AjarnJim, you sure like to jump to conclusions. It may come as a shock to you, but some of us teachers here in Thailand never suck on beer bottles and never dream of molesting with our students. Yeah, I know that is hard to believe. After all, I've been to the immigration office, or I should say 'the freak show', many times to get my three-month stamp.
It didn't take but one visit to that place for me to understand why you'd make your sweeping generalizations.

If I could do things over, I would have brought my Bachelor's IN ENGLISH from the US (yeah, it's real) and a great attitude to Bangkok to find a teaching job. I would have taken a detour to Koh Sarn Road and gotten a fake certificate made up, then gone out and gotten a job and would have done just fine. Just because one has a TESOL means nothing, brother. Do you really think a TESOL transforms someone magically into a teacher? Dream on. My TESOL program didn't cover testing (this alone would take at least a week), and it sure didn't cover Thai culture. In short, it didn't give me anything I didn't already have, so I think it was a waste. Many of us out here in the real world think this. Whom do you work for again?

To anyone WITH A DEGREE thinking of coming to a place like Thailand to teach: get the fake cert first and see if you like teaching. If you don't have a degree, stay home. I took a great TESOL course, and I love teaching. But I didn't NEED the TESOL to make myself a good teacher. I made myself a good teacher. Yes, I could have done without it.

RhenoThai