Teaching English Taiwan
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Peggy Said:
Should I move to Taiwan and look for a job teaching English?We Answered:
It's pretty bad right now.I'm CELTA-certified and have experience teaching in Korea, and I had trouble finding a job here. I'm not picky. I currently teach only about 10 hours a week at my main school, making only 500 NTD after taxes, and my classes are kids with very low English levels and even lower discipline levels. The teachers who survive here are so good and so experienced, if you aren't a really good teacher, you'll probably get fired, at least in Taipei or Kaohsiung.
I got fired from Hess. They didn't even give me a reason, and I'm still wondering what it was.
I sense that I'm on thin ice at my current school despite always coming in on time, preparing, and doing my work. There are just so many teachers applying, they figure "why continue to employ this average teacher when we can have someone with a degree in education and years of experience?"
If you don't have some experience or a decent TEFL certificate, it's going to be difficult to find a job, and if you find one, expect it to be with cattle car classes of screaming kids. And if you can't control all of them to the satisfaction of the laoban, she'll just replace you with someone else who can. It's not very compassionate!
That said, Taiwan has much better foreigner rights than Korea, Japan, or mainland China. If you're an extremely professional teacher, you can do well in Taiwan, but the things that pass as "lessons" in Korea or mainland China don't fly here. You're expected to do a teaching demo as part of the job interview process at most places, in fact.
Taiwan is no longer a "degree and a pulse" country. The visa requirements are actually pretty easy (you can get away with an AA + TEFL), but actually satisfying your boss is the challenge. Except for the most backwater parts of the country at the worst schools, lessons are expected to be very professional, and you are expected to either have good classroom management skills, or develop them darn quickly.
Oh, and another problem is that they pay hourly, and these days with the slumping economy, most schools aren't giving very many hours. So you might find yourself scaled down to ten hours and your pay cut accordingly.
As much as I like Taiwan, the EFL market here has gotten a little too intense for my tastes. I have a job, but who knows if I'll still have it next month. Maybe I'm just not a good teacher, but I think others will agree with me that Korea and mainland China are less competitive and probably more forgiving places to start your TEFLing career...
Melissa Said:
Teaching English in Taiwan - is it a good idea?We Answered:
No offence meant towards Carl, but China is not Taiwan. There are some similarities to how people will react but for the most part Taiwanese are different people than the Chinese (not historically, not ethnically, but socially). As for Chinese/Taiwanese not showing the same level of courtesy towards Blacks/Africans as they do to Caucasians is not completely true. As one who has a darker skin tone I know for a fact that Blacks will draw more attention but people are equally kind to us as white people. Mostly if you are a westerner you will find people to be really friendly. However, Taiwanese are just really friendly people, there are bad apples but that is the same as any place you go.I have been living in and working in Taiwan for the last 4 years, and I have had the greatest experiences in my life while living here.
If you are living in the US now, then coming here you will find things to be significately cheaper (15-50% depending on what it is), traffic doesn't have the same order and flow that it does in the US, there are multitude of foods that you can chose from, there are some amazing points of interest for those that like traveling, lots of historical destinations and lots of culture all over the country. The "tourist" aspect of Taiwan is limitless.
As for being a teacher, I work in a private-public so I don't know too much about the life of those who work in buxiban (crams schools). but I can tell you that they are not quite like the ones that you will find in Japan, Korea, and other parts of Asia. For the most part the schools here are very good to work for, depending on the school you might have to bring your own materials (usually the text books are provided), the pay is around $15/hr (500nt/hr) and you work a minimum of 14 hrs a week and a max of 32, there are some schools that will want you to do out of school work that more often than not you wont be paid for, I probably should have said this sooner but to teach here legally you need to have a BA degree or a 2-3year degree with certified TESOL/TEFL certificate. The normal monthly salary is something like 38000NT (@20hr/wk) and the most if you are a real certified teacher (gone through education classes and graduated with a BA) you can look at something closer to 80-90,000NT each month. There is a 20% tax that is taken out of your check for the fist 180days of the year, and 10% for the rest of the year. We have National Health Insurance that is good for everyone that has a valid residency card.
I can't think of anything more right now, but I will direct some others to your post and we will help you to find your way to Taiwan.
You can figure some of the costs using this living expense calculator from HESS Educational Organization (a major language school here in Taiwan).
(http://www.hess.com.tw/careers/english/n…
Also you can join the Expat forum for Taiwan called Forumosa, and ask any questions there and search through lots of previous posts to find a bottomless well of information about Taiwan from people who have lived and worked here for years. (http://www.forumosa.com)
Nina Said:
I'm interested in possibly teaching English in Taiwan, preferably in the Tainan area?We Answered:
I'm surprised Matt of Asia hasn't replied to this posting!I taught English in Taiwan and there are three sites I would recommend to you (links to each are listed at the bottom of the post):
1. Footprints Recruiting company. Good Canadian recruiting company that does NOT charge you to place you. They connect you with schools looking for teachers. Very user friendly and very supportive of you when you go overseas (at least in Taiwan they're very supportive).
2. Tealit. As a previous poster alluded, this is a great self-serve site with lots of teaching opportunities. This is also a great place to learn about living in Taiwan, including tax information, meeting friends and learning about the culture.
3. Kojen English Language centers. This is the company I worked with in Taiwan, and although some others have had problems with Kojen, in my experience, as long as you're willing to work according to the terms of your contract (which they will send to you before you go over there), you can get great teaching experience, make good money and generally get good living and working support from them. Again, attitude is everything. If you're a hard worker, most of the school directors I worked with would bend over backwards to help you.
Good luck!
Tony Said:
I would like to teach in Taiwan or Mainland China, What is the best way to find a position teaching English?We Answered:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_qu…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4uRqpjEl…
this school in Taiwan is looking for teachers, check it out!!
http://www.wretch.cc/video/onlyyouxi&fun…
http://www.wretch.cc/video/onlyyouxi&fun…
http://www.wretch.cc/video/na6313025&fun…
http://www.wretch.cc/video/wish725610&fu…
http://www.wretch.cc/video/b8653045&func…
hopefully, this help!!
Melissa Said:
What is the best month to start teaching English In Taiwan?We Answered:
that depends on where you wanna to teach.at legal school ,or private cram school?
in general , most of cram schools follow legal school's schedule.
1st semester begins on september,2nd semester begins on february or march.
so if you wanna teach english here,arrive in here before september will be better.
Ellen Said:
Overall, how is teaching English in Taiwan?We Answered:
I have been a teacher in Taichung, Taiwan for a year now and it is an amazing experience. BTW I am not white ^^The Taiwanese culture is a fascinating, the children are fun to get to know there are some that are annoying (but that is everywhere right), depending on the school you work for the working experience is amazing because of your coworkers, the local people are nice, the weather is great.
There are a lot of downsides such as the language barrier, the humidity, the traffic conditions, the traditional food is a little strange but that is my opinion. One thing that has annoyed me is that sometimes you will meet people who you know can speak English, and they will pretend to only speak Taiwanese, which is slightly different than Mandarin Chinese which is the official language, and learning bopomofo (the Taiwanese version of pinyin) is difficult unless you have a good teacher.
I found this website to be really useful:
http://www.michaelturton.com/Taiwan/hous…
Dave's ESL Cafe is great for learning about some of the schools and job offers
http://www.eslcafe.com/
Tealit is good for finding apartments, roommates, furniture, scooters, etc
http://www.tealit.com/
This is a Taiwanese site that lists housing and apartments, I've used this to find 2 of my apartments(in Chinese):
http://www.591.com.tw/