My main goal in life has always been to figure out how to travel while getting paid to do so. During university I found out about Teaching English Abroad, and before I had even finished my degree I already knew I wanted to give this a try. As soon as I finished university I found a job doing TEFL teaching in Thailand, and I set off to the other side of the world alone to take on this new opportunity.

My grade one class on Christmas Eve, some of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen!

I want to start by saying I’m happy I had the experience and I enjoyed my time at the school. It could be a bit hectic and disorganized, but that’s essentially my entire life. I have no regrets about my English teaching experience, as it has led me to so many other opportunities and allowed me to discover my love of Thailand. While I loved it and wouldn’t take anything back, it definitely was not exactly what I was expecting for my Thailand TEFL adventure…

Let’s back up a bit, if you’re not familiar, TEFL means Teaching English as a Foreign Language. This is an extra certificate you can take in order to teach English in countries where native teachers are needed. English is becoming so important in a lot of these countries, and they are trying to raise the quality of the education so more students learn English properly. A university degree isn’t necessary, but majority of countries require you have a degree in order to get a legal work permit. This degree doesn’t have to be related to education in any way, it just has to be a degree from an accredited university. It is possible to find a job without a degree, but your options will be limited and some will have you work illegally. So while you don’t have to have it, it gives you a lot more opportunities and makes life a lot easier.

I ended up taking the TEFL course at the same time I was doing university, as it was COVID and I had a lot of time on my hands. There are two options for the TEFL course, you can either take it online or in-person. I opted for the online option, as I prefer to learn at my own pace. I’m not going to go into details of getting your TEFL or getting your visa and work permit in this article, as that will be a separate one. Make sure to follow along if you’re interested in TEFL certification tips! As soon as I finished I started applying to jobs and ended up with offers from Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Having a TEFL in Southeast Asia opens up opportunities in lots of countries. I ultimately chose Thailand for multiple reasons, and booked a flight for a few weeks later. Pro tip: If you’re someone with a TEFL looking for a job, I personally found there is a huge TEFL job market in Thailand compared to other countries in Southeast Asia. This is a great place to look if you’re searching for a new opportunity!

The reality of teaching English in Thailand set in very quickly after accepting the offer and signing the contract. When I accepted the offer, I was told I would be teaching in-person high school English at a private Thai school. I would be teaching in the English program, meaning all their classes were taken in English aside from one Thai class per day. I wasn’t overly picky about age group or subject, as I was just excited to have a job in a foreign country. I had to do a two week quarantine when I arrived (even less fun than it sounds) so I had a bit of time to settle in before I actually started teaching. Well, since my initial meeting only a few weeks before, a lot had changed.

Things in Thailand change constantly and without warning.

I found out that schools had been moved to online delivery because of COVID, so I would not be in a classroom but instead teaching from my laptop for the time being. Ok, no big deal. Next, I was informed by the school that I would not be teaching high school or English, I would actually be teaching primary school math and science. A bit of a surprise, but again I was trying to embrace the experience and accept whatever happened. After leaving quarantine and getting to my new apartment, I found out Wifi isn’t automatically installed and I would have to wait at least a few weeks. I was meant to start teaching the next morning. My landlord suggested I hotspot my laptop with my local SIM card for the time being. I went to 711 to buy a SIM card, no one spoke English and I had no idea what I had bought or if it had enough data for teaching. I chose the most expensive one and hoped for the best. After that I went home, called my Mom and had a good old cry. Partly overwhelmed from leaving my hotel for the first time in two weeks and partly overwhelmed just being in a foreign country very far from home where no one understood me when I spoke. After some tears and moral support from my Mom, I got my shit together and remembered this is what I have always dreamed of doing and anything that’s worth it isn’t easy.

What I would come to learn over the next year is that everything is always changing and you never know what might happen. In order to be a teacher in Thailand, you have to be able to roll with the punches. I ended up teaching online for the first four months I was there, not the most ideal situation but that was the reality of COVID. I won’t go into the online teaching experience too much as that was due to COVID, but if you guys are interested I can write an article all about that as well!

Each grade had a Thai Teaching Assistant, their role was essentially to keep the kids focused and deal with any discipline if necessary. They would also translate if needed. Some TA’s were very helpful, others just let the kids run wild and some were more disruptive than my students. I personally never had any big issues with my TA’s but there was definitely some drama that went on with other staff members. It is definitely necessary to have a TA of some sort, as some of the kids English was VERY limited so they got lost and fast.

The workbooks were the literal bane of my existence.

Each class and subject had its own workbook, and the only parameters we had were to finish the workbooks by each exam. There is no curriculum or someone to tell you what to do or how to do it, you literally have to get creative. If you are someone that doesn’t do well figuring things out on your own, you may want to rethink TEFL teaching. Maybe other countries are different, but I have heard the same thing from many friends who did the same thing. I personally didn’t mind, as I prefer to work independently, but it was a bit overwhelming at the start trying to figure out what the heck I was supposed to be doing.

The workbooks were frustrating because they were one of two extremes. There was either so much material that it was nearly impossible to get it all done before the exam while making sure the kids actually understood. You ended up having to go so fast that a lot of kids fell behind and didn’t properly understand the material. The TA’s didn’t care, they only cared that the books were filled out. You could assign sections as homework, but the kids often didn’t do it and TA’s didn’t enforce it. So then you had to go through it in class anyways as there could be no blank sections in their books. The other extreme was there was so little material you could finish it in a week and then you need to figure out how you’re going to occupy the rest of your class time. I gained a whole new appreciation for teachers here as planning and creating stuff takes SO MUCH TIME! So yeah, long story short the books could be very frustrating.

Speaking English was in fact not a requirement of getting into the school’s English program.

Another interesting thing that happened was the school accepted kids into the English program at any age and regardless of experience. There are of course a lot of ESL teaching challenges, and this just added to the list. I remember I had a student added to my P6 class (age group 13 – 14) who had never been in an English program before. I was told the parents wanted them to learn English, but I had 27 other students so I unfortunately did not have time to give them one-on-one help during class. There were multiple students like this one, some being put in the program late and some who had just fallen behind when they were young and never caught up.

Did I mention no one can fail? So even the kids who don’t understand any English get pushed along to the next grade each year and get more and more behind. It’s unfortunate to see, as they aren’t learning English or any of the subjects. I think about it like this, if you put me in a grade one science class taught in Thai I wouldn’t do well, not because I’m not smart but because I have no clue what’s going on. It’s unfortunate but another one of those things that we had no control of. If you’re wondering how these kids passed exams, they wrote the same exam over and over until they got a passing mark. Sometimes TA’s would eventually just do it for them, but they made sure on paper everyone had “passed” one way or another.

Days can be long and boring.

Next let’s talk about the working conditions. We were required to be at school from 7:30 am until 4:30 pm, an hour before and after the first class started and the last class ended. We only taught 18 – 20 hours per week, so there was a lot of downtime. We had to mark all the books, but majority we went through together in class so that didn’t take long. I mentioned before that lots of classes had books with way too much material, so you couldn’t even plan extra activities as you wouldn’t have time to do them. There were 6 foreign teachers at my school in my department, and we all shared a room with all of our desks in it. We all had our own desk so I spent most of my time either marking books, planning activities or classes with small books or keeping myself entertained on the internet.

The school provided us lunch everyday as part of our teaching contract, and it was normally quite good. On chicken feet days I would opt for a 711 toastie, but normally I enjoyed the lunches the school provided. Meals were often spicy which was not a problem for me, but if you don’t like spicy food you would be limited to only rice for lots of meals. There were cheap food stalls around the school so if I wanted something different it wasn’t hard to find.

We got a couple of holidays and breaks, but we would find out about them a couple days in advance normally so not the easiest to plan. At one point, a friend and I booked a vacation when we were supposed to have the week off and they adjusted the dates about 2 days before. It all ended up working out in the end as we were able to adjust our dates but it could be super frustrating how poor the communication to foreign teachers was. Thai school culture is very different than anything I’ve experienced, and it could feel very confusing at times. I didn’t even know when the last day of school was until about 2 weeks before. That was super fun to try to plan how many pages were required per day to finish the books when you didn’t know how many days you had.

My students decided they would all draw me one day. They definitely aren’t Picassos but that’s okay.

I realize that a lot of this might sound a bit negative, and I want to reinforce that it was not all bad. The kids we had were great and they were always so excited to see us. I did some cool creative projects that they loved and we had fun together. It was also a once in a lifetime experience, so I don’t regret doing it at all. It definitely is not for the faint of heart, as it is constantly changing and can be overwhelming at times. I’ve got an article with English teacher survival tips in progress, so keep an eye out for that to help you prepare. Some schools are much more organized than others as well, but you’ll come to learn things in Thailand in general tend to be unpredictable. I would totally recommend teaching English in Thai schools, just make sure you’re prepared!

I’ll do another article on the process of getting certified, finding jobs and all of that fun stuff. I’ve also got a few funny ESL classroom stories which I’ll definitely share at some point. All my blog posts are announced on my socials (@travellingaly) so make sure you follow me there. If you’ve got any questions about TEFL teaching or similar English teaching experiences let me know in the comments!