TEFL Phuket News

Imagine that you are the General Manager of a resort in Phuket. 95% of your guests are English speakers but only about 10% of your staff is able to speak English well enough to understand and respond to the most basic of guest requests. The majority of your staff ends up constantly bugging that 10% to ask them to help communicate. Again, this is for simple guest questions about directions, needs or general information. Your number one complaint among your guests is lack of communication with staff. Would you, as the GM be interested in improving your staff’s English?

This is an actual situation we were able to remedy with a 5 star resort in Phuket. We have conducted several classes for them thus far, and they have re-booked our teachers with an aim to improve the English skills of their staff over the long term. Phuket is an international top-ten travel destination. Managers of resorts, restaurants and other businesses know that English = Money.

We currently have 9 contracts of this type of position in Phuket that we can not meet, due to the lack of teaching talent. These jobs are great jobs, working with motivated students and with good salaries & nice benefits in posh settings.

We were recently contacted to provide an English Teacher for a resort on Phi Phi Island. Phi Phi is one of the “can’t miss” destinations for travelers to Southern Thailand. The job included room and board and the schedule was for about 5 hours of teaching 6 days a week – all on an hourly rate of 300 baht each hour. Non-teaching time is free time and there is plenty to do on Phi Phi. They have some of the best full moon beach parties in all of Thailand. This is the type of dream job that comes up all the time in Thailand.

Maybe you want to work at a school. There was a recent article in the Phukette Gazette by the head of Phuket’s Ministry of Education branch. He detailed the over 400-person teacher shortage, primarily in the field of English teaching. Yes, there are plenty of jobs here in Phuket and Thailand at large. We work with a local foundation that has a mandate to fund English education in our local schools, so our school opportunities are among the best in Thailand, too.

The job scene in your home country may not be what it once was, but the job market for English teachers in Asia is extremely good. Consider that it is widely reported that more than a billion people worldwide are attempting to learn English. In China, alone, there are more people studying English than there are American citizens.

Yes, with our help, you can easily find a job. If so, then do you really need a TEFL course? There are several benefits to TEFL:

First - you learn how to be a good teacher. Speaking English fluently does not automatically mean you can teach English. You may have the best of intentions, but you’ll inadvertently end up harming your students without formal training. You need familiarity with the nuts and bolts of teaching English and practice with actual students. Our course is designed to give you both competence and confidence. We have you student teach more than any other course in Thailand, and there is little comparison to on-line only TEFL courses. Would you trust a well-read mechanic who had never held a wrench?

We provide classroom teaching experience which fully prepares you for actual English teaching. Unqualified teachers make the educational process unnecessarily difficult, and at the end of the day it’s the students who suffer. Students and their employers pay well for English lessons and they deserve to have a teacher who knows what he or she is doing.

Second, potential employers are wary of transient types looking only for a quick buck and having no experience or training. They know these people cannot teach and it is a waste of time to hire them. They have probably been burned in the past.

Employers look for a serious commitment to teaching professionalism and proof of qualifications. To gain English teaching employment in Asia, TEFL is a must. A TEFL is required to teach in Thailand and many other Asian countries.

Third, when you register with us, you have a team of experts on the ground working for you. We know about the best jobs, the situations to avoid, how to work out a visa, where to live, and much more. We continually contact our grads about job opportunities.

In short, the students benefit from your professionalism, you benefit by outshining your competition for teaching jobs and your transition to teaching English in Thailand or Asia is smooth. Our mission is your teaching success and we stand behind our graduates. We have a reputation to protect, so will make sure you can teach and that the job you get is a good fit for you – everybody wins.

Our total package of TEFL Course + basic housing comes to US$1400. This is the least expensive TEFL course in Phuket and the best deal in all of Thailand. We have openings in our courses starting this Fall, but our courses tend to fill quickly, as we run smaller class sized to focus on our students’ learning.

Go online to www.TEFLPhuket.com, visit our enroll page, submit your details, and use Paypal to send your $400 deposit to info@teflphuket.com. We can also process credit cards, if you prefer to pay that way. Just drop us a line with your phone number, and we’ll give you a buzz: info@TEFLPhuket.com

See you in Teacher’s paradise soon!

Who takes our classes? Who wants to learn English? Who will you be teaching? All good questions if you are interested in a teaching career teaching English in Asia or especially teaching English in Thailand. As a TEFL course student, it is nice to know who you might be working with.
Our students are a mix of both Thai natives and foreigners who live here or are on vacation. Here is a sampling of each:

Marci is 28 and from France. She is a manager at a series of foreign-owned hotels here in Phuket, Thailand. Many of her guests speak English and she does also. She is taking classes to improve her conversational skills so she can be more successful in her job and be more hospitable with her guests. She takes classes 5 mornings a week and has a private instructor from the school here. Their daily class can consist of a glance at the paper, which provides course content for her lesson. She is working on improving her pronunciation and usage of English in a broader, more general knowledge sense.

Nam is 25 and is Thai. She, too is a business person. She has a cute little souvenir and flower shop on the beach in Kamala. She knows speaking English is indispensable to her in being able to be a better salesperson with her foreign customers. She started in one of our group English classes and converted to a private, one-on-one class to work more intensely and make progress better. She is a very well motivated student and is a treat to have as a client.

Fung, Lek, and Fon are brothers and sister. They come from a locally established family who has aspirati0ons of them being able to study at one of Thailand’s better universities. They are 10, 11 1nd 13 respectively. The family believes strongly in education and this shows in their practicing English on each other in the evenings. It was related to us, that even their dad joins their study sessions after his work every day. So nice to experience a culture of commitment to learning - it is pervasive throughout all of our students.

Aom is a twenty-something mom who wants to travel with her husband to the US and UK. She is serious about picking up some English, but is not too interested in grammar. She is really motivated to master the everyday conversational situations she will face when traveling abroad. At times, she initiates a drill in which she asks to go over the material again to perfect the pronunication. Her smile and laughter are infectious, especially when she speaks of her daughter, Boo.

Finally, there is George. He is a Thai and maybe about 55. He is retired from the ferry business and very laid back. He is learning English in one of our small groups with other more younger students. Part-way through the class, we ask the students why they are learning. George’s response was that he always heard his passenegers speaking English, and knew a little by picking it up as he could, but he thought it was time to learn the right way. When asked why now, he said he finally had the time and would like to be able to talk to people as he met them around town. George is a very genial man and you may get a chance to meet him, if you join us for a TEFL course.

So, as you can easily see, our students are wonderful. They are a complete joy to be with and it is fun to help them reach some of their life goals. Why not make this part of your life and sign up for your TEFL now! Phuket is a paradise - especially the wonderful Thai people.