Program Reviews

I only completed the one-week orientation and job placement aspect of the XploreAsia program, so I can't speak to the quality of the TESOL course. I had already completed my TESOL course (online through a different program), and just needed the job placement assistance.

The one-week orientation was really helpful to learn more about Thai culture, and also to make a few friends in Thailand! The XploreAsia staff is awesome - they're all incredibly understanding, compassionate, and personable. Even though the placement process is quick and a bit overwhelming, I felt like they really listened to what I wanted, and I ended up being placed in a city that is a great match for me. I think that what sets the XploreAsia program apart is the openness of the staff - they're quick to share their own personal stories, and they talk about teaching in Thailand as not only a job, but also a sort of spiritual journey. I found myself wishing I had signed up for the TESOL course, just so I could learn more about Thailand from them!

Well here I go.

I came over here looking for n adventure, and boy did I get one. I have been to Thailand before, but for other reasons. this time I got to meet people from all over the world, with the same intentions s me.

First of all, I cleared my head of anything that I thought was going to happen. start with a clean slate as it were. sometimes you think something will happen one way and it takes a 180 and brings you down a road that is not what you wanted, but is equally if not more charming. you think things aren’t good? step back and look where you re. you have a beautiful beach, booze everywhere and all at a fraction of the cost of wherever you my come from. Shure you will run into problems ie language barrier, traffic, and so on. Don't think that you don't have problems at home. These are problems in a different form is all. They will let you redefine yourself as a person concerning these issues. You will grow as a person.

I’m from Canada, and I thought that we were nice. Not even in the same ballpark as the Thai. These people will literally take hours out of their day to accommodate what ever issue you have trouble with. I have never seen a group of people so happy just to wake up every day. In saying that, don't sweat the little stuff, and it is all little stuff. Their kindness will rub off, and the mount of dopamine in your system will flood. Sort of a state of nirvana if you will. I got this my first week at the school.

If you’re scared, that is good! I think you should be out of your comfort zone! Who wants to be another sheep in life? If you came for n adventure, this is the place to do it. I said to myself good or bad, I just want an adventure. So far, because of my mind set it has been all good, and will be a beautiful chapter in my memoirs.

Be open minded, be bold, be afraid! These re all natural emotions. Don't think this isn't like home and get pouty!! This isn't like home. If you can’t find happiness in Thailand, you will never find it anywhere. live it, marinate in it, soak it up boys and girls! Have the best time of your life, you will never forget it.

I completed the one-week orientation with XploreAsia before heading onward to placement. From personal experience, becoming an XploreAsia member and teacher guarantees a support team, credibility, ongoing guidance, and the opportunity to create lifelong friendships. Beyond the many activities and excursions offered, the XploreAsia team took the time to listen and work with me to place me in the best position seen fit. I was placed in the south of Thailand, just as I hoped for, and it couldn’t have worked out better. I’m the only foreigner in a small town, living with the director and his family on school property. This may seem unappealing to some, and at first, I was skeptical too. However, that changed almost immediately as I was warmly welcomed into the family and into the community. I am so grateful for how the placement turned out and I wouldn’t change a thing. I am fully immersed in the Thai culture, the language, the pace of life, the community and family events, and the overall reciprocal generosity and kindness of the Lumthap community. At my school, I teach a lot of students in a span of a week, which at first, was nerve-racking as I thought it would be an impersonal experience and extremely difficult to remember any of my students. This is so far from the reality of it. The students are all so unique and silly with such strong personalities and big hearts. Even the mischievous students will win a special place in your heart. They are impossible to forget and you will quickly develop a bond with many of them. Of course there are tough days and tough classes and tough students and this will make you second-guess why you ever made the decision to teach in Thailand. But then the littlest occurrences happen, like your host family or coworkers bringing you your favourite mangoes, or a student making you a key chain or a bracelet, or the moments of pure joy when the students understand what you’ve taught them or their excitement when it’s time to play a game, or even just walking down the street and noticing all the excited smiles and “hello’s” you receive. These little occurrences will happen and immediately reassure you that you not only made the right decision but possibly the most rewarding decision of your life.

I can honestly say that going through XploreAsia and having their awesome staff guide me through each process has helped me incredibly in regard to adapting to Thai culture and teaching here. I was somewhat uncomfortable about the idea of moving to Thailand and teaching, because I have never done something so bold before. The staff welcomes each person into their course and close-knit family with open arms, making the transition not only comfortable, but super exciting and fun too. Their TESOL course offers so much variety to help you get assimilated more easily, including fun excursions, Thai language classes, and very helpful teaching lessons and materials. If this is something you are considering doing, I highly suggest that you take a chance and go through them. This has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life so far.

So I just completed my TESOL course with XploreAsia in December 2015, and started my placement in Prakhon Chai, Thailand. The whole process start to finish was well structured and organised. (The first part of the process for me was go through Gap360, another reliable and friendly company) Prior to arriving in Thailand I received helpful emails and guidebooks with information from XploreAsia and there was someone there to pick me up from the airport to. I was then taken to Hua Hin where I met some amazing people who I would be living with for the next month while doing my course. The course has definitely improved my confidence as we were doing lots of presentations (it might sound scary but everyone's in the same boat) the placement team at XploreAsia are also great, they try their best to answer your questions and support you even after you have finished the course. I would say the best thing about XploreAsia is their willingness to share previous experiences and prepare you not only to be a good teacher but also to deal with the culture shock many people face whilst living in Thailand.

Deciding to come to Thailand and teach is a life changing decision, Xplore Asia is an excellent company to help you make those changes. I had very little knowledge on Xplore Asia before coming over, I came through Greenheart Travel (who were also amazing) who gave me little information on the transfer to Xplore Asia. However, this effected my TESOL and life thus far in Thailand very little and should not be an issue or something to hold you back.

The driver was waiting when we got off our flight, we loaded up in a van and went straight to the hotel. The hotel, H-Residence was nice and in a great area for seeing the city if you decide to fly in early like I did. I highly suggest staying with Xplore Asia group at the hotel because it gives you a awesome opportunity to get to know some people and see the “touristy” things in Bangkok with a group. We were fed breakfast every morning I was there, and the final morning you load up into a minivan with people from your group and make your way to Hua Hin.

Upon arrival in Hua Hin things got quite rushed. We threw our things into our accomodation (I lived in the big Soi 33 house), jumped back in the van, were given a quick run down of the way our mall trip would go and then dropped off at the mall to get supplies. It was a little overwhelming buying things for a house you hadn’t really seen. Just buy what you need and then figure it out as you go through your month, GET TOILET PAPER and WATER.

The first week of the course was the orientation. It was an incredible experience and is a great time to get to know the
group of people you will be spending the next month in class with, the people who will become one of your most valuable networks in Thailand over your stay here.

Mike does a great job with Thai culture classes, and they are actually interesting! The excursions are amazing (the elephant sanctuary, pineapple farm, art village, rescue paws, etc.). At the end of the week there is a beach BBQ, it is tons of fun.

Once the TESOL starts you will have A LOT of work. There are homework assignments almost daily. Sometimes you will be working in groups, with a partner, or alone. I had Jon Harman as my course instructor, I felt fully prepared to walk into the English camp and teach three solo lessons to middle/high school students. Across the board I heard very positive things about the instructors. They are very passionate about what they are doing and really want you to be an amazing teacher so they invest a large chunk of time into molding each student.

By the time the TESOL is over you feel confident and prepared for whatever placement may be thrown at you. With a Drop Box full of lessons from Kindergarten to High School level, you know you will not be walking into a school without something prepared. I do wish the course covered a little more on private schools with curriculums. The TESOL certainly prepares you for teaching, but we spent a large portion of time covering worst case scenarios and a lot of my group actually ended up with really nice placements in private schools, EP programs, and International Schools.

My overall experience with Xplore Asia was amazing, I would 100% recommend them to anyone considering teaching in Thailand. However, the things I think could use improvement. . .

Cell Phones. This was a disaster from the start. No one at the cell phone company spoke english and none of us spoke Thai. Some people wound up with cell phones with no data, some with no calling/texting ability. Some people ended up on plans, some ended up pay as you go. No one really knew what they were signing up for. The Sim card Xplore Asia provides you with did not fit most people’s smart phones and was therefore useless. I am certain Mike and his staff will have the kinks worked out with this soon, if they haven’t already.

Placements. I came over in the largest group that Xplore Asia has ever accommodated. That being said, they seemed slightly underprepared for the monumental task of placing 210 teachers in schools. The placement team did an excellent job, but placements took quite some time to secure. Some people had no confirmations up to the very end of their stay. I was lucky enough to secure a nice placement. Though, they take very little actual regard for where you would like to be placed (which winds up being a really cool thing). Do not expect to list off a city, or even a region, and actually wind up being placed there. It is considerably harder for them to place people who come over in pairs or triads. I came over with a friend and we wound up separating because the last week we had no confirmed placement. Upon separating we found placements immediately. Travel is cheap and easy here, so do not let being placed away from your friends discourage you. The placement team works really hard, but everything is very up in the air and no one really prepares you for that.

You have to remember you are in Thailand, and occasionally terrible things happen. Xplore Asia staff needed prompting from TESOL students to address and help handle these issues. Once they were prompted, the staff acted completely supportive and were more than willing to help in anyway.

Xplore Asia is a great company. They provide you with a network of people who are willing to help you throughout your stay here. They create an environment that fosters learning. The whole group is very interested in making you the best you can be so that your experience in Thailand is amazing. At the end of the day, despite the few hiccups (remember the few bad things just make the good, that much better!), they want success for you. Their system is wonderful and allows you the perfect amount of time to get comfortable teaching and make great friends. When you graduate you will have an entire network of people to spend weekends and Holidays exploring Thailand with. If you are considering using Xplore Asia, DO IT!

The program was great! Very helpful and prepared me well for teaching in Thailand! Staff was great always on top of things and gave us all the information needed for the course and for the placement. The course was a little to short for the amount of work needed to be prepared but we were able to practice in a classroom for a couple of days which taught us more than a book could ever teach. The orientation week was wonderful. It brought us into te culture before we were thrown into the teaching aspect of why we came here. To learn about the history and culture helped a lot with making lessons and learning more about what our students could be like before we started teaching.

Living in Thailand has the potential to surprise you at every single turn. When I was first placed in Thailand, I was in a small semi-rural town in central Thailand. I used every single moment of free time to explore every inch of that town. One of these occasions, I was driving right before sunset, and ended up discovering a beautiful spot right along the river. It soon became my go-to spot to relax and watch the sun go down. One day, a few locals approached me and we started talking about how I had come to live in that town - This was all in incredibly broken English and using A LOT of hand gestures. This would soon turn into a regular thing where I would go to watch the sunset and the same locals would come out to talk.Over the course of the semester we became such good friends that they would invite me over to dinner or for drinks after the sun had set. We became good friends after that and they are still people that I talk to to this day. Who knew that something as simple as finding a place to watch the sunset would blossom into such an awesome friendship.

Moving to Thailand is one of the most freeing things you can do. It's chill and go with flow attitude are key to letting yourself unlock your untapped adventure potential. So take the leap! You won't regret putting yourself out there.

I completed the October 2015 TESOL course in Chiang Mai. The course was more expensive than if I would have completed it online, but I think I got a lot more out of it doing it in person in Thailand. Not only was I taught by a TESOL instructor who had first hand experience teaching and living in Thailand, I also got the opportunity to practice teaching in front of my peers, as well as, working 2 days in an English camp. There is also a cultural element to this course. I got to go on a few excursions and learn about Thai cultural norms from people who have lived in Thailand for years and really understand the language and culture. On top of all of that, I met some great people from the program who I will be lifelong friends with. You can't really put a price tag on the benefits of having a support system of people who can relate to everything you are experiencing because they are living it too! The safety net of having a guaranteed job is also nice! Going back, I would decide to go through this company all over again.

Let me start by saying that XploreAsia runs an excellent program. The culture classes help by starting you off on the right foot in a new country with very different customs than the United States. The orientation week is full of wonderful little excursions and tours which cover everything from touristy markets to an elephant sanctuary. They also provide excellent accommodation for the duration of the program at a very reasonable cost.
The TESOL course itself varies based on your specific instructor, but in my experience it was very thorough, detailed and comprehensive. Our instructor genuinely cared about our progress through the course and presented us with challenges that we were sure to later face as teachers. I would strongly recommend paying attention. Have I used everything I learned while teaching? No. But it helped me think outside the box when coming up with lesson plans despite not actually following the methods of XploreAsia TESOL.