TEFL in Southern Thailand.

Date posted:2005-04-06 | Writer: Arundel Language Institute | Email: [email protected]

We are presently looking for teachers to fill up-coming vacancies to teach our Semi-International Programmeô due to start in the second week of May. Teachers work on a one-year (renewable) contract, teach up to 27 and a half hours per week (the teaching hours vary from two to six hours per day, five and a half days per week, teachers are free to go home once they have completed their daily teaching hours). 8 weeks paid holiday per one-year contract, with one month off during the summer break mid-March to mid-May, then another full month off in October. There are also 16 public holidays throughout the year that we observe, totaling to over ten weeks paid holiday. Remuneration works out to a monthly average of over 30, 000 Baht. Base salary is 25, 000 Baht per month, with additional working bonus of 210 Baht per day for each working day and overtime of 300 Baht per hour for monthly teaching hours in excess of 110 hours. We provide work permits and teachersí licenses for teachers appropriately qualified.

We teach the Semi-International Programme, which is a curriculum and package provided to primary schools in the area. I'll explain a little about the package before getting on to the curriculum. We have our own S.I.P. room within each primary school, decorated and furnished with an environment conductive to learning and teaching, whereby all classes of the primary school come to our room to study from one to two hours of S.I.P. English classes per week. All our classes have classroom assistants (employed by us) working with the native English speaking teacher.

Once a year we select students from each school to join a study tour to an English speaking country. We pay all fees for the trip. This trip is aimed at giving at least some students first-hand knowledge that only English is actually used in some countries.

The S.I.P. incorporates an English language curriculum for primary students who attend one to two periods of 'Coaching' per week alongside their regular classes at school.

The idea behind the S.I.P. is to teach English through subjects other than English in which students can take an active part. There are plenty of hands-on activities and experiments for children to do by themselves. Lessons are not tied to a strict time-frame, which means that students are free to progress at their own pace.

Over the years, we found that the traditional Thai approach to teaching English through structure and grammar had little effect on improving primary studentsí English ability, so we set about discovering why. We found that students here had little to no need for English in their everyday lives, so it stood to reason that they had little interested in this foreign language. The fact that English is a very intangible subject did little to help this unfortunate situation. We found a solution to this problem by using subjects that students naturally liked and enjoyed, subjects like science, which they could become so engrossed in that they would actually forget themselves and the fact that they were learning English.

I hope this gives you an insight into what we are trying to achieve over here, and that it may wet your appetite to come over and join us.

Please send expressions of interest by e-mail to: [email protected] with a telephone number where I can reach you.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Simon A. Jack Director, Arundel Language Institute