We have a number of calls on our services and you will help provide what is needed under the guidance of our resident head of Volunteer Teacher Thailand, Ken Hyde, a professional teacher with very wide experience in the UK and Thailand.

If you are not experienced, you will soon get into the swing of preparing lessons and giving them. Don't worry: you will not be left alone until you are confident you can deal comfortably with the task. And even then you will have someone around to help and offer advice if you need it.

If you are experienced or you have just
left college for a career in teaching, you
can discuss your role with Ken and work
out the most effective use of your time.

No one works all the time. The rhythm
of our weeks gives you time to enjoy being here as well as help with the teaching.

This is the kind of work we do - but everything changes all the time because
we try to never turn away anyone in need of our services:

Schools We have weekly visits to a number of schools. You would help
prepare the lessons and then take part in giving the lessons to children aged from about five to 16

English Camp This is when we go mob-handed to a school for two days of fun and games that teach English. These are big events for the schools - and we have great fun too!

Home & Life orphanage We have a Tuesday evening teaching session - but we have become very attached to Home & Life and the children, so it is not unusual for some of us to make other visits (we were teaching the children how to bake apple pies recently: they have been given two commercial ovens and now produce pies and pastries for sale to tourists)

Adult drop-in We hold this twice a week for an hour or so in the office, in the centre of Khao Lak, at the start of our day. No appointments, no payments. Four in five of Thai English-speakers engaged in the tourist industry locally perished in the tsunami. Help here puts rice on the table of local families by improving their chances of earning a living

Communities We are invited to help
whole communities with their English - the most recent request came from the Samsung community centre in Bang Niang. We send a team and work on their
English. Other 'community' tasks have included helping the local police to get
to grips with English

Businesses Restaurant, hotel and shop staff like to use our services and we visit them on a regular basis over a set period to help them improve enough to deal with customers. Bigger firms can buy help to improve their businesses but we focus on teaching staff so that each is better
placed to earn a living - it is a subtle but important distinction. Sometimes we find, like the classes at the Everyday bar (picture second from bottom right) draws in people from other businesses too ... everyone is always welcome