VISA ASSISTANCE
If you are European, American, Canadian, Australian or a New Zealander or Scandanavian, it may be possible for us to help you acquire an official Non-Immigrant B Visa for Thailand (good for three months of stay) - provided that you apply while you are still in your country. You will definitely need our help (and our paperwork) in order to obtain this, as it comes down to applying at exactly the right place - and this is as simple as contacting Mr James Parmelee via e-mail (parmelee@langserv.com) and requesting it - after your successful enrollment in our TEFL course and payment of fees.
This visa needs to be acquired not longer than 3 months before your arrival, but the clock does not begin ticking on the three months until you actually arrive. This gives you more than enough time to complete your TEFL Course and get work, after which -- if you hold a university degree -- your employer will get you a work permit.
You cannot acquire this visa on your own, as visas required for taking employment in Thailand have recently become much more difficult to acquire through regular channels abroad owing to fears of admitting undesirable pesons.
If you lack a university degree, you can still have a wonderful teaching career in Thailand (regardless of age), although you will not hold a work permit! (Roughly 70% of all TEFL-trained, and gainfully employed, teachers in Thailand also do not hold degrees.) In this case, we recommend that you apply at your nearest Thai consulate for a double-entry tourist visa. You will not need our help to acquire this, and it is normally granted automatically and fast. Each entry will give you two months of stay which can be extended easily by one month, meaning you will have six months of stay here. In applying for it, you must state only that you are planning an extensive holiday in Thailand! Do NOT tell the consulate that you are coming here to train.
This, again, will give you much more than enough time to complete your TEFL course and get a job. In fact, you may be able to enjoy a month or more of actual holiday here before you start your course! Following that, to avoid 'border runs', you would be wise to sign up for our Thai language course, which will give you an education visa to keep you in country throughout the year, and, if you wish, all the coming years.
Does any of this puzzle you? If so, why? If you lack a degree, you still want to come here and teach English, right? We are telling you how to do it, though you will not obtain a work permit. Look at it this way: Suppose a Thai person came to your country and applied to work teaching Thai but had no university degree. Would your country issue him or her a work permit? Of course not! You are much luckier here in Thailand, as the shortage of tefl-trained teachers here is so severe that the pragmatic Thais will gratefully employ you (after you finish our course) even though you have no degree and no work permit! This is particularly true owing to the fact that our TEFL Course Certificate is so well known and respected by all employers.
Is it our position, then, that you should not have a degree? Absolutely not! Everyone who has the opportunity to study for a degree should do so, as this proves beyond doubt that he (or she) has learned how to learn, learned where to find information when it's needed and that he or she can successfully complete a long project with dedication.
What we are talking about here, however, is facts that will be useful to you, not in any way our position on degrees. Having said this, we can tell you with absolute assurance that no university degree in any field will help you to become a successful and productive ESL/EFL teacher! Even a degree in education with an emphasis on teaching English will not help, as knowing how to teach English native speakers is literally a world away from how to teach English learners who are struggling to learn our language as a foreign or second language. Indeed, we have trained numerous persons with degrees in education, even Masters Degrees in education, and, so far twenty-seven holders of PhDs (many with decades of teaching experience back home), and NONE of these persons had a clue about how to teach ESL/EFL learners when they joined our course!
Finally, though many professions can absolutely not be pursued without a requisite university degree, this is not true with regard to teaching English as a foreign or second language. What IS required is that you learn how to do it through a proper training course such as ours.
Teaching English successfully abroad is not 'Rocket Science', after all! It just requires that you learn how to do it correctly and well, and that you dedicate yourself to the profession. And having either a university degree or a work permit, or both, will NEVER make that happen!
So how does it happen, anyway, that upwards of 70% of TEFL-trained teachers in Thailand lack degrees? Think about it! How many people who are pursuing a well-paid and rewarding career back home suddenly decide that they want to give up their job and sell their home and car and other possessions and come to Thailand just to teach English? It does happen, and we and the Thais greatly respect them for that; but the overwhelming majority of people don't do that! What is Thailand known for, after all? It's a great holiday destination where the locals are always smiling, friendly and tolerant. People come here on holiday, often many times, until one day they decide to give up their pursuit of a degree and train to be an EFL/ESL teacher in order to 'give something back' to the Thai people they have come to know and love!
So based on the above, if you also decide to come here and pursue an English teaching career without a university degree or work permit, you have our bessing! Just 'keep your nose clean' and all will be well, not only for you but for your students! And if you do hold a university degree in any field, you will also get your work permit!
In any case, please place your trust in our ability and desire to take care of your needs, and don't spend a lot of time worrying about visas or work permits! We will not only train you as a professional teacher - We can assure you that, following your successful completion of our training course, you will gain good employment - meaning you will never have to leave 'The Land of Smiles' again ever, unless you wish to!
Finally, *do not even consider coming in without a visa and getting a 30-day stamp-in, if you can avoid it!* This 'visa' cannot be extended, so you would have to journey into a neighboring country and then go to the Thai Consulate there and acquire a real tourist visa before starting your course - not the ideal way to begin what should be an excellent and exciting teaching career in Thailand!
You may also contact Mr James Parmelee via e-mail (parmelee@langserv.com) for any further information you might need about visas.
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