Former Broseley man Duncan Kaiser moved to Bangkok on a 12-month contract as an English teacher. Seven years later he’s still there, and loving every minute of his new life.

Blog: It is quite a leap in so many ways from quiet, peaceful Broseley in Shropshire to the madness of Bangkok, the heaving capital of Thailand.

But this is the move I made in October 2003 in order to experience another culture, try a new lifestyle and seek a new challenge.

Incredibly, my initial one-year contract as an English teacher at a small language school has led to a seven year stay in the kingdom.

I never expected this to happen, although that is what many ex-pats say. Time here seems to condense and flash by as you get caught up in the pattern and pace of everyday life.

Before settling (sort of) in Thailand I had taken many trips abroad and always loved the sights and sounds of a new country or region. I did a big year away in 1998/99, taking in Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand and the US.

This trip really cemented in my mind the joys and excitement of living and working in different places as I stopped to pay my way with jobs in Alice Springs, Melbourne, Queensland and finally New Orleans (where I stayed with another Broseley reject who had emigrated some years previously).

Duncan Kaiser relaxing at a beach bar

Upon my return home I tried to marry my love for travel with a career by working for a well known high street travel agent but the itchy feet just wouldn’t go away.

It was my dad who suggested training as a teacher of English as an Additional Language (EAL) in order to be able to work abroad and I bit the bullet in December 2001, quitting my travel consultant job and doing a month long intensive course near London.

Duncan at a Thai temple

After a great introduction to my new profession at a summer school near Shrewsbury and then a year or so teaching in the exotic location of err…Dudley, I opted to take my first overseas contract in Thailand and here I am today. Hopefully, there will be other places to come, but for now life is pretty good.

I’m in my third place of work, I teach EAL to Years 9 and 10 at a large international school with around 1200 pupils. These students must learn in English every day and follow the same British curriculum as their counterparts in the UK.

Understandably, this presents problems in comprehension and learning for those pupils not overly confident in good old Blighty’s mother tongue. That’s where ESL teachers step in and make the material more accessible, from nuts and bolts grammar through technical scientific terms to explaining the ideas in classic English literature texts.

For example, we are reading Animal Farm by George Orwell at the moment in Year 9 and this contains a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary plus wider notions not discussed in Thai society. Part of our job is to build bridges between these two elements, language and culture.

The students here are almost always polite and respectful. Teachers are seen as important figures in Thailand, the givers of knowledge (if only they knew!) and are treated accordingly. Therefore there are rarely any discipline problems. On the flip side, it can be fairly difficult to get these same students to express an opinion or to look more deeply into the subjects they are learning.

Education is just one area in which these fundamental differences exist, and I will be writing more on the many aspects of living in Thailand that delight and frustrate in equal measure.

Broseley to Bangkok has been quite an eye opener so far!