Sample Placement Preference Form: Teach in Thailand

A few weeks before your program begins Teaching English in Thailand, you will be asked to submit your placement preferences. Here are the questions you are able to submit preferences for:

1. City Type – Urban, Rural, Mid-Sized, or Flexible
2. Age Level – Young Kids (Kindergarten/Elementary), Older Kids (Middle/High School) or Flexible
3. Preferred Contract Duration – One semester or One year
4. Please document briefly any special skills or a background that might lend well to a certain type of school or position? (ie ESL teaching/training, biology, mathematics, computer, French etc.)
5. Additional Comments

Some things to consider…

We do not guarantee that we will be able to accommodate your preferences 100%.

While we will try our hardest to place everyone where they prefer, it’s just not possible to place every person matching their submitted preferences 100%. You will fill out the placement preference form (formatted like the above) before you arrive and we will do our very best to place you somewhere we think you will be happy. That being said, we do ask for patience and flexibility on placements. The more open-minded you can be about your placement and the experience as a whole, the better time you are going to have. We have placed teachers in cities you have probably never heard of, and they have absolutely fallen in love with them – so try and have an open mind.

The more open with your preferences you can be, the easier it will be for them to be met. For example, “I’d like to be placed in a mid-sized city where I can learn about Thai culture” is an easier preference to meet than “I want to be placed in Bangkok”. The placement team is a team of both Thai and Western staff, and they are experts at matching participants with placement cities they think are a great match.

The placement process does not only involve your preferences, but also the available positions around Thailand and the needs of the schools and agents around Thailand. If it were possible to place everyone in their number one desired location, we certainly would, but that is logistically impossible. Not only are there over 100 cities we place in, many that you’ve never heard of, but your placement is also heavily influenced by which school sees your introductory video, resume, and photo and decides to offer you a job. We submit job applications based on preferences as much as possible, but ultimately we have no control over if a school in your desired city location offers you a job or not, so we need teachers to be open about this process.

Please remember that this program is first and foremost about the students, and the people who need this education, and not necessarily about placing everyone in their number one city. If your number one reason for doing this program is because Phuket’s beaches and nightlife seem like a fun time, you might want to consider just backpacking or vacationing in Phuket. You’re more than welcome to visit these places on the weekends and during your vacation time, but this is a serious teaching position, making a huge impact on these communities, and that should be the most important reason you’re applying to the program.

Have questions for the Program Manager? Post them below!