There are still many ways of teaching English in Thailand without a degree. Although having a degree is required to obtain a work permit that shouldn’t stop you from getting a very good teaching job in Thailand. There are some risks of working without a work permit in Thailand, but that shouldn’t put you off. I’ve been teaching English in Thailand and without a work permit for over 10 years without any problems.

Is Teaching English in Thailand Without a Degree Still Possible?

Although the authorities have started to crack down in recent years you can still find plenty of work in Thailand. To make it a lot clearer for you, if all the teachers in Thailand without a degree suddenly left the country then that would be about 80% of all the English language teachers gone! The reason is that most people who spend 4 years getting a bachelors degree don’t decide to go and live in Thailand and teach English. They usually just stay in there home country and get a well paid job!

Why Is a Bachelors Degree Required To Get a Work Permit?

This is just the Thai authorities being stupid and making it difficult for foreigners to work in Thailand. Another reason is that in Thailand if you don’t have a degree you’re worthless. This is because the education system is so bad. In fact going to university in Thailand and getting a degree is roughly the same as finishing school in any western country!

Although I don’t have a degree I always tell my students I do otherwise they’ll think ‘how can this guy be my teacher when he doesn’t have a degree’. The truth is though it makes no difference and the real point is that if you can speak English then you can learn how to teach it.

Teaching English in Thailand – What Are Your Options?

Most of the top universities and government schools will want to see your degree. Because corruption is rife in Thailand the school may be able to get your work permit anyway depending on how well connected they are. If you have a very good fake degree then that will do the job however I don’t recommend that path!

You’ll be able to get a job in just about any of the private schools in Thailand as long you have done a TEFL course and can speak English fluently. From there as you gain teaching experience you’ll find that more job opportunities will come about. The first step is to get you TEFL certificate. If you have that then you’re a qualified English teacher and you shouldn’t even be worried that you’re teaching English in Thailand without a degree.

Teaching Without a Work Permit

Like I said if all the teachers who are Teaching English in Thailand Without a Degree and without a work permit were forced to leave then there would be a huge problem!

You can get a multiple entry tourist visa which lets you stay in the country for 2 months then extend it for 1 month after which you have to do a visa run to Cambodia and re-enter Thailand for another 3 months. This is common practice in Thailand and there are lots of organized tours you can go on. The visa run usually takes about 5 or 6 hours. You leave early morning and are back in Bangkok just after midday.

Personally I always get a 15 month non immigrant visa in the UK. I still have to do a visa run every 3 months but that’s just something that can’t be avoided. Money wise the cost of the visa run works out about the same as paying tax if you had a work permit.

As you can see, Teaching English in Thailand Without a Degree is possible. I do it and so do 80% of all the English teachers in Thailand!

Living in Bangkok is highly recommended if you’re planning in teaching English in Thailand. There are so many schools to choose from, both private and public, plus you have easy access to all the western conveniences that you are used to in your home country. This is my personal opinion of course. Many people will tell you that living in Bangkok is a nightmare, however I’m gonna give you some tips on how you can make living in Bangkok much more enjoyable.

Rule Number 1 For Living in Bangkok – Live Near The Sky Train

First of all make sure you rent an apartment near the sky train or BTS as it’s known. This is a monorail that runs through some parts of the city. There is also an underground system and the same applies for that as well. If you live near the BTS or underground, getting around the city is so much easier. If you can find a school that is also near one of those, living in Bangkok becomes far easier and much more enjoyable.

When I was living in Bangkok, for quite a few years I worked in a private school that is located in the Paragon shopping center in Siam. I lived in a condominium which is 5 minutes walk from Prakanong BTS station which is pretty far from Siam. It would take me just under 20 minutes from leaving my condo to getting into the school. One of my colleagues lived on the other side of Bangkok where the sky train doesn’t go. He lived closer to the school but it would take him one and a half hours to get to school via a combination of boat, taxi, bus and motorcycle taxi!! That’s 3 hours traveling everyday.

Apartments and condominiums in Bangkok may be more expensive near the sky train but they are definitely worth it!

Living in Bangkok is Easier When You Can Speak Thai

I managed to learn to speak Thai fluently as well as read it and write it. It made life so much easier. You don’t need to be fluent but if you can just start picking up the basics then you’ll get on much better.

Many of the teachers I worked with never learned to speak a single word of Thai and the longer they stayed in Thailand the more they would complain about it. Thai people can be infuriating at times and when you don’t know what they are saying and why certain things are happening you’ll start hating the place if you stay for a long time.

Learning just a few words of Thai can really help with things and it’s highly recommended if you are going to live in Thailand for any length of time. Just start making an effort as soon as you arrive and you’ll be surprised how much you can pick up.

Living near the sky train and learning some basic Thai can make living in Bangkok a lot more enjoyable. There is so much to do and there are always thing going on. It’s not for everyone though. Some people would prefer to live in the countryside which is why it’s important to come to Thailand first and figure out where you want to live before you start looking for work.

The main principal behind Thai university uniforms just like any kind of student uniform is to create an equality among students. This is essential in Thailand because of the huge gap between the rich and the poor. However the idea of a plain white shirt, black skirt and brown belt has been taken to the extreme my many female Thai students! They have managed to turn it into a fashion competition!! It’s not surprising that then that Thai university uniforms have been voted the sexiest in the world!

It’s no secret that Thai girls are a big attraction for foreigners visiting Thailand. And unless you have actually been to Thailand, in particular Bangkok, it’s hard to believe that there are girls dressed like this everywhere you look!

Teaching a class full of girls dressed like this can be a challenge for any man! It’s also a reason why some teachers want to teach in Thai universities!

Thai culture is very conservative (although you would be completely unaware of this from a westerners perspective) and each year there are complaints about Thai university uniforms, in particular the length of the skirts and the tightness of the shirts! These modern day uniforms are definitely not what was in mind when Thai university uniforms were designed all those years ago!

Still, I’m not complaining and I’m sure most of the foreigners living and working in Bangkok aren’t complaining either!

One of the worst things you can do is to apply for a job before you even get to Thailand. Many people who want to teach in Thailand make this mistake and end up hating it. If you are arriving in Thailand for the first time the culture can be a big shock. Bangkok can be a massive shock and lots of people hate it before they eventually fall in love with it.

Anyone Can Teach in Thailand – Just Make Sure You Travel Around First

What most aspiring English teachers who want to teach in Thailand don’t realize is, that as long as you have a valid TEFL certificate finding work is really easy. You’ll be able to teach in thailand or any of the neighboring countries such as Laos or Cambodia. For that reason you should not even plan on working for your first month in Thailand.

You should spend your first month just getting used to the country and traveling around a bit if you can. People who arrive straight away in Bangkok and start work without seeing much of the country quickly regret their decision. There is so much to see and do in Thailand and more you get used to the culture and the people the more you’ll enjoy yourself.

Of course the added bonus of seeing some of the country is that you can find somewhere you like and then start looking for from there. A lot of people hate Bangkok but plenty more love it. If you don’t like big polluted cities then perhaps teaching up north in Chiang Mai would be better for you? The pay isn’t as good but the cost of living is a lot cheaper and the climate is cooler.

There are so many other provinces in Thailand where you can teach English but it’s impossible to know exactly what will suit you best until you actually go there for yourself. You can read all you want but you really have to go and see things for yourself before you start looking for work.

 << Teach in Thailand

If you decide to become an English teacher in Thailand you aren’t going to become a millionaire! However you can earn a considerable amount of money compared to what Thai people earn. This means you can live very well in Thailand, enjoy yourself and have regular holidays!

If you’re thinking of getting a job in a government school you can expect to get a starting salary of between 30,000 – 35,000 baht per month. There may be added bonuses if you complete your contract extra. You will also earn that salary through the school holidays as well. If you have a 12 month contract that will also include the 3 month summer holiday.

If you are thinking of working at a private school on the other hand then you will get paid by the hour of by the period. Sometimes a period is only 50 minutes. When you are starting out you can expect to start at somewhere between 250 – 340 baht per hour. If you have a good TEFL certificate then you will be starting on over 300 baht per period.

Some private schools will give you extra money per period for teaching advanced classes and for teaching on the weekends. This can all add up to quite a bit of money. In fact during busy times of the year you can earn between 80,000 – 90,000 baht per month if you want to work all the hours you can.

The thing with working with private schools is that there isn’t always enough work. If you are a good teacher and the students like you then you will have a good constant flow of work. Some private schools will also offer you a contract as well if that’s what you’re after. This will guarantee a minimum number of hours work per month but will also mean that you can’t refuse classes if you don’t want them.

When you consider the cost of living in Thailand for foreigners you’ll see that you can live very well. If you work in a government school and part time at a private school you can earn a lot! Likewise if you work all the hours you can in a private school and do some online writing jobs between classes you can perhaps earn even more.

Living in Thailand is pretty cheap, especially once you get the hang of things. You can easily earn 30,000 – 40,000 baht per month. If you want to work as much as you can you could double that amount once you’ve got a bit of teaching experience.

You can check out below how much that is in your own currency.

Teaching Jobs in Thailand can pretty much be split into two categories, private schools and public schools, colleges and universities. Each have their own pros and cons and the type you prefer pretty much depends on you. It’s not really a case of which one is better but really which one is more suitable for you. One thing you need to understand though is that not all teaching jobs in Thailand are equal!

Public School Teaching Jobs in Thailand

Public schools, colleges and universities are government run. As a general rule they are very over crowded with even the more upper class ones having fifty or sixty pupils in a class! That may seem like too much too deal with and it probably is which is why you get a Thai teaching assistant to help you. A lot of schools will also provide a microphone and speaker.

With such vast numbers in your class it’s pretty hard to get anything done and the amount that the kids learn is really limited which is why so many parents send their children to private lessons after school. It also means there are lots of teaching jobs in Thailand!

At public schools you work Monday to Friday, from around 8am to 3pm. You have a syllabus to teach from but a lot of the time it’s up to you to prepare your lessons which means extra unpaid work. For these kinds of jobs you will need a teaching certificate and quite often a bachelors degree as well although in rural areas they might not require the degree.

Having a bachelors degree means that you can apply for a work permit though, which enables you to have 100% legit work. This is important for some people but others don’t seem to mind.

You will also get a contract which means you also get paid throughout the school holidays. This is a major bonus although some schools get around this by only giving you a 9 month contract which means you won’t be paid during the 3 month summer holiday. So that’s something to watch for.

Pros: Fixed pay, paid holidays, weekends and evenings off

Cons: Too many students, no air conditioning, no real sense of achievement

Private School Teaching Jobs in Thailand

Because the education system in Thailand is pretty poor, many wealthier parents sent their kids to study extra classes on the weekends and after school. This means there are lots of small private schools in Thailand but in particular, Bangkok. Most big shopping malls contain private schools where the parents drop their kids off while they go shopping.

Many of these schools such as Inligua, Wall Street, English First, Berlitz, ECC and British American have branches all over city. The classes are generally a lot smaller, from single private students up to classes of ten. The working conditions are a lot better because they all have air conditioning.

With private schools such as these you will have a lot of classes on Saturday and Sunday and in the evenings from Monday to Friday. You can also have classes during the day but these will usually be for students who have just finished school or who are preparing to take the IELTS or TOEFL test to study abroad. Generally weekends and evenings are the busiest periods.

Private schools generally pay by the hour or by each period taught. Some give you a bonus for teaching on the weekends or for teaching advanced classes. A teaching certificate is required but many schools won’t care if you have a bachelors degree or not.

Pros: Easy to get a job, Smaller classes, more interaction with students, better teaching conditions, easy to take a holiday

Cons: Working weekends and evenings, can sometimes big gaps between classes

The Best Teaching Jobs in Thailand?

For me teaching in private schools was always a lot more fun and rewarding. It also paid more than teaching in public schools. It also suited me because I didn’t want to sign a 1 year contract because I always liked to go back to the UK for 3 or 4 months during the summer.

A lot of people complain about the gaps between lessons. For example, if you were really unlucky you could have a class at 9am and then have to wait until 4pm for your next class. That is an extreme example but it can happen. On the plus side though your school is usually in a big shopping mall so you have lot to keep you entertained. Plus if you have joined RealWritingJobs you can earn plenty of money doing some online writing jobs while you are waiting for your next class.

Private teaching jobs in Thailand are the way to go in my opinion, however don’t rule out working in a public school

Work in Thailand For Foreigners

So we know that if you are happy teaching English for a living that it’s easy to find work in thailand. But what about for people who don’t want to teach English? The truth is that it’s really difficult to find any kind of work in thailand that doesn’t involve teaching. Don’t worry though because there are still some options for you.

I’ll just run through a couple of options before enlightening you on what most people are doing. First of all, are you pretty good looking? If you are then there are lots of jobs doing modeling, particularly in Bangkok. You can also get work on TV commercials etc if you are lucky! It’s not well paid and it’s not recommended so don’t think you’ll be able to make a good living out of it!

Another option is trying to find work with an English speaking newspaper. Once again, pretty impossible. Apart from working for a company in your own country that sends you to work in thailand for them, you can forget about office work!

So What Can I Do?? I Want to Work in Thailand

Luckily there is another option which is much more viable than modeling and working for a newspaper. The very fact that you’re reading this means you’re already qualified as well because you understand English and can use the Internet! So what is this work? Well, it’s not glamorous but it pays well!

Working online writing articles is what a lot of foreigners are doing for work, not just in Thailand but in many other countries where it’s difficult to find work.

Unlike some work in Thailand you don’t have to be creative and there’s no risk of not getting paid.

Basically, once you’ve signed up with the writing company, Real Writing Jobs, you’ll get to choose what articles you write. You see there are millions of people who own websites that need content writing for them. The topics could literately be about anything but you can choose which ones to write and which ones to refuse.

Usually you would get a description and some keywords that need to be included in the article or blog post, for example:

I need a 400 word informative article about living in Thailand. The keywords ‘work in thailand’ and ‘living in thailand’ need to included 2 to 3 times within the article.

You would then write the article and submit to your account. The website owner then checks the quality to see if it’s okay and then the money gets paid into your account. If they are not happy with your work, they may ask you to re-write some of it. However usually they are happy if it’s grammatically correct and reads well.

There are different pay levels and once you establish yourself as a good writer you start earning more money and the work is constant. A lot of English teachers use Real Writing Jobs as a second income when they are not teaching. Far more do it full time instead of teaching because you can earn the same amount of money if not more!

There are pros and cons of writing online for a living though. Firstly you won’t meet many people as it’s quite a solitary kind of work and you won’t be able to get a Thai work permit because you’re not working for a Thai company. On the plus side though, you can pretty much work anywhere you want! At the beach in Koh Chang or up in the mountains of Chiang Mai. These are definite bonuses though!!

I don’t know how much it is to sign up with Real Writing Jobs now. It used to be about $50 but that was a few years ago now. I earned that back within 2 days, before I could even type very well! It’s definitely worth it and as far as work in Thailand for foreigners, it doesn’t get much easier than this!

If you do decide to work in Thailand (or anywhere else) for Real Writing Jobs I’ve got a couple of tips for you:

First of all, you can’t just plagiarize other peoples work, however you can rewrite it. For example if you had to write about ‘dog training’ you could Google ‘dog training’ copy all the content to your word processor and then just rewrite it into your own words. Remember you do have to rewrite it! They can check and you need to do a good job to get constant work.

Go to RealWritingJobs.com for more information on work in Thailand.

There are a few different TEFL courses in Thailand. Unfortunately I wouldn’t really recommend any of them as they are very over priced and usually have far too many students per trainer in each class. Don’t worry though because there is a much better and cheaper option. Thanks to the Internet you can now take your TEFL course online at a fraction of the cost and end up the same accredited teaching certificate that you can use anywhere in Thailand.

Why Online TEFL Courses in Thailand Are Better

There are many advantages from taking your TEFL course online apart from saving a lot of cash. You have between 4 – 6 weeks to complete the course although you can extent it up to 6 months if you wish. This means you have the freedom to travel and complete the course at your leisure if you are already in Thailand or finish it before you even arrive in Thailand. The choice is yours.

The preliminary certificate course lasts for 100 hours. After completing this course you will receive your teaching certificate which is accepted all over Thailand. It’s an official teaching certificate and it doesn’t say “online certificate” or anything like that. In fact nobody will know you have taken your TEFL online unless you tell them!

Your teaching certificate is accredited by ACCREDITAT which is an international TEFL accreditation body based in Scotland.

Although the 100 hour course is enough to get you your teaching certificate, there are other more advanced options and courses that can last up to 450 hours which will give you even more teaching opportunities.

The 100 hour course is great value for money though and won’t cost you anywhere near the +$1,500 TEFL courses in Thailand! This is definitely the cheapest, easiest and most convenient way to get your teaching certificate.

None of the TEFL courses in Thailand come anywhere close to matching the price, convenience and quality of the course provided by the TEFL training college.

For more information go to the TEFL Training College website

The more cynical people would say that having a pulse is all that is required to become an English teacher in Thailand. Although that’s not too far from the truth in some circumstances, the reality is that you will need to get some sort of teaching qualification like a TEFL certificate. Don’t worry though because a TEFL course isn’t that difficult and can be quite cheap if you do it online. More about that later, first lets look at the reality of teaching in Thailand and what’s needed.

The first thing you have to realize is that there are many different types of English teaching jobs in Thailand. You can find jobs all over the country and not just in Bangkok. Like anywhere else there are good jobs and bad jobs. There are well paid jobs and badly paid jobs. You can find more information on the different types of teaching jobs elsewhere on this site.

So basically the more qualified you are the better English teaching job you can get. Lets start at the very bottom though. If you can speak English and you’re not a native speaker (European, Asian, South American) and you have absolutely no qualifications, you will still be able to find a teaching job. Even if your English is not that great, you’ll still be able to find work, although if will be at a really bad school with really poor pay.

If you get yourself a TEFL or TESOL certificate (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) then you will be able to find a much better job even if you’re not a native speaker. If you are a native speaker (English, Australian, American etc) then you have a definite advantage. For the majority of decent teaching jobs in Thailand a TEFL or TESOL certificate is the bare minimum.

Now, if you have a bachelors degree as well as a teaching certificate then you will have access to the very top jobs in universities and and private schools. Although lots of jobs say they require you to have a degree they may still accept you even if you don’t or they will make ‘arrangements’ so that your lack of degree isn’t a problem.

There are many rules and regulations in Thailand but there are lots of ways to get around them. It’s definitely a case of ‘who you know’ rather than ‘what you know’. And in these cases it’s about ‘who your school knows’. This may seem strange if you have never been to Thailand but the reality is that corruption is rife!

To summarize. If you have got a TESOL/TEFL and you are a good English speaker/native speaker then you can get work in most places. If you have a real bachelors degree to go along with it then you can apply for just about every teaching job available. As you pick up teaching experience along the way even more doors will start to open for you.