By 2010 I had under my belt approaching 4 years of TEFL teaching experience in Bangkok, a further 6 months in Tokyo and a year as a Cover Supervisor in the UK. Here are some of my own personal teaching philosophies and tips for TEFL teaching in Thailand that have made all that time in a classroom relatively successful.
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By ‘relatively successful’ I mean I have been invited to have my contract extended at all the places I worked at (apart from the UK position – wasn’t applicable), I have been promoted to better paid positions, I have been given the responsibility for teaching on many corporate contracts and helped to secure more, I have enjoyed myself and most importantly I believe, I have seen my students improve in their usage of the English language – not always massive progress but progress nevertheless. Yes, of course I have made plenty of mistakes which of course is part of the improvement process.
So that is the background for some of these guiding philosophies/guidelines that have stood me in good stead. You may have your own personal ideas but this is simply what I have found has worked for me. They may well seem obvious and overly simple still, I thought they were with sharing.
1. Always take the job seriously but do not be serious. Nobody likes a serious teacher, especially in Thailand. Whilst I don’t think you should go crazy with the sanuk and be playing games all singing all dancing, I do think you should go into the classroom in a lighthearted manner. You do not know what you are going to face that day and the ability to have a bit of fun and relax on the job will be picked up on by your students who in turn will feel more relaxed and confident
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to speak. Of course, you must however take your job seriously. Dress professionally – looks go a long way in Asia and be punctual. Have lessons prepared, ideally the day before so you can simply walk into your classroom the next day and get started. Being prepared makes life as a teacher sooooo much more enjoyable it is unbelievable. Anyone who has walked into a class of 50 teenagers with nothing pre-planned will agree with me on this one!
2. Keep your students at arm’s length. OK, so this is no TEFL methodological master stroke but it serves a purpose. Getting involved with your own students generally is not a good idea. Any sort of fall out will lead to trouble and if you cause the student to lose face then you risk losing your job! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and that phrase works with Thai women too. Besides, I have found that keeping students at arm’s length leads to students respecting you more as an authority figure which means when you speak, they listen. This has excellent ramifications for classroom discipline. If you simply must date a student be as discreet as possible and if the shit hits the fan be prepared to get out of dodge asap. The Bangkok Learning Post published a comprehensive article on this issue here: Teacher – Student dating.
3. Do not worry about classroom discipline! Instead worry about engaging the students on their level with something they can
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relate to. If you do this then classroom discipline is not going to be a problem or at least it will be kept to low level disruption. I learned this lesson early on. Initially when working at a Thai government school I had real problems with this one particular group. The problem was that I was aiming the lessons way too high for them and they were responding by being disruptive. A few weeks later I’d bought everything right down to their level and was having great success engaging them with simple miming activities that they could all join in with. Students could understand what was going on and were physically involved and it was funny. An ideal combination for Thai students.
4. Do not talk, model. Whatever you want students to be doing, do it first and actually show them what you want. It doesn’t matter what it is, showing them is much easier than explaining. Remember English is not their native language, lengthy explanations ain’t gonna work anyway. Most people get this drilled into on their TEFL courses simply because it is so true!
5. Pictures. Pictures are such a great resource –cheap, easy to get hold of, don’t require a power source and can be used over and over again. There are just so many different ways of using pictures. I recommend that you develop a bank of 50-100 decent sized pictures of interesting people, places, situations and events that you can use at a moments notice. Here’s just a few ideas of how to use them: students link them together to form a story in different tenses, what happens next? What happened immediately before?
There's A lesson In There Somewhere!
Describe the picture whilst hidden to the other students who sketch it and then compare, students create a headline for the pics and so on, I’m sure you get the idea. Recently, I used pictures in my demo lesson at my current job interview in the UK and they didn’t let me down, unlike the computer presentation I had planned for an assessed lesson during my PGCE!
6. Praise the behaviour that you want. In many situations I have found that students react better towards praise than to punishment. If the class is struggling with a piece of work. Instead of bemoaning their lack of ability and telling them to work harder, praise the good work being done. Other students will then naturally begin using those pieces of works as models to work towards.
7. Make the effort with colleagues. If a Thai member of staff asks for help with something then help them. If it means that you have to stay a bit longer or whatever then do it. Once you have been labelled as ‘jai dee’ (good hearted/kind) the label tends to stick. If you repeatedly receive requests you can of course turn them down, but for me getting the other colleagues onside, Thai and Farang from the outset makes life so much easier, don’t be one of those people that bitches about every little thing.
8. Enjoy yourself. If you are enjoying yourself, then the chances are that the students are too (or at least they are unlikely to be bored senseless). For many people TEFL teaching in Thailand or anywhere else abroad might only be a short term thing that lasts only a few months. Take the opportunity to get to know your students, colleagues and the local culture. Soak it all in a learn as much as you. It will make your time there more fulfilling and you will be able to relate to students and colleagues better. It may even broaden your horizons. Oh and if you don’t enjoy it, as this person here doesn’t best make yourself scarce.
So there you go. They are a few of my leading philosophies or best practices that I generally try to abide by when teaching English in Thailand. They are not rocket science I am sure you have heard them all before somewhere in different words but essentially they have really helped me to keep my semblance of a TEFL teaching career on some sort of track. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts on best practices for TEFL teaching in Thailand so please leave a comment below…