What’s it really like on the LoveTEFL Thailand Internship?
I am sat on the porch of what is probably the most expensive beach resort I will ever stay in. The sea is literally on my doorstep. The sand is like white powder, the sea is turquoise blue, and our room has bath robes… This morning we said goodbye to our schools, cleared up our humble house, and in the space of a few hours, went from one extreme to another. Now it’s time to chill out and enjoy the time we have left together on the beach. I have gone through so much in the past 2 months that on one hand, arriving at school feels like a life time ago, but on the other, the end has come around so quickly. Such is life. The bonds I made- with our teacher, the children, but especially with the other interns- have ended up becoming so strong that time scales don’t even relate. Sharing this experience with others is what really made it for me. Now that it has come to an end I cannot bare to say goodbye to the friends I’ve made.
‘Bucket’ cocktails with the interns in Bangkok
I feel like it’s expected of me to say that the thing I will miss most about this is the children… but I have never had much patience with kids and I still don’t! Don’t get me wrong, there were a few individuals I really connected with and it was great feeling to teach and be looked up to. But it is definitely not my calling in life. The thing I will miss most about the internship is not feeling like a tourist in Thailand. I will miss the town I have got to know so well, I will miss feeling like an accepted part of a community, and it is only now that I am leaving that I realise how lucky I have been and how beautiful this small place is. In the time I have been here, I established a routine that made me feel at home, which was so welcome after being on the road so long. I will miss running and doing aerobics in our park with the rest of the locals. I will miss the night market on Wednesdays where I got the best Som Tam and mango sticky rice. I will miss having a place to call my own and not having to pack up my things every other night to move on. And, of course, my bank account will miss the local prices.
Just look at it! Bangkok from the golden mount
The best advice I could give someone considering doing this internship is to do your research and know that your expectations need to be flexible. Not many people in my group had issues- but the ones that did had either been misinformed by a third party company or weren’t clear on what they were buying. This is not a volunteer programme. LoveTEFL is a tour company and the money you give them goes to them, not the school- a fact that came as quite a shock to some people. The school, and the teachers looking after you do not get any outside support towards the accommodation they provide, the electricity you use or the food they feel the obligation to give you. For some this might be a deal breaker, but there are pros for doing this through a company- the biggest being having others around you- and it is an issue you can easily take into your owns hands by setting up an online charity page for your school so you can give back to them at the end.
Cooking with our teacher’s mum
When it came to the actual teaching, the level of English I experienced was so low that it was easy to pick things up as I went along. The best idea I had was getting each of my classes to make English name tags in my first lesson with them (nick names spelt in English, that is – Thai names tend to be extremely long and hard to pronounce) which enabled me to learn names and engage with the kids inside and outside of the class room.
Another thing to be aware of is that with things like this, especially in a country such as Thailand, is that expectations often get thrown out the window. The only thing that lived up to the expectations I had at the beginning of the internship is the nature of children. Always excited, always wanting to say hello and high five, always covered in dirt and absolutely in love with us. With everything else, it was just better not to have any preconceptions, to live in the moment and make the most of whatever I was faced with. Even written plans like a bus or the school timetable were subject to last minute changes. Don’t expect the bus to be there when it says it will be, just get to the stop and hope for the best. You might be waiting an hour, but you’ll get there eventually. There will be days when you go to class to find it empty, (after having spent the last 3 hours preparing your lesson) because the children are doing something else instead and no one had thought to inform you it was cancelled. It’s frustrating, but that’s just what Thailand is like. The first couple of weeks, this kind of thing really got to me, but by the end, I had learned to shrug it off.
A trip to Wat Tham Suea with our teacher
So you can obviously go and procure a teaching position abroad on your own, but there are a few obvious pros of doing it through a TEFL company. Firstly it means you have an in-country team who are responsible for you, “go-to” people when something is wrong or when you need a liaison with the school to sort out any issues. The internships are temporary- “taster” programmes that are supposed to give you an introduction into teaching abroad. Having completed it, I am qualified and confident that I would be able to handle the challenge of a real teaching placement if I ever wanted one. Generally speaking, the impact that English speaking interns have on the students is obvious. Schools have regular meetings with the LoveTEFL team and choose to be involved in the programme because of the positive results it has had on both the children’s and teachers English skills. Every term a new group of interns will arrive to motivate and inspire children to learn English just by being present.
Some of my grade 3 and 4’s
Outside of teaching, I will miss the people that I have shared this experience with. Above all, there are a bunch of other people doing this with you. You are not just diving into another culture on your own, there’s a bunch of people in the same boat as you that you can relate to when things get hard. We have been able to support each other, we have laughed and cried together. I have got to know an incredible bunch of people- of all ages and from all over the world- that I never would have if I hadn’t done this, and I am so thankful for it.
My only real criticism regarding the internship is the lack of actual teaching. It was made very clear during orientation that this wasn’t a guided experience and that we would be thrown straight into it, which made me think I would have my plate full. But after the first week of lessons, I found myself having nothing to do simply because I was not given enough hours of lessons. While other interns were teaching 15 hours a week, I was sharing 8 hours with my partner. We would mix the lessons up so we were teaching classes together, but it was no where near enough to keep us occupied throughout the day, and no where close to a true representation of what teaching is actually like. Our host English teacher would be teaching an average of 6 hours worth of lessons per day while we spent most our time in the office. When we suggested assisting, or just sitting in on her lessons it felt like we were intruding. As I said at the beginning of my posts, every placement has its differences, it’s individual pros and cons.
View from our teacher’s garden
Everything else at my school aside from this aspect was wonderful- the accommodation, the teacher, the location… It is just a shame that LoveTEFL didn’t work with the school to ensure we were assigned a sufficient amount of hours. When we were actually teaching, it was the highlight of the day, the best thing in the world. But this was so few and far between that I would often wonder what the point of me being there was.
It’s a mixed bag, but an experience that I will cherish for life and something I am glad I have done. I have learned lots of new things in Thailand; not to take things too seriously, to take things as they come and make the most of what I have. I can now check off teaching from my possible career paths, but know that it is an option open to me if I ever wanted to teach abroad. For now, two months was enough for me and I am looking forward to continuing my travels. I have made great memories with the interns I shared this experience with and owe a massive thank you to the English teacher who looked after us. Chokh di!
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