ok I’ve been here nearly 3 months so far. I worked for over 5 years in Japan and I have a great CV including an MA in tesol/ling.
but I just cannot get a job!
I came here with my girlfriend and I want to stay, I like Taiwanese people generally and it’s anice change from Japan…I’m also doing quite well in learning the language but the job scene is ridiculous! As far as I can tell there are 3 types of jobs in Taiwan.
uni jobs
This is what I’m aiming for but most of them want PHDs or published papers. I’ve been offered 1 job but because I didn’t have my MA cert yet (not released for 6 months) and depsite having letters from the uni saying I’d finished, they couldn’t accept me.
school jobs
These jobs sound great but you need a teaching licence from home.
everything else
FIRST TIME TEACHERS WELCOME, NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! SMALL SCHOOL IN xytfgff. 550 AN HOUR! KINDY KIDS.
So this is it. I’m seriously getting fed up. I’ve been here for almost 3 months now. I had good jobs up until now and even worked at a uni back home. I have a pretty good resume but nothing fits. I ended up contacting people like GEOS and HESS last week and went along to their interviews. I was just screaming on the inside, that I was even considering working there. what is wrong with this country?! my tourist VISA will run out soon and I have to decide if I want to continue trying. It’s pretty depressing as it is…I did all this work, have no black marks against my name, excellent references, experience and qualifications and I JUST CANT get a job.
I would have though Taiwan woulod be interested in having teachers like me, doesn’t seem like it though. The sad part is I could fly to Japan or back to the UK and get a great job with relative ease. I’m not asking for mega-bucks or anything…just a job that is NOT illegal, and is NOT at some ridiculous time of the day. I’d also like some time off (10 days a year?) but it seems that this is asking too much in Taiwan
Sorry about this rant but I’m sitting at home bored…like yesterday…and the week before that…and the month before that.
You want a job at a university. It requires having an MA. You don’t have the certificate, yet. You don’t match the list of requirements. Simple.
I don’t mean to offend, mate, but schools and universities here in Taiwan, and I guess elsewhere, are interested, for the most, in people who have valid proof of their qualifications. Sounds fair to me. No?
[quote=“Anubis”]You want a job at a university. It requires having an MA. You don’t have the certificate, yet. You don’t match the list of requirements. Simple.
I don’t mean to offend, mate, but schools and universities here in Taiwan, and I guess elsewhere, are interested, for the most, in people who have valid proof of their qualifications. Sounds fair to me. No?[/quote]
no offence taken
you’re missing the point, I do have an MA and I havevalid proof of that. I have the list of my transcripts signed by thr course director and a letter from the uni saying that I passed their MA.
trouble is, the ARC people supposedly want to see the certificate that won’t be release until the graduation ceremony…in JUNE!
So take a holiday, travel a bit, have some fun, and come back in June when you’re qualified to do what you want to do. Seems obvious, really.
In fact, you should think yourself lucky. Decent uni jobs without a PhD are not that easy to come by here, from what I’ve heard.
Dunno about ESL in the UK either. My friend just got back there after several years in Asia and very good qualifications. She got ESL jobs easily. 7 quid and hour for one and 11 quid an hour for the other. That’s like NT$450-NT$680 or something – no higher than Taiwan. Plus you’ve got the murderously high cost of living, taxes, rent, etc. in the UK.
[quote=“sandman”]So take a holiday, travel a bit, have some fun, and come back in June when you’re qualified to do what you want to do. Seems obvious, really.
In fact, you should think yourself lucky. Decent uni jobs without a PhD are not that easy to come by here, from what I’ve heard.
Dunno about ESL in the UK either. My friend just got back there after several years in Asia and very good qualifications. She got ESL jobs easily. 7 quid and hour for one and 11 quid an hour for the other. That’s like NT$450-NT$680 or something – no higher than Taiwan. Plus you’ve got the murderously high cost of living, taxes, rent, etc. in the UK.[/quote]
yeah…I am thinking about doing that. The only thing stopping me is my girlfriend here.
your friend was being scammed I think! 25 quid an hours is pretty much the minimum in the UK for EFL. (though does she have an MA?) UK jobs pay a lot better in summer, when there are more students.
Without a teaching certificate you can’t get a regular teaching job in the USA either. You could probably get a univ. job in mainland China without much trouble, but of course that again means leaving Taiwan. And as you said, there are jobs, just maybe not what you see as an ideal job.
You can teach at a uni without a PhD? The normal requirements in the better unis here are generally three-four years of post doc and at least 10-15 published papers for an associate lecturer/professor position, and they look askance at you if you don’t have fair Mandarin ability too.
True dat…very true dat.
Even if you sign up for a Phd prog offered thru their Uni or an affiliated one…ya gotta know someone.
Of course there’s always the offer of giving incoming freshmen lectures written by someone else…but they hate having their sleep interrupted and they never laugh at your jokes. And then ya just get p*ssed off, tell them they are wasting their parents money and walk out.
There’s always that. Strange as it sounds…some times the Uni will call you back and ask if you’re interested in doing the same thing again…go figure.
So…maybe you should just avail yourself of some “Tourist Time”…buy some gaudy shirts and drink heavily until your certs come through…
With a Masters, you can get work at a technical college or something along those lines.
Is your girlfriend Taiwanese? Do you have to stay in Taiwan? There are many more lucrative places in the world to teach with an MA TESOL. Taiwan is one of the worst in terms of pay and benefits.
not pointing at anyone in particular, but the above is not true.
while many places do require a PhD (not remotely related to what you will be teaching is perfectly acceptable), there are good schools that hire MAs as full time lecturers, including full bonus. the required weekly teaching hours are higher, though.
xtrain is correct. There are some universities that will hire teachers with an MA, but as the years pass, more and more schools are only hiring PhDs. In addition, many of the universities that hire MAs hire them on a special “contract” which is different from getting a staff position. National Dong Hua University in Hualien county devised their own special contract which allows them to get away with paying teachers approx. $10,000 NT less per month than any other university in Taiwan.
Anyway, I agree with TainanCowboy and housecat. Just wait around until June and then apply for some university jobs.
If your girlfriend is Taiwanese, you could get her to help you mail out some CVs (e-mail would be easier) and see what happens. Occasionally http://www.tealit.com has ads for university jobs, so you might check there.
You can PM me if you have more questions about teaching at universities in Taiwan. I taught at several universities in Taiwan.
If you don’t have any “connections” at a university, it might be tough to get in unless you have a truly stellar academic resume and a great portfolio to show. Still worth trying, of course, but prepare yourself. And it’s true, while a PhD is not “required”, most schools want them – even tech schools, all of which have dreams of “upgrading” and becoming a university. The tech school I used to teach at did that, which is a truly scary thought if you’d been on the inside.
See if your gf has any connections whatsoever with people who work at or teach at some university. Since English teaching (I assume that’s what you’re trying for) jobs are pretty generic in Taiwan for foreigners in tech schools or unis, the job will probably go to the person who “knows someone” who can walk that resume into wherever it needs to go and say, “Oh, yes, this is my sister’s best friend’s dentist’s daughter’s boyfriend, do we have anything for him?”
I apologize for being misinformed before about needing a PhD…I was going on personal experience with my husband. When we first went to Taiwan and he was looking for a uni teaching position (with a Masters), he was told by the national universities that he contacted that they could only hire him on an hourly basis (600/hr) because he didn’t have a PhD. He then got a job at a technical college, which gained university status while he was there. All new hires then had to have a PhD and employees who didn’t already have one were encouraged to start working on one.
Maybe it’s the private unis that hire MAs? I am just surprised because like I said, we contacted loads of the national unis around the island and they all said the same thing…600/hr. with no benefits for MAs.
National universities hire M.A.s, but it’s not easy to get a full-time position. I worked at a couple of national universities full-time. The students were great, really motivated and hard-working. However, the office politics was pretty bad.
I agree with both Indiana and Ironlady. It’s possible to teach at UNI with an MA–after all–how many foreign PHd’s will be rushing to Taiwan Uni’s? So, sometimes you can get in with an M.A., although I’ve heard others, too, saying that this is getting more difficult. But basically, it’s like anything else, you need some good old guanshi get very far with anything–or a huge chunk of luck.
Speaking of all of this, a friend of mine just told me that National Pingtung University is hiring and are asking for an MA (but a PhD is preferred). I’m glad I had it wrong…Taiwanese universities would be shooting themselves in the foot if they only accepted PhDs!
I actually went to pingdong but they were looking for someone part time. I’m reluctant to get a buxiban job just so I might be considered for a uni job. Things could go all kinds of wrong with that!
I guess I just came at the wrong time. I do know someone actually, at a fairly good uni in Taipei who got me an interview. I’m still waiting to hear about that but it won’t be until June anyway so I’m buggered anyway. I have to find something to do for the next 3 months.
I’m glad I had it wrong…Taiwanese universities would be shooting themselves in the foot if they only accepted PhDs!