Friday, July 1, 2011
Do any of you college students in Taiwan think your college needs to hire more foreign English teachers?
Do any of you college students in Taiwan think your college needs to hire more foreign English teachers?
I'm credentialed, have a masters in English, and am moving to Taiwan this year. Any suggestions? Thanks for all your thoughtful responses. I appreciate the insights you provided.
Taiwan - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
GOOD.
2 :
I'm not a college student, but rather an EFL teacher over here (in Taiwan). Most universities are always looking for lecturers with graduate degrees, but be forewarned that the politics can be... intimidating. Not necessarily more so than at any other university anyplace else in the world, but you'll be at a political disadvantage if you don't speak Chinese. They will probably pay you well and give you a generous allowance (by local standards), but this also tends to cause discontent among locals with the same credentials (albeit without your inherent first-language ability) who will be paid a fraction of your salary. I'm not trying to discourage you, just to prepare you. Taiwan is a great place to be, if you find a place you like. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't be in my sixth year here! Also be warned that I don't teach in a post-secondary environment, so my information is predominantly secondhand. I found the following website invaluable: http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/teach_index.html
3 :
Even though you're credentialed, you won't be able to get a job in a university or college that easily. Even though the universities and colleges have English departments - 99% of their teachers are 'Taiwanese English teachers' who speak Intermediate to upper-intermediate level English. You may want to know why is it, that it would be difficult, for a fully qualified person with a Masters in English and a TEFL certificate (you have got a TEFL right?) to get a job at a college/uni? Well, that's because many Taiwanese English teachers have lost alot of their students and jobs to us lot! It's not our fault it's our 1st language is it? Anyway, enough Taiwanese complained about it to the government and now the only way we can teach here is if we have a special kind of working permission which only private English schools can issue (don't worry - there are hundreds of private English schools - this is where you will make your cash). Colleges/Universities can't issue working permission; however, they do have the odd English teacher. How? Because if you're married then you don't need working permission and then you can get work in the universities/colleges as long as you have a TEFL or some other kind of teaching certificate. In Taiwan, the government even developed a special 'kind' of English that can only really be taught by Taiwanese English teachers - it's called GPT - all of the text books have Chinese instructions so the foreign English teachers can't teach it. GPT English is really awful, it's littered with grammatical errors and seems very much like Chinglish - Chinese-English - for instance, they will often put the time at the beginning of a sentence as apposed to the end. This is really silly, they developed GPT to help Taiwanese English teachers but it's having a really bad effect on the poor people who learn it. Oops, sorry - I've gone on a bit too long! Rounding up - lots of work in private schools, it's going to be very difficult getting work at a college!
4 :
I taught at several different universities in Taiwan. There are some real advantages to the job. For example, you get 3-4 months off with pay, you're given a lot of freedom to teach your own way, and the students in general are pretty nice, a real step up from teaching at language schools. However there are some real problems, too. The pay is not too great, about $55,000 NT ($1679 U.S) a month. (Some, such as Dong Hua University in Hualien county pay even less, about $45,000 NT a month.) Most university English departments are quite chaotic. Decisions seem to be made at whim. Communication about basic things such as your work visa and the status of your job can be aggravatingly awful. Also, it's common that you will have to wait about 3 or 4 months to get your work visa, and you might end up riding your scooter all over town to get all the paperwork finished. At the universities I've worked at (5 different ones!), foreigners are seen as stupid and totally useless. They're usually not asked to participate in staff meetings or do anything more than just teach basic English classes. If you are dead set on teaching at a Taiwanese university, I would definitely recommend checking the place out before you sign a contract. Talk to one or more of their foreign teachers, and ask a lot of questions. I would not recommend working at a school that has no foreign teachers, or a school that tries to prevent you from speaking to its foreign teachers. Finally, read over some of the articles on the blog linked below. Good luck!
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