The visa checklist, the pay bands, and a job board read by a person.

Before you accept anything: the visa and work permit checklist

This is the part nobody hands you, and the part that decides whether you are working legally. Rules change — treat this as the checklist to ask about, and confirm the current requirements with the Thai embassy in your country, the Immigration Bureau and the Ministry of Labor.

1. Documents to have ready before you leave home

• Passport valid at least six months, with blank pages
• Original bachelor's degree certificate, plus transcripts — schools normally need the original, not a copy
• TEFL / TESOL certificate, usually 120 hours minimum
• Criminal background check from your home country, often needing legalization
• Passport photos, white background
• Degree and background check authenticated / legalized if your embassy requires it — this is slow, start early

2. The order things actually happen in

1. School offers the job and sends you a contract plus the documents for your visa application (commonly a WP3 pre-approval from the Ministry of Labor, and school paperwork).
2. You apply for a Non-Immigrant B visa at a Thai embassy or consulate, not inside Thailand. Entering on a tourist visa and converting is possible in some cases but adds cost and risk — ask the school who has done it before.
3. You arrive and start at the school.
4. Work permit is applied for through the Ministry of Labor with the school as employer. You should not be teaching before it is issued; some schools are casual about this, and the risk sits with you.
5. Teachers' Council of Thailand (Khurusapha) — a teaching license, or more usually a waiver while you work toward one. Waivers are time-limited and renewable a limited number of times, so ask how many the school has already used for your position.
6. Extension of stay at Immigration, based on the work permit, which replaces the initial 90-day entry.
7. 90-day reporting for as long as you stay, plus a re-entry permit before you leave the country, or your extension dies the moment you fly out.

3. Questions to put to the school in writing

• Who pays for the visa, the work permit and the license waiver — you or the school?
• Will I be teaching before the work permit is in my hand?
• Is the contract with the school itself, or with an agency placing me at the school?
• How many teaching periods per week, and how many of those are conversation classes of 45+ students?
• Is the salary paid over 12 months or only the 10 months of term? What happens in April and October?
• Is accommodation included, subsidized, or my problem?
• Who holds my passport and original degree? (The answer should be: you do.)

4. What the pay usually looks like

Broad ranges in Thai baht per month, for a full-time foreign teacher. Bangkok and the resort provinces pay more; Isan and the smaller provinces pay less but cost far less to live in.

The visa steps above were last reviewed on September 30, 2026. Check the current market before you negotiate.

5. Warning signs

The board

One family, one board. Thailand only, free to post for schools, free to read for teachers, and no account either way.

Every listing here is opened and read by a person before it goes up, and each one links back to where it was posted so you can check it yourself. We rank them on what the ad actually says — is the school named, is the salary stated, is the work permit covered, what are the hours and the class size — never on who paid.

The ordering rules, in full: a listing moves up for each of five things the ad states plainly — the school is named; the monthly salary is a number; the work permit and visa are paid for by the school; the teaching hours per week are given; the class size is given. Five out of five sits at the top. An agency ad that names no school sits at the bottom whatever it pays. Money never moves a listing; there is nothing to buy.

Listings as of November 4, 2026: 9.

Read and checked by the admin. Each listing links to the employer's own posting; apply there. Listings are removed when the original closes or after 60 days.

List yourself, free

Nothing is published until you have seen it and said yes, and no email, phone or LINE ID is ever shown; a school writes to us and we pass it on. The form goes to the same inbox as the contact page.

Prefer email? ben@usaenglish.com — the same questions.

Your first week in a Thai school

The things nobody tells a new teacher, because everyone around you has known them since they were five. Written for a volunteer or a first-year teacher walking into a government school in Isan. Print it, fold it, put it in your bag.

Before you walk in

• Dress more formally than you think. Long pants or a skirt below the knee, a shirt with a collar, closed shoes. Many schools have a color for each day — ask on day one rather than guessing.
• Learn to wai, and learn who wais first. The younger or more junior person offers the wai first. Students wai you; you acknowledge it with a nod or a small return wai. Wai the director, the head teacher and anyone clearly older than you.
• Take your shoes off where the Thai staff do. Watch the rack by the door. Copy, do not ask every time.
• Bring your own board pens. The school may have none by week three. A pack costs almost nothing and saves the lesson.
• Get the homeroom teacher's LINE for each class. This is the single most useful relationship in the building.

The shape of a Thai school day

• Morning assembly. Most government schools raise the flag and sing the national anthem at 8am, in lines, outside. Stand still, face the flag, stop talking.
• Periods are typically 50 minutes. You will often lose the last five minutes to the next lesson's movement.
• Class sizes are often 40 to 50. Plan for forty children and one of you, not for the twelve in the textbook's photographs.
• Timetables change without warning — a sports day, a Buddhist holiday, a royal occasion, an inspection, a funeral in the village. Keep one lesson in your bag that needs nothing.
• ไหว้ครู (wai khru). Early in the year there is a ceremony where students formally pay respect to their teachers. If you are included, it means something.

What the year levels mean

Compulsory education ends at M3, so an M4 class is there by choice and an M3 class contains children about to leave school for good. CEFR bands against these years are on the Resources page.

Eleven Thai phrases for day one

Say ครับ (khráp) at the end if you are male, ค่ะ (khâ) if you are female.

Use the Thai for management and praise, and English for everything you are actually teaching.

A first lesson that works in any room

No printing, no power, no preparation beyond a board.

1. 5 min. Write your name on the board. Say it. Have the whole class say it. Let them laugh at your pronunciation of theirs.
2. 10 min. Teach one exchange: "What's your name?" — "My name is ___." Chorus it twenty times. Then rows. Then pairs.
3. 15 min. Everybody stands. They must ask five different people and remember one name each. Noise is the point.
4. 10 min. Sit. Five volunteers introduce someone else: "This is ___." It is easier to be brave for a friend.
5. 5 min. Everyone writes one sentence and you walk the room saying เก่งมาก a lot.

Then build the rest of the week with the free worksheet builder and the fifty lesson plans, both leveled for a class that spans three abilities at once.

Talk to someone who lives here.

A job ad tells you the salary. It does not tell you whether the school pays on time, whether the work permit is real, what the town is like in April, or whether you can live on 35,000 baht in that province. Those are the things that decide whether a year in Thailand is a good one.

Ben takes these calls himself. Fifteen minutes, video or in person if you are near Surin. Bring the ad you are looking at and we will go through it — what to ask the school in writing, what the package is actually worth where that school is, and what the visa and work permit route really looks like from where you are standing.

The monthly letter