British volunteer English teachers get ready to take on Thai schools
NEARLY 200 young British volunteers arrived in Thailand recently to help teach English to local students for approximately eight weeks. Before being sent off to Thai schools around the country, the volunteers received two-days of training to prepare them
The Education Ministry and the British Council recruited 197 volunteers under the “Thailand English Teaching Project 2013”. The number of volunteers is a big jump from last year when the project was first launched and attracted only 67 Britons.
“The project was clearly a success in 2012, so we have continued it,” the ministry’s inspector-general Churairat Sangboonnum said.
All volunteers have to pay for their own air ticket for flights to and from Thailand, as well as their own medical insurance, the cost of the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) background check, and the cost of their Thai visas. However, once they have arrived in Thailand, volunteers are provided with free transportation to their workplace, accommodation, meals during school days and a monthly allowance of Bt10,000.
All the volunteers in the project are undergraduates, graduates, and postgraduate students from various British universities. Following the completion of their training, the volunteer teachers are sent off to different provinces across the country to teach English in local Thai schools.
Paul Bute, the Charge d’Affaires for the British Embassy in Thailand, said the project would benefit both Thai children and the British volunteers.
“This is definitely one of my favourite projects,” Bute said. “For many Thai students, this will be their very first time meeting and listening to a young native speaker communicating with them in English. They will also learn firsthand about life and culture in the UK.”
He went on to encourage the British volunteers to try and learn as much Thai language as possible during their eight-week stay. In addition to gaining valuable cultural experience that no other regular tourist may get, the volunteers will also gain valuable insight into understanding the difficulties that Thai students face when trying to learn a different language like English, he said.
Chris Gibson, director of the British Council Thailand, said he also believed that volunteers would gain a lot from their Thailand teaching experience.
“This is a great opportunity for volunteers to not only gain work experience, but to also have an increased understanding of a different, non-European culture,” Gibson said.
In June, the JobStreet.com English Language Assessment (JELA) results revealed that Thailand’s English skills are the lowest among Southeast Asian nations such as Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.
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