Topics

In the interview, we discuss:

• How David fell in love with Thailand

• Why he got into English teaching

• The different types of teaching jobs available in Thailand

• How to break through the "intermediate plateau"

• The pros and cons of group classes and online one-on-one tutoring

• The importance of choosing a narrow niche in online teaching & business

• Why David chose business English and interviewing as his niche

• The power of having sufficiently high stakes in language learning

• David's best tips for learning Thai

• The importance of mastering sounds first

• Why you need to get corrected early and often

Concepts & Resources Mentioned

• italki: 1-on-1 online language tutoring

• TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language

• TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

• Phonics: A phoneme-based method for teaching reading

• Procedural Memory: Implicit memories about how to do something

• The 3 Ps of Language Teaching: Presentation → Practice → Production

• Deliberate Practice: Practice focused on specific skills & error correction

• Elysian Fields: Ancient Greek equivalent to "heaven"

• Thai Script

• Off2Class: ESL Teacher Toolkit

• Thai Tones

• Thai-Language.com

• FSI Thai Course

Thai Words & Places Mentioned

• Bangkok: The capital of Thailand & the country's largest city

• Wai khru: Teacher's Day in Thailand (พิธีไหว้ครู)

• Hua Hin (หัวหิน)