Teaching English in Chiang Mai, Thailand - My travel diary

Dear Steemit friends!

Today I am going to tell you about my teaching experience in Chiang Mai and how everybody can do that without a teaching background.

Back in Austria, I studied pharmacy but soon I realized that this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life.
When I came to Thailand I was working for a German customer service company. I hated this job because I was eight hours on the phone and the whole job was just too boring for me. The only good thing was that I was able to live legally in Thailand for as long as I want. You might think I can work as a pharmacist all around the world. But no I can´t as the laws are everywhere to different.

As I am traveling a lot, I thought that there must be a way where you can combine traveling and work. I didn´t want to do something where I work the whole day in front of the computer. I wanted to work with people.
I did some researches and I found out that the best work while traveling is teaching English or teaching in general. I did more research and soon I even met people who taught English in some local schools. I never thought about teaching English before as English is not my mother tongue. But as nothing is too difficult for me I thought I can at least give it a try.

I had a very interesting conversation with the people who already taught in Chiang Mai. They also told me that Chiang Mai or Thailand in general is the perfect place for teaching English as the students are very respectful. Usually, an English teacher works around 20-25 hours a week which is perfect because then you can also explore the beautiful country.
Thai schools are very happy to have foreign teachers, as the education in Thailand is not very high. Nowadays almost every local school hires foreign teachers. They teach the students languages, science, mathematics or whatever. Depends on the teacher. But the most people come to such countries because they want to teach English.
I think it´s very sad that there are still so many country´s nowadays which doesn´t have such a high level of education. But I am also very happy that there are so many people who are willing to teach in those countries. They really help to give children a better future.

After this conversation, I knew that I want to do that too. The only problem was that I had a degree in pharmacy and not in education so I got again in touch with the teachers and they told me that they also didn´t have a degree in education.
I was wondering how people can teach without a degree. The guy explained to me that there is a certificate which is called TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language). With this TEFL certificate, you are allowed to teach English. I was super happy about this tip.
I went back to my apartment and I started to do more researches about this certificate. I found out that one of the best TEL schools is located in Chiang Mai. I directly emailed them and asked them for an appointment. The school was called "See Tefl". After one day they directly messaged back and a few days later I visited the school.

I really liked the school. Everybody was so nice and I felt super comfortable. The atmosphere there was very special. The owner of the school (John) explained me the whole system. He told me that the TEFL certificate is valid all over the world. So doesn´t matter if you want to teach in Columbia, Vietnam, China etc. You are able to teach all around the world. He told me that the duration of the whole course is one month.
It seemed quite difficult to me but I was sure I can do that even English is not my first language. After John showed me the whole school I was sure that I will quit my job at the German company and I am going to do the TEFL.
Now you might ask yourself how much is such a TEFL course. It´s not really cheap. I know that the prices are in every school and every country quite the same. Everything together costs 1800 $. Actually, I needed to pay 2000 $ but because I paid a long time in advance, I got a discount. It´s not less but it´s definitely a good investment. I didn´t regret one second.

I quitted my job and the following Monday I started with school. We were 23 people from all over the world. School hours were from 9 to 4. The first day we just had a general introduction and the teachers explained us the cultural differences. They also told us the differences in teaching in a Buddhist country.
Everything was super interesting.
The next day was not relaxed anymore. We directly started with grammar. The course was not only about grammar etc. We also had to do six teaching practices during the course.
But our first week was only about grammar.

During our second, third and fourth week, we had our teaching practices and next to them we had theory lessons where our teachers taught us about the different teaching methods.
Those weeks were super busy as we had to prepare the whole lessons by ourselves. It was a very good training tough.
The good thing was that we could prepare everything at school. They had a printer and all the other utensils. So it was no problem to print all the worksheets and games.

We were all super excited for our first teaching practice. Each lesson got observed by a teacher and we all got grades for the lesson we hold. At the end, every grade will be on the certificate but from all the notes there will be an end grade. So it´s very important to get a good grade for every lesson. Try your best and don´t worry. The students are wonderful.
Our first lesson was at a kindergarten which was the one I didn´t like the most. The kids were two years old and they just looked at me. They really didn´t know what´s going on.

The second lesson I had was the best. The students had a very good age. During the first week, the teachers will decide what you are going to teach. So you cannot decide by yourself. But don´t worry the topics are very easy as the students have a very low English level.

The more teaching practices I had the easier it was and I was not so nervous anymore. So the last four teaching practices were more or less the same. I was very surprised about the student´s behaviors. All the students were super respectful. You can really not compare students in Austria with students in Thailand. A teacher is a very important person for them so they would never be disrespectful.
I really enjoyed the time with them and every lesson passed so fast. Teaching those kids was a hard but also a fantastic experience.

For all my teaching practices I got an A grade which made me super proud. Those four weeks were super hard and stressful but I was so happy when our graduation day came and we all got our certificates.

It was definitely not easy but once you did it you can be really proud of yourself. A few of our students gave up in between. Even though you need to learn a lot in those 4 weeks I can highly recommend the TEFL certificate. It´s a great opportunity to work and get a little bit of income while traveling. I met such amazing people during this time and it was a great adventure for life. Those students give you so much back. They really appreciate your work. So if you want to work with children abroad and see a bit of the world then do the TEFL. Once you have it you will be very happy about it. You might not always need it because you might not always work as a teacher but with this certificate, you have more options. And once you taught those cute little kids you don´t want to stop anymore.
I really had a wonderful time.

I hope you guys liked my story and I would be very happy about comments, likes or any feedback.
Thank you so much for reading :-)