Having taught in Thailand for a year, I am posting my take on the land of the Thai. I hope this helps those who are considering coming here to take a certification course or to teach. Enjoy!

1. If you take the TESOL/CELTA training in Thailand, you won't have a chance to get it for free. No schools that I know of here offer free training. Like I said above, some in Korea DO offer free training. Taiwan might as well. I'm not sure.

2. If you take the teacher training in Thailand, you will have to get here somehow. Most people come by plane. If you fly here to take the course, you'll have to cover the airfare expense yourself, and you won't get reimbursed for it later if you go to work in Thailand after you graduate. If you fly to Korea after you finish the course, you will get reimbursed only for the Thailand-Korea leg.

3. Thailand's pay is far too low for a country whose schools don't reimburse for airfare. You can make 3 or even 4 times Thailand's pay levels in Korea plus you'll get your plane ticket expense back. Sure, we may be 'spoiled' because of the airfare reimbursements. But if SK schools offer full reimbursements, it's because they are using a strategy and are serious about getting good teachers.
Go there and get your fare back while the getting is good.

4. Thailand's academic standards, at least outside of Bangkok, are far too low. At a school where I taught near Lopburi, a '50' was a 'D'. Cheating and grade inflation is also prevalent at this school. Thai students not college-bound goof off and still get good GPAs. What's 'goofing off'? Talking, doing homework, horseplaying, sleeping, or even getting up and leaving without permission.

5. Thailand's universities weigh a student's GPA too lightly when considering a candidate for admission. This means students don't have to try too hard in the classroom, and they don't, believe me. In my classes, cheating was prevalent, and students often slept, talked, and even engaged in horseplay in the classroom during lessons. And these were the college-bound seniors!

6. Most Thai students won't respect you--they'll think you are a loser being as you are HERE in Thailand and not back in a 'good' job in the western world they see on TV.

7. Thai schools don't really care about the quality of their teachers. Westerners come here all the time passing themselves off as teachers when they are really just sad sap drunks who need to come to a place that will hire them AND allow them to continue sucking on 10, 20, and even 30 beer bottles a night. If a 'farang' (foreigner) teacher here sleeps through his 8:40 a.m. class because he is still hung over or drunk from the night before, nobody cares. Many recruiters here complain about the prevalance of 'loser' drunks who've come here to teach. It's no one's fault but Thailand's. If Thailand really cared about this problem, it wouldn't be happening. Thailand needs to care if this problem is going to end.

8. Thai bathrooms are FILTHY. Most have no toilet paper, soap, sink, or towels. They usually don't even have running water save for the basin valve and squirter. Yes, this means that when a Thai is done in the bathroom, he doesn't bother to wash his hands. Sure, he might use the squirter to spray himself off a little bit, but is that REALLY dirt I see under the typical Thai's fingernails, the same one who handles food, utensils, straws, et al? When H5N1 arrives, and it is going to arrive, the bathroom habits of the Thai are what will cause most of the deaths.

HZ