In the English as a foreign language context of Thailand, students struggle to learn English, but scarcely use it in their daily lives. How a teacher lessens students' suffering caused by this unjust circumstance is worth examining. This study employs a betweener autoethnography as a method of inquiry to investigate my experiences as a Thai English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher who endeavored to bridge the gap between the English lessons and students' real lives in a Thai university context. I analyzed my personal narratives through the lens of reflexivity. The findings reveal three performance events that unfold from my lived experiences. These events include acknowledging students' home languages, adjusting the instructional materials to arouse students' interests, and glocalizing the English language teaching materials. I argue that I was cognizant of how Thai students' knowledge of English could be produced and valued through engagement with the local instead of perpetuating colonial linguistic and social practices. My personal stories also reveal the need to dismantle teaching English as an instrument of empire and disrupt western ideologies that have perpetuated the EFL pedagogy in Thailand.