I can speak for Asia, and in particular Thailand, as I have lived here and taught for many years. Most teaching work in Thailand, and much of Asia, is in formal schools teaching ages 4 – 18. My school requires teachers to give a demo class before being hired. CELTA trained teachers have little idea about classroom management and teaching young learners in a formal school environment. However, teachers trained by good and reputable TEFL courses generally can manage the students and deliver effective classes. Guess who gets the job?

In Thailand there are literally thousands of formal schools that hire foreign teachers. I don’t know one with a preference for CELTA or Trinity TESOL. Of course, the 3 British Council language schools in Thailand prefer these types of teacher but even these language schools have been be flexible.

Here’s the bottom line. If you are just dipping your feet in and are not really sure about teaching then TEFL courses like the ones described above are fine. Yes you’ll probably be able to get a job somewhere but not with the most reputable schools and while that might not be an issue when you start out it might be later.

However if are thinking about teaching as a longer term option then you should consider doing the CELTA or Trinity TESOL. These are externally assessed certificates and are the ones that reputable private language schools accept around the world.

I am not saying this to promote these courses (or to say that the others are terrible) but just to lay out this fact. If you want a career in teaching then do your research and think carefully before you choose a course as it is an investment in your professional development and your future learners

At the risk of putting my oar in, the ‘conventional’ way of learning to read Thai is unnecessarily complicated and slows you down. It’s why I devised an alternative ‘Rapid’ method. Please have a look at it and give it a go (http://www.LearnThaiOnline.com).

Unfortunately, you may have to ‘forget’ some of what you’ve learnt already. Especially if you know the letters already. People who’ve started to read the conventional way tend to struggle and it’s quite difficult to unlearn something.

Maybe the letters are not too firm in your head yet, so the ‘Rapid’ approach might still work for you. The most important tip is NOT to look at the letters and remember them: look at the shape of the letter and SEE the picture that it evokes. Everything follows from this, and if you don’t (or can’t) do it then you will struggle.

Another useful trick if you’ve already learnt the ‘classes’ of the letters is to think of ladies as being ‘high class’ creatures, ladyboys as being ‘low class’ riff-raff (not PC I know, but it works!) and boys as being boring, uninteresting creatures ‘in the middle’.

The other thing that is quite important is NOT to think of tones as rising, falling, high or low. Everyone I know who learnt tones in this way speaks in a curious mangled unintelligible sing-song. The trick is to use the tones we already have in English. We have a special intonation when we ask a question: “Why?” So find a phrase that you speak with the same intonation as a Thai ‘question’ tone and FEEL it. I use “How?” and I can then say words like สอง and สาม correctly.

The other tone is an uncertain, suprised tone as in “what!?” Now say วัด in the same manner, and you’ll say it right naturally.

The emphatic or exciting tone is hard for us (yet we do it all the time in English) – it’s hard because it feels embarrassing. I usually recommend people to MAKE A FIST and say “yeah!” before saying words like ข้าว or ไม่ or ได้.

Try it.