Welcome to the Official i-to-i Blog for Thailand

It’s 7pm on a Sunday evening in Bangkok.  I’ve had quite possibly the easiest week of my entire working life, I’m about to pour myself a nice whiskey and coke and I’m going to and sit on my balcony trying my best to write something interesting that will hopefully stir up some interest in you about this amazing place.  So here goes, welcome to the first post for the official blog for Thailand!!!!

Since this is the first post (and admittedly my first post in a blog ever) I have been wondering what I should write about.  Where do I start?  Write about the people?  The food?  Where I live?  My lifestyle?  Or maybe open with something about the actual teaching that I do?

I’ve decided to go with a who I am, what I’m doing, why I came here, how I got here, why I’m doing this blog and whether or not TEFLing is all it’s cracked up to be.  Well, my name is Gareth (but prefer Gaz, so call me that), I’m twenty-four years old and I’m a kindergarten teacher in Bangkok.  I was asked to do this blog by i-to-i to give an ‘on the front line’ account into what living and teaching out here entails.  This is a weekly blog, which I will be doing for at least six months and since it’s for you, I feel the topics should be decided by you.  There are many topics I do plan on covering (I’m not being lazy by asking for your input) but if there’s anything specific you want me to blog about then don’t hesitate to ask.  Chances are that I’ve already planned to cover it but I’m more than happy to re-order topics for you :-).

Why did I decide to leave England to teach English in a far-flung corner of the planet?  Imagine the scene: recently graduated from Lancaster University; I’ve studied hard my whole life; I did well in school, college and university and now I find myself sat in my second 9-5 telesales job in the space of four months selling insurance, possibly the dullest thing a person can buy.  That was not where I envisaged myself when I graduated.  I had two options: I could stay in the telesales job whilst looking for some dream job to come along in rainy Bolton (during an imminent recession); or I could get out there and make the most of the fact that I was still young, I had no major commitments keeping me where I was (kids, mortgage, wife etc) and there was a whole world out there that needed to be seen.

Having two friends having the time of their lives travelling around South-East Asia on a five month long trip and having another two friends living and teaching in Bangkok who were constantly trying to persuade me to take the plunge as well, basically made my choice for me.  A visit to the i-to-i website and a lot of studying later I was ready to go TEFLing!

The first thing I should say about coming out here was that I did it completely the wrong way round.  After getting my TEFL certificates you would think it would be wise to find jobs from the comfort of home, apply for them, secure a job and then head on out with no worries.  Did I do that?  No, I did not.  Instead of this perfectly logical route I decided to pack my backpack, book a one-way ticket and see what happened.  Luckily for me I had three friends wanting to have a look at Thailand so it became a month long backpacking trip followed by settling in Bangkok with the two friends who were already here and taking it from there.  The backpacking was a great idea and I’m so glad I did that first.  It not only makes me feel like I’ve seen a lot of the country besides Bangkok but it softened the blow of moving to a completely different culture to what I know back home.  I had time to see the ways of the Thais for a whole month without having to worry about getting a job, finding an apartment etc.

Anyway, after getting the holiday out of the way and moving into a shiny new apartment I started the task of job hunting.  The way I found my job was purely by chance.  I was sitting on the skytrain heading into central Bangkok to get all my documents photocopied so I could ‘hit the streets’ handing out CVs when a farang (the Thai word for a foreigner of Western decent, not meant as an insult, it’s just what they say) sits opposite me and starts talking on his phone about needing teachers.  That’s my cue, no matter what I am going to speak to this man.  After getting nearer and nearer to my stop he finally finishes his conversation and that’s when I pounced.  I quickly introduced myself, apologised for eaves dropping and got chatting to him about teaching (they did need teachers luckily).  After a brief conversation he gives me a phone number for the head teacher of the company he works for.  One phone call later I’m invited to a bar for an informal interview in a few days time.  Before that can happen, I receive a call at 6am the following day from him asking me to substitute for them (this eventually turns out to be part of my interview process) and before I know it I’m stood in front of a class of sixth graders armed with little more than a white board marker and a teachers book (no teaching assistant).

Sink or swim, they were my options.  Luckily for me, after that first (ridiculously nerve-wracking) fifty minute lesson, the head teacher I had been speaking to arrives, introduces himself, tells me I don’t need to teach for the whole day (I went observing other teachers after this first class) and that the kids were told what was going to happen and were going to be asked what they thought of me.  Sneaky, but I apparently did well, the kids liked me and I ended up securing a full time position teaching kindergarten.

And that’s where I am now, five months into the job and I don’t regret a thing.  I love the kids, the kids love me (they tell me themselves) and so far I’m not too homesick.  I hope I’ve given you a small insight into who I am and I haven’t bored you too much.  Please feel free to ask me any questions about Thailand, tell me what you want me to blog about or simply use me to calm any worries you might have about coming out here.  Also, what do you think of the interview ‘technique’ I went through?  A bit underhand or maybe a better way than a formal interview and small, quite false feeling teaching demonstration?

• Official Thailand blog