So, up nice and early to travel to Krabi, where me and Kaley had been selected to teach together by the school there. So after about 4 hours cramped into the back of a car, all our stuff packed into the boot, we arrived in Krabi. For those of you that don’t know, Krabi is an idyllic beach town on the west coast of south Thailand where every traveller goes when they visit Thailand. So we were incredibly happy when we were told that this is where we would be teaching. However this was not the case, and was the start to a very knackering, down heartening tour of south Thailand.
When we arrived at the school in Krabi it all seemed too good to be true, we had been selected together in a paradise location, the head of English was telling us how she could help us find accommodation and that we would need to rent a scooter to get to school, and talking as if we would start teaching soon. Then an American lad arrived and she took him into her office and told us that she wouldn’t be too long, she just had to interview a few people. We all looked at each other, obviously thinking the same thing, ‘Hm interview? Does that mean we don’t have the job yet?’ We were then told, after waiting for about 15 minutes not knowing what the hell was going on, that we had to do a demonstration in 10 minutes, this told us that this was an interview for definite. So with nothing to prepare with, we asked for some pen and paper, and knocked together a very under prepared lesson. We gave our demonstrations, obviously not our best as we had hastily put them together in 10 minutes, and were told to wait downstairs. The teacher we met first of all had told Dalton that this was just formalities and that she would make sure that the English department chose us. So down she comes and sits at the head of the table, and in follows one of the other interviewees, she then proceeds to tell the other interviewee that she was very good, how her friend (one of the teachers in the English department giving the decision) had recommended her, and then told her she had the job, right in front of us. She then informed Dalton and Amp (one of Dalton’s Thai employees), in English, that the reason we didn’t get the job was because we were too inexperienced. So we had travelled to Krabi with the presumption that we had a job, to be told we were too young and inexperienced, and that the only reason the school chose us, sorry, chose the company, was because they offered to run English camps and write the schools English programme (so it turned out me and Kaley had been chosen together because we both have a degree in English literature, and we were on the first page of the profiles advertising teachers from the company, not because we are favoured by the boss, unlike some people believe). So we were all very pissed at being used and lied to, and heartbroken that we would not be placed in such a paradise. On the way back to Hat Yai Dalton rang a school in Nakhon si thammarat that had asked for 2 teachers but had been turned down as all teachers had been placed already, or so Dalton thought before the Krabi experience.
So Day two of our tour of south Thailand, we had left all our bags in the car on the presumption that we would be in a new house by the end of the day and be employed by a school. So we set off to Nakhon, this time only a few hours away and on the east coast of south Thailand this time. We arrived on time and had our interview, and demonstration, this time everyone knew it was an interview and knew about the demonstration so we were prepared. We were told by the director of the school and the ‘advisor’, who had been employed by the mayor to see if we were fit for the job, that they loved us and would hire us on the spot if they could. But, owing to it being a municipality school, it was run by the local government/council, it all had to go through the mayor, and being the first foreign teachers they would have hired everything had to be done by the book. We were told that we would not get an answer for a couple of weeks, another journey wasted, we had little money and needed to start work sooner rather than later. So Dalton asked if we wanted to wait and find out or be placed in a school tomorrow that was guaranteed, we wanted to be placed, we had spent the past 2 days travelling, living out off a back of a car and wanted to be settled. The only thing in the way of this was that 2 girls from the course were to be placed there, luckily for us they had already said that they wanted to be placed in Hat Yai, to be together and with everyone else. So all Dalton had to do was get a yes from the girls that they wanted to be placed in Hat Yai and we would have a school and a new home by tomorrow night. The girls said yes.
So day 3, and the final day of our tour, or so we hoped, we were not so optimistic anymore, but it all turned out well in the end, we arrived in the little town of La ‘ngu, near the beach, Kaley was dropped off at her ‘primary’ school, and had to teach straight away, which she was not told and had not expected, but being the amazing teacher she is, she pulled it off. I was then taken to my school to meet the English department, this was a guaranteed job, Dalton had worked with this school for years and they trusted him, so with the basic introductions over and me sitting their silently, and the English department looking a bit nervous, Dalton informed them that I was tired after our little tour of south Thailand, and that I was a very confident teacher, they were still not so sure. So Dalton asked me if I wanted to give a demonstration, seeing that they were not so confident with Daltons promises I said I would like to, and having given the same demonstration for the past 2 days I was confident with it and confident that I would make them see that I am a good teacher and that Dalton was still to be trusted. So I began and as soon as they saw that I was a confident teacher they soon started to look in favour of Dalton’s selection. To see a group of people’s face’s who don’t seem all too optimistic that you are what they are looking for, change while you are trying to show them that you are what they are looking for is a very empowering thing, and after 2 days of being knocked down I was confident that I would be able to do this, I would be a teacher, and I would be a good teacher.
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