity.
The problem is with you douglas is that the children would never connect with your teaching abilities, because of your age gap with the pupils as mentioned before, probably why at a stretch someone suggested you could earn 10k a month. No pension scheme though.


OT....................

There are agencies in Thailand that let tourists pay so they can come to Thailand on a holiday to do some volunteer teaching. Think of it, they actually pay money to teach here.

On the other hand... Most Farang teachers who actually have a teaching job here, haven't got a degree in education, but only completed some hobby course (TEFL) for amateurs.

So, some pay to teach while others get a salary. However, there won't be much difference in teaching skills.

Frankie that is a generalisation of the current situation and I am afraid as per usual those with limited knowledge have it wrong again. Yes there are some teachers here who only have a TEFL, but that number is declining due to the MOE stipulating more stringent requirements. Some directors of schools, poo poo the new measures but in the main, the main stream schools do not.
It is to be stated that as in all things Thailand is slow coming off the starting blocks and they have been critised by many people including ASEAN and the british Council for NOT doing more to enhance the standard of English teaching they still cling to the old tried and tested ways which produce students with very poor english skills.
As for the rest of the curriculum it is as bad so much so that in the coming years with Thailand having signed up to a vast measure of things which will ease restrictions on workers and the like the Thai nation will suffer as their educational standards broadly fall way below other ASEAN member states.

This is Thailand and as we have seen they still think they are better than opthers, well soon they will find out labourers they can supply in vast quantities but educated and a skillful workforce they aren't.

Khun Paul wrote:Yes there are some teachers here who only have a TEFL, but that number is declining due to the MOE stipulating more stringent requirements. Some directors of schools, poo poo the new measures but in the main, the main stream schools do not.

I think that there are simply not enough Farang in Thailand with a degree in education for all the teaching jobs available here. Most TEFL courses are "no fail" courses, and for convenience only teach old-fashioned PPP style lessons, so the skills of Farang "teachers" with a TEFL certificate will probably stay at a low level.

As for Thai people and English skills.
Wake up. The English language doesn't have a priority in rural Thailand. Why would it be important for them? In Isan, people are already bi-lingual (Lao and Thai) and there isn't much motivation to learn an additional language, which they will probably never use in daily life.

Frankie 1 wrote:

Khun Paul wrote:Yes there are some teachers here who only have a TEFL, but that number is declining due to the MOE stipulating more stringent requirements. Some directors of schools, poo poo the new measures but in the main, the main stream schools do not.

I think that there are simply not enough Farang in Thailand with a degree in education for all the teaching jobs available here. Most TEFL courses are "no fail" courses, and for convenience only teach old-fashioned PPP style lessons, so the skills of Farang "teachers" with a TEFL certificate will probably stay at a low level.

As for Thai people and English skills.
Wake up. The English language doesn't have a priority in rural Thailand. Why would it be important for them? In Isan, people are already bi-lingual (Lao and Thai) and there isn't much motivation to learn an additional language, which they will probably never use in daily life.

Frankie, do you seriously know what you are talking about? I have a degree, 3x post grad diplomas and over 30 years teaching experience. My TEFL course ended up teaching me a lot. In the end I ended up teaching TEFL courses for a while as well. Seriously, I am not having a go at you, but comments like that are ignorant. Do you have any experience in the area? By the way, I failed a number of students for various reasons as did my predecessor.

rufus wrote:Frankie, do you seriously know what you are talking about? I have a degree, 3x post grad diplomas and over 30 years teaching experience. My TEFL course ended up teaching me a lot. In the end I ended up teaching TEFL courses for a while as well. Seriously, I am not having a go at you, but comments like that are ignorant. Do you have any experience in the area? By the way, I failed a number of students for various reasons as did my predecessor.

Yes, I did a TEFL course myself in Bkk a couple of years ago, and know several teachers in Bkk. You are probable one of the few people with more knowledge.

However (I am not having a go at you eiter), howcome that when you have a degree (in what?) and 30 years of teaching experience (teaching which subject?), that a beginners course (TEFL) teaches you a lot? That's a bit strange. Then what kind of teaching methods did you use in those 30 years?

Yes, there are teachers who have a degree, but not in education, and not in teaching English.

The TEFL course is a good survival course for beginners, but it won't make you a teacher. Just like a first-aid course won't make you a doctor.

I agree with Pauls comments about the education standard decreasing in Thailand, it is of great concern to me as I have a young son due to start school in a couple of years.
Why is the standard decreasing? Is it the minority 3% wealthy elite Thais that can afford to get educated OS, the same that control most of the wealth in the country, the same that can change governments and so on. Do these people want the greater population uneducated so they never learn how to ask the question WHY. Until Thais learn to speak up against corruption and are not afraid to ask, 'why do I have to pay you' things will never change, and I believe that is how the elite want it to remain, it gives them control of the countries wealth so I cant see it improving in the short term.
Most Thais have no education in history, geography, politics and the world in general and dont seem to want to know, this appathy is ground into them because of the poor education standard only, I sincerly hope they can improve the system because SE Asia will and is leaving them behind.