Teach and Travel in Thailand: TEFL Internship

This experience truly was once in a lifetime!
As a college leaver looking for travel and unique experiences, I came across this internship. I had no previous teaching experience nor was I planning on going into teaching as a career. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process and would definitely now use the qualification I have gained to teach again in other countries.
The initial induction when you arrive informed you of where you would be teaching, with whom and other useful information including Thai phrases, dress codes and useful contacts. I was placed at a school with another intern, where we lived on the school grounds in a traditional Thai home, a 10 minute cycle from the next school where 2 other interns were teaching. Our timetable consisted of teaching all ages at the school, some with assistance from the English teacher there and some without. Planning the lessons and insuring they were interactive was a vital part as the children's focus was easily lost in younger years due to the lack of Thai spoken by us. All the teachers and students were so welcoming and loved every second we were there. On weekends we could travel around so did this in small groups from the internship program, visiting places such as Bangkok, Pattaya, Kanchanaburi and many others. Finally, the last week was spent on an island relaxing with the other interns and was definitely the cherry on top of the whole experience. Would 100% recommend, the children are genuinely a treat to teach and no previous teaching experience was needed!

I thoroughly enjoyed teaching and living in Thailand. I met some amazing people along the way and it is definitely something I would recommend to anyone! When I wasn’t teaching during the week, the weekends were spent travelling the country. I loved the culture, the food and the whole experience was amazing! Teaching the kids was the best, it is classroom training you can’t get anywhere else and the 120 hour TEFL course was the perfect set up for working abroad. Can’t fault it!

I spent six amazing weeks teaching English to Thai teenagers in the Kanchanaburi province and it totally transformed my perspective on many things in life. Even at the age of 27 I found that I learned a lot about myself, made new friends and realised what my priorities on returning to the UK would be. I totally recommend this programme to anyone who wants to trial teaching English before committing to a 12 month contract - it's a fantastic opportunity to gain practical experience in a supportive environment. I also recommend to anyone who wants to immerse themselves in the 'real' Thailand. For anyone who's priority is to travel Thailand, I wouldn't consider this programme unless you plan to travel afterwards. This is a teaching programme and you should be taking the time to deliver engaging and effective lessons. You do have weekends and public holidays off to explore, but you are expected to remain on campus during school time and you should be looking for ways to get involved with the community and make a difference to the students. My tip is that the more you put in, the more you'll get out of it!

I taught in a secondary school and absolutely loved teaching teenagers. You can have a lot of interesting chat and fun with them! One of my favourite memories was being ambushed by my class of 17 year olds in the evening. They pleaded for me and my co-teacher to go with them to the next town and sing songs at the market. We jumped on board and found ourselves singing pop songs to raise money for less fortunate children in Thailand. I was so inspired by the students and glad to be part of the social action.

In advance of the internship I received excellent support from the i-to-i TEFL team. I also felt very prepared after completing the online TEFL course and an additional classroom practical course. The in country partners were also fantastic. They delivered a comprehensive orientation including trips that introduced us to Thai culture and food. Throughout my stay they made sure that I was safe and happy.

Finally, the Kanchanaburi province is a great place to be. I was only 30 minutes from Kanchanaburi town where there was a great backpacker scene and plenty to see and do. I was also a very cheap, two hour mini bus ride from Bangkok. After the programme I joined the organised trip to Koh Samet island. It was a beautiful and a fantastic way to relax after teaching.

From the very beginning you get ripped off (scammed in my opinion). You get charged an application fee to sign up to the initial internship with I-to-I, thinking oh this isn't too bad? Wrong. 6 months later I still feel like I’m paying for everything myself.

You get introduced to the Thai company that are running the internship. They pay you a low monthly salary in my opinion. As well as this, your contract is on an hourly rate so if you miss any classes due to public holidays, you are obliged to work these on your days off (Saturday's) otherwise you lose your pay.

If you go to Thailand without an agency, there’s a chance you’ll get higher pay (a whole lot more, and sometimes more with a degree).

Speaking of degrees, the partner organization takes your ORIGINAL degree certificate and transcripts so I found it difficult to leave the internship. As well as demanding a lot of fines and charges if you do leave them.

In terms of communication they do not care, we have went weeks without receiving email replies from them.

When asking why we get underpaid, I felt we received a disrespectful answer.

They pay for our accommodation but we pay for bills. And the landlords go to any cost to keep your accommodation deposit.

Upon arriving you’ll have to pay out of pocket for for visas and work permits. We did not receive our visas to stay in Thailand until December after being there for two months, and we had to pay overcharges as a result. (They also pulled us from school for this, so we were deducted pay from school). As well as this we did not receive our work permits until February -- a week before the internship finished.

The schools themselves, we did not get allocated a school until almost a month of being in Thailand. I was moved from place to place by the partner organization with no permanent job. I moved from Bangkok to surin and then got moved all the way down south after some miscommunication and told I was working up north. It wasn't until the end of November (after having to use my own savings to survive as I was depending on a promised job) that I was allocated a school. For the selection process, there was 8 of us and we had to line up in front of 200 Thai teachers as they all analysed our appearances and bidded on who they wanted at their schools. We were then sent to each school after the partner organization told them we were all qualified and experienced teachers from England! When specifically the internship said that we did not have to be qualified to do the internship. So all the schools assumed we were amazing enough to run our own English courses.

I did not receive pay slips. I got underpaid each month. They do not reply to emails. Proceed with caution.

We did not receive a finish date and upon asking about a finish date since December we were ignored.

We were also told by I-to-I and the partner organization to not book flights home on the 31st of March when the internship ended. So everyone booked a few days later. We then asked about our visas, and the partner organization told us they would only pay for our visas until the 31st.

We worked 7am-16:30pm every day. But only got payed on the hours that the teachers actually signed our lessons for. It is advertised as a 5 month internship but we only got paid for 4 month, and one of those months was only half a month worth of pay.

You could go to Thailand, go to any school with a degree of any kind and be on a comfortable monthly salary and pay for a nice apartment with a bit of a spending cushion.

Beware and proceed with caution.

Hi!
My experience with my Thai Internship and GES Thailand was a wonderful experience. I was able to meet new people, great traveling, and an overall memorable time. The GES team were wonderful with helping me with my paper work, teaching, and living arrangements. They were very nice and helpful with everything I needed.The Orientation was a big help as well because I got to meet other interns and make life long friends and it also helped me learn Thai culture, language. A lot of my questions and concerns were answered as well. After Orientation, we had about 2 weeks to travel and explore before school started which was perfect to get a hold of my surroundings. Overall, I feel that I have grown as a person with this part of my life.I had such a great experience with this internship that I stayed to teach in Thailand and I am very happy with my choices and decision to stay. I would definitely recommend this Internship!!

I have been in Thailand since the 11th of October and still have received no placement. I have been moved twice (one of which was a two day journey). Four weeks later and I am still waiting for someone to contact me in relation to my placement. So far I have been moved twice, with no guarantee of a secure placement. I received a call from the company the night before last asking me to go to Singburi, where I was supposed to be forwarded the details of the school/accommodation etc. and starting in a kindergarten there today. Yet I have received no information whatsoever.
At this stage, I am extremely concerned with the lack of understanding I and the other interns have received from the staff at i-to-i. I 100% agree with all the complaints noted above

I had a wonderful experience which allowed me to explore a new country, get valuable teaching experience and a recognised TEFL qualification. Plenty of information is provided before and during the trip making this new experience an exciting adventure rather than a terrifying trip. The week days were spent teaching in an environment where you had freedom to plan your lessons how you want but access to ideas and help from the teachers in the school if needed. This was reassuring as I had no teaching experience before this. The weekends were spent exploring and travelling with like minded people and the last week was an island break on Koh Samet. We went to the full moon party, temples, museums, famous landmarks and an elephant sanctuary just to name a few things. It was something I had never thought of doing until I had seen it online but it was the best decision I've made and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

What an incredible trip. I personally think that this type of thing is so much better than just travelling around SE Asia. Getting to know real Thai culture, living in a community, having a base at the school in-between the crazy weekends around Thailand, made this trip so much better! As someone that can be particularly shy and had never travelled like this before, I was surprised how quickly you get into it, with no worries or issues. Teaching is a huge learning curve and can really be enjoyable if you give it your all. Kids were great and teachers so so welcoming. Needless to say that I met some amazing people and hope to keep in contact with a few of them for the rest of my life. Surreal experience and something that cannot be summed up easily.

Although I had an awesome time on this Internship, that was in spite of the programme not because of it.

Anyway, here are some pros and cons of the internship. Hopefully some things have changed for the better since we did it.....

Pros

1. I was placed in a nice modern hotel building with 12 other lovely interns. It was so nice to have the support.

2. The city we were placed in was in the middle of nowhere but I loved the place, the people were so kind!

3. Thailand is an awesome country. It is likely that you will be placed off the tourist trail too which is nice.

4. It is only for 6 months so is a good tester if you have never taught before or are nervous to commit to a whole year.

Cons

1. Upon arriving in Thailand we quickly found out that this wasn`t actually an internship . In fact our schools were actually lied to and told that we were all already experienced teachers! We were put in the classroom with 50 screaming kids from day 1 with absolutely no guidance or support.

2. You get ripped off. Let`s face it! The schools paid a wage of 27000 baht a month. We would see 12,000 of that, maybe 4000 would go towards our accommodation. The rest would all go to i To i (again, the schools are lied to about this and think that all the money is going to the teacher. When my school found out they were really upset).

This would have been fine if we had been receiving the ammount of support that had been promised to us but that was not the case at all. After the 1st month we were more or less on our own. In fact, we even had to go to the hospital alone several times including my friend having an operation there without any help from our supervisor. I don`t want to blame my supervisor though, she was lovely. It was just that she was so busy with other i to i volunteer jobs too that she had little time to help us.
At my school there were 8 foreign teachers. 3 of us were with i to and got paid 12,000 a month, 5 had the exact same job but were from another company and they got paid a full 32,000 a month for the exact same job!!!! Do your research first!

3. The orientation is fun but doesn`t prepare you for the realities of the Thai classroom. In the orientation we learned heaps of fun pair and group activities but on arrival to my classroom of 6 and 7 year olds i realised this was impossible. So we basically had to discard all we were taught at orientation and learn on the job.

4. You may have a long commute. It took one friend over 1 1/2 hours to get to school everyday.

5. Think that at least all your visas and paperwork will be sorted out properly? Think again! I had a huge issue with my visa (My passport date was stamped incorrectly on entrance into Thailand) that my school noticed that my supervisor said over and over again was fine. Then all of a sudden one day she said that I had to get it fixed ASAP or i could get arrested and have to pay a hefty fine! It got sorted out in the end but was handled poorly.

All and all I would say DO NOT join the i to i internship. They were too dishonest and didn`t care about the local people or their teachers. They just want to get as many people on the progamme as possible so as to make more money.
I know teaching overseas for the first time is scary but this is not the best way to go about it.