All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Wonderful strange stories from around the world

A Class Apart

The English are renowned for failing to learn other languages, preferring to shout even louder at uncomprehending foreigners. So why any of them would want to teach English language is something of a mystery.

It is a hereditary thing? An intuitive calling to a righteous and noble career? To do good, to nourish other minds? Or is it just a convenient way of being paid to see the planet before settling down to, well, more important things.

Whatever the motivation, English teachers form a sizeable community of expats here, although they are quite separate from Bangkok’s legions of company men and their families. But they remain the target of cynics, who, at dinner parties, delight in trotting out that exhausted cliché, “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach.”

Funnily enough, many cynics are incapable of either. For that’s what a cynic does best; nothing.

But wait. This is Bangkok now, and for many teachers I know, the job if less of a calling and more of a means of survival. It might only turn into a calling after they’ve struggled through the toxic assault and crossed town in a sprightly four days, only to be paid the princely sum of Bt 250 an hour.

But there is also a class structure within the teaching community in Bangkok, and I am not so much concerned here with the career teacher employed by international schools or meaningful universities - both of which recruit the vast majority of their teachers overseas, and who require more qualifications and special expertise than a fighter pilot. No, I’m interested in the “underground” - that circuit of teaching that doesn’t officially exist in this city, but actually numbers something around 3,000 people - most of them men. Whatever its legal status, freelance, private teaching is a thriving, vital service that has nothing to do with school ties, bells, and assembly at 7 a.m. I know this because I was one.

Freelance teachers are an interesting species. Indeed, David Attenborough’s upcoming nature series, Teacher Spotting on the Great Sukhumvit Massif, is a fascinating study of this peculiar tribe:

“It was in places like this, millions of years ago, that TEFL man was first seen. Shy, nocturnal creatures, they like to drink copiously and dribble a lot. They tend to be tall, thin, pallid, and sweaty, and they carry briefcases and have a glazed look which suggests they’re lost in space but deep in therapy. They move uncertainly through the Bangkok throng, and can be seen planning lessons and muttering to themselves at bus stops, “I have a cat, you have a cat…”

So, for those of you who have just arrived in Bangkok and your TEFL certificate is beginning to smudge under your overheated armpit as you do the rounds of the language schools in Siam Square, let me offer a few tips, observations, and lies to remember.

LESSON 1

WHY BE A TEACHER IN BANGKOK IN THE FIRST PLACE FOR GOD’S SAKE?
Money? Doubtful.
Altruism? Possibly.
Sex? Quite likely.

The reasons are myriad, the outcome uncertain. Qualified or not, most teachers arrive here thinking a semi-colon is an intestinal problem - and nearly all leave believing it is. That’s usually all they have left.
Some people are passing through and use teaching as a means to dip into the culture and move on. But the vast majority of teachers who plan to stay awhile have to be wrung through the language school system to learn the ropes, pay the rent, and gain valuable experience at the coalface. As their contacts expand and their confidence grows, their livers start to buckle. Then they nick a couple of students from the company and voila - they’re in business.
And the true beauty about being a private teacher is that one is not bound by any curriculum. It’s loose, free, and comes under the vague heading of English Conversation.
And think about it; what other job could possibly take you into the very heart of Thai society - from the rich to the poor, from the hotels and the big boy companies, to the private home and the slum?
Answer? None.
Come. Let’s be honest. This is life, this is not a rehearsal. We want to thrive not survive. Which brings us to the subject of…

LESSON 2
THE ‘BAHTABILITY FACTOR’
It varies, but if, after a year, you’re still making less than Bt250 and hour, it’s time for a serious reality check. This is rice money, and I sincerely hope you’re not teaching “Business” English. If you aren’t making it, how the hell do you expect your students to?
There are private teachers out there making up to Bt1,000 an hour. I know some teachers who won’t get out of bed for less than Bt500. actually, I know some teachers who won’t get out of bed at all.
Greedy? Arrogant? I don’t think so. In this mad metropolis the first rule of survival for the private teacher-indeed for everyone- is to work smart, not hard.
So, depending, on qualifications, persistence, lying, and serious groveling, one’s monthly income can oscillate anywhere between Bt20,000 and Bt50,000 a month. If you’re making less than the former, get out of bed this minute! And if you’re making the latter, give me a call right now!

LESSON 3
THE OFFICIAL ALTERNATIVE
During a job interview at a language school, when they’ve just offered you Bt150 and hour for three months while “on probation” (a cheap trick which can make you feel guilty having spent $2,500 on a TEFL course that actually qualifies you to be teacher), feel perfectly free to ask the interviewer what his qualifications are.
Then look and see if the carpets are nailed to the floor.
Oh, and don’t forget to ask him what the school is charging the student. If he tells you, he’s probably lying. If he refuses, then you know he is.
With these experiences you will quickly discover that language schools are neither altruistic nor charitable institutions. They are a business. Know your worth; it can get messy out there.

LESSON 4
GET TO KNOW YOUR STUDENTS
Evaluation is very important. To get the most out of a company’s staff, it’s important that the students are at the same level of understanding, ignorance, or both. To achieve this, a brief interview with each student will be very helpful in deciding which class level they should attend.
“What’s your name?”
“OK, fine. Where are you from?”
“I’m 17, next month”
Yes. Right. Elementary, I think. Next?
I asked one stunningly beautiful Thai girl at a certain company that sells books if she spoke any English. She smiled and replied in the affirmative. My knees buckled. I asked her to give me an example of her command of the language. She only knew one sentence, but said it perfectly:
“The man over there will pay.”

LESSON 5
TEACHER TYPES AND TRAITS
You can always tell the health of a teacher by looking at his mouth. If it’s shut he’s dead. You can also spot them from two hundred meters away, and it’s usually the diet that gives them away; rice, Singha beer, and Swan’s Practical English Usage.
Type 1: They look awful. They’re always ill. They are on a mission. They actually study the curriculum, and I’ve heard that some even sleep with it. But like do-gooders who hit the go-go bars and recoil in horror, they always fail to notice the obvious; the students and whores aren’t the problem - and they certainly aren’t the solution. These teachers and academic. You meet them in bars and on buses. They talk to you with enthusiasm, you nod in agreement, and then nod off with boredom. If they have this effect on their own contemporaries, imagine the effect they have on their students.
Type 2: They hail from North Yorkshire and Southern Alabama. They come equipped with an extremity of accents that even their own mothers would have difficulty deciphering. Both sound as if they have just drunk either 15 pints of and they wonder why 30 of their students have fallen asleep and 17 never turned up at all.
Type 3: The Renaissance teacher. If language teaching is about anything, it’s, about communication. It’s both the medium and the message. The Renaissance teacher knows this instinctively. He may be pony-tailed, slightly eccentric, and have a library of past lives you wouldn’t want to show your mother, but nonetheless, he’s interesting and interested. He entertains as he teaches, and his teaching is entertaining.
He is aware that Thais are a fun-loving people, and that when he arrives for class, his students have already worked things on a whiteboard. So he throws the Cambridge Book of Mind numbing Exercises over his shoulder and says with a grin,
“Let’s learn this thing together.”
The Renaissance teacher has both the props and the direction, but it’s his spontaneity that ignites the magic and inspires the student. Money is usually the furthest thing from his mind - and, more often, his wallet. Most of these independent characters are funny, self-effacing, and love what they are doing. They are wired differently. And thank God for that; this city needs them.

LESSON 6
CANCELLATION EXCUSES
In any culture cancellations are a hassle. In Thailand they are a riot. For the private teacher they are an alien virus that can strike at any time. The diary may look healthy at the beginning of the month. Sums are done on the back of beermats and envelopes. Things look peachy. You may even be able to make the rent. And then the phone rings.
“Me no come.” Click.
“Solly teacher of the colon. But come tomorrow.” Click. Teachers need their escape routes too.
“No..” Click.
“Can’t find you.” Click. (Never tried).
“In Penang.” Click.

LESSON 7
NIGHTMARE 1: THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR
“What was that again officer? Brian Smith did you say? His work permit? Ah, yes, terribly sorry. Accident you know. Didn’t see a thing, but I heard it was awful. He flew to Zimbabwe for brain surgery. No, he wasn’t flying the plane himself. Gosh! Is that the time?”

LESSON 8
NIGHTMARE 2: CAUGHT ON THE JOB
Being seen at 5.30 am outside the Thermae squashed in a tuk-tuk with four girls who are giggling in your ear. An expensive car pulls up alongside. A rear window winds down. It’s one of your female students. She is accompanying her parents to the local wat.
“Hello Teacher,” your pupil says brightly.
The parents say nothing. They don’t have to. Their expressions say it all; a facial cocktail of horror and disgust.
The girls wave. You cringe. And there’s absolutely nowhere to hide. Busted.
Hours later you wake up from a sweat-drenched nightmare. You go to the bathroom and look into the mirror, and your worst fears are confirmed. There is no reflection. You have lost face. All of it.

LESSON 9
THE BENEFITS OF AN UNOFFICIAL PROFESSION
Let's put it this way. If you come to Thailand as backpacker, what do you really see? Who do you really meet?
You meet other backpackers. Often in brain-dead bars watching bad, loud, videos, You see temples and beaches and more backpackers. But do you touch the culture, and does it really get a chance to touch you?
Equally, if you’re sent here as an architect, an engineer, an adman, or an administrator, the chances are you will be housed, driven, and catered for. You may socialize at swish hotels in refined settings and get to meet important, corporate people, but it’s a sterile, hermetically-sealed existence. If your ambition is to truly immerse yourself into the very heartbeat of Bangkok, then nothing comes close to being a language teacher.
I have taught in private homes and public hospitals, huge companies and tiny offices. I’ve taught slum kids and hill tribe kids, and farmers sons and street vendors daughters. I have visited hundreds of Thai people in their own environment, to teach them this ridiculous language with its absurd rules and quirky meanings. I have glimpsed their realities, even though I will always be in the shadow of the meanings that forge them. I feel honored and privileged to have taught these people, and immeasurably enriched by their warmth, shyness, and beauty.
And I’ve even been paid for it when I remembered to get out of bed.

By Roger Beaumont

Prior | Tell us what you think | Next

Add to Your Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us Digg Furl Reddit Simpy Spurl Y! MyWeb - StumbleUpon