Topic: Why are there so many threads from Thailand?

[Pieman]

Just looking at the TEFLwatch board and I see that Thailand has over 60 threads going? Why?

Are conditions so bad here?

Are we all a whining bunch?

Are there more of us here than anywhere else?

[Bangkok Phil]

Or I'm sorry to perhaps disappoint a few people (but you can check with admin anyway) - a very large % of the traffic comes via ajarn.com and the ajarn forum.

[Uncle Che]

As of last check, a large chunk of the traffic that flows into the main page comes from links on Ajarn.com and Ajarnforum.net. The biggest chunk of the rest comes from people who already know the address or search specifically for TEFLWatch on Google or Yahoo. About 10% of the traffic comes from google/yahoo searches. Promotion of this site on other forums brings in quite a few as well.

Looking at the logs, there are sizeable number of people who just go to the main page and do not come into the discussion forum. This is why I put the discussion forum feed on the main page. The more people who post, the better the quality of information, and the better things are for teachers. 

Thailand is not the worst of the bunch, but several factors make the Thai room the busiest on the board, like I said above, the number of posters from Ajarn.com who come over here as well as the coalescing power of Ajarn.com and other Thai based boards. No other country has so many expats boards available.

Mexico, for example, has no boards, sans the Dave's ESL Cafe room, for teaching, and the biggest expat board is a paid membership only board.  It is ditto for the rest of Latin America.

[Pieman]

Yes!!!! But why is the Thai scene so active? Why do us folks in Thailand feel the need to chat, witch , whine, praise and comment so much? Surely it isn't just because of Ajarn. I am taking away the fact that the Ajarn board is established and well run (God that was hard for me to write!). What conditions led to its success?
Why has a similar board not been set up in China, South America? Access to internet is just as available and most teachers are computer literate and use th einternet for research.
Still not figured it out.

[hero]

  Why are you here?  Ask yourself the question and then generalise from there!  It's not rocket science!

Personally I'm just here for the craic and because there are others here in the same line of work and some interesting lines of conversation.  That's all.  Others come here to witch about negative experiences and then stay 'cos they get hooked!

[Pieman]

I do apologise for wasting the time of my intellectual greats.
Yes I know why I am here BUT the nub of the question has not yet been answered. Why is the Thai scene throwing up so many threads and active members. I am not satisfied that the root is solely due to Ajarn, and if it is , why is there no Ajarn equivalent anywhere else in the TEFL world.

Personally I'm just here for the craic and because there are others here in the same line of work and some interesting lines of conversation.  That's all.  Others come here to witch about negative experiences and then stay 'cos they get hooked!

There must be people in China or Korea  or Japan etc with similar experiences

[Uncle Che]

You want analysis by someone unqualified to analyze anyone or anything? You got it!

I have no proof whatsoever to back this up, but I think Thailand is one of the biggest teaching markets in the world. There are only 5,000 foreign English teachers in Korea, well 5,000 legal and no more than an equal amount of illegal ones. Japan? Don't know, but if you look at job postings available, it is no more than Korea. Same goes for mid-east countries. China? Ok there are many there and if you check out some if you check out Dave's, you see a new post every week or so about a bad school. Mexico? forget it. Not very many. maybe a few thousand but since foreigners can more easily integrate into the local culture, the need to hang out with expats is diminished.  How foreign teachers in Thailand? I don't know, but it is easily in the several thousand and I wouldn't be surprised if it was easily more than 10,000 counting all foreign teachers, including filipinos.

Most teachers go to Korea, the Mideast, Japan and Taiwan for the money, China for a few year retreat, soak up culture, and most teachers go to Latin America to learn Spanish or satisfy some bookish desire of romantic tales. Most teachers I come across in Thailand come to Thailand and try to establish long term roots and turn to teaching to pay the bills. There is no outlet in Thailand for complaining like we do back home. So forums like this are good places to interact.
 

[Pieman]

Thanks Che. That was what I wanted, a few reflections as to the root cause. I wasn't aware of the numbers involved because I have only ever taught ESL in Thailand.
Another idea may have something to do with the workload. I get the feeling that we are not worked as hard as other places and have more free time on our hands. 'The devil makes work for idle hands' syndrome

[hero]

I get the feeling that we are not worked as hard as other places and have more free time on our hands.

I know, shocking isn't it  And we're all so well paid too

[Notanewbie]

I am not sure, but I think overall ESL teachers are about the same the world over.

Karl Taro Greenfield wrote in Standard Deviations on page 22, ?I?ve never met English teachers in other countries, but I think the ones in Japan are the lamest people on earth. They?re not teachers, or at least they weren?t before they came here. Their only skill, their defining attribute as far as their employers are concerned, is that they speak their native tongue. How hard is that?.... But so many of them still act as if what they?re doing is highly skilled labor, like they?re lab technicians working on Martian probes or something. They exchange notes, they prepare flash cards and cassettes and CD-ROMs, they talk about which videos their classes enjoyed. All for Japanese high school classes full of kids who are usually asleep.?

Sounds pretty much the same as here in Thailand. I think the biggest difference is the ages. Most ESL teachers are just doing it for a lark for a year or two before getting on with their lives in most other countries. ESL teachers in Korea and Japan are generally in their early to mid 20s. Here in Thailand, there are many more middle aged men teaching English. At 24, one is excited by living abroad on one?s own and one doesn?t mind the poor pay, cramped accommodations, and mind-numbing work and one still has plans for the future. Fast forward twenty years, the excitement of living abroad has subsided, but the poor pay, cramped accommodations, and mind numbing work remain. Furthermore, a year or two working as a teacher abroad looks good on a resume for someone applying for an entry level job while in their 20s but it is the kiss of death for someone in mid-career, resulting in many middle aged ESL teachers feeling trapped with no way out, unsuccessful, and obviously this results in the need to moan and whine. ESL teaching can suck people in, it is easy to get into, it is easy to stay in the job, and it pays enough to enjoy a modest lifestyle but it does not really provide any experience valued outside of ESL teaching.   

Or maybe not.

[luk ling]

Or I'm sorry to perhaps disappoint a few people (but you can check with admin anyway) - a very large % of the traffic comes via ajarn.com and the ajarn forum.

Or maybe because, regardless of BP and ajarn.com denying that this board and ajarn.com are in any way whatsoever connected, they are.

[Bangkok Phil]

 Go on then. Please continue.
Don't give us half a conspiracy theory. Have the balls to give us all of it.

[hero]

Yep.

We'd all be interested in this one...............

[luk ling]

No conspiracy theory, just shit stirring. Thx Phil

[logically_speaking]

JETs in Japan already have discussion boards and regional meetings up the wazoo.  Thailand on the other hand has a plethora of new schools opened up under laws changed just 6 years ago.  The market for teachers is more open here, and the variety of people coming here much greater than anywhere else.  Not a great market for marrying poor Argentinian girls and hanging out in their villages teaching at a bilingual school.  We in Thailand have a greater range of experience and are more mobile than in other countries, moving here is easy, try moving in France... 
Plus, demands on most teachers in school are light enough to offer us a few minutes a day frittering away our lives whingeing about past wrongs.

[ajarnnormal]

Anybody can teach here. This leads to people with little or no idea of teaching ESL having to moan about teaching in a foreign country.

[Thai Me Up]

I've never needed to apologize for contributing to a message board, and I'm not going to start now.  Thai students have the dubious honor of being nearly the lowest performing English speakers in Southeast Asia, and every "complainer" on this board deserves praise for trying to illuminate the many failings of the MOE and everything that flows downward from that educational Olympus.

[Tainted-Teacher]

Yes, conditions are bad here.
Yes, we are all a bunch of whiners.
Yes, living in Thailand is like living in a foreign country.