Hi everyone.
Just want to share my experience working at a cram school in Tianmu, Taipei. Since there’s a confidentiality clause in my contract, I will not disclose the name of the school here, but feel free to message me.
What I was offered: I was interviewed for a math teacher position, full-time, and paid by the hour. The rates are from 700-1000NTD/hour, depending on the children’s age. In the interview, my teaching demo was for high school maths, and I was left with the impression that I’d be teaching mostly AP/IB math (1000 NTD/hr). I was told that I’d get an average of 20hrs/week.
The school has three branches, one in Tianmu, one in Taipei city centre, and one in China. The academic director told me I could choose where I’d like to work most of the time. If I’m teaching students from the Chinese branch, it’d be online.
I took it because I thought 50-80k/month and the flexibility were okay. Boy was I wrong.
When I signed the contract, the position wasn’t “math teacher,” but just “teacher.” The academic director wanted me to write a short personal intro. He told me to list “Math” and “English” as my subjects. I was a bit skeptical but he just said “oh yeah there will be some English classes.”
Long story short: for the very little time I was there, I’d only been given English classes and for 700NT/hr. My monthly teaching hour never exceeded 30, so do the math yourself. On top of that, all the classes were in Tianmu, when I already told them I prefered the city centre location.
Why did I stick to the school longer than I really should? Well, apart from my stupidity, the class coordinator just kept giving me false hopes. “In two weeks you’ll get an AP math student!” And when it’s time: “Oh sorry, the parents have to work this weekend, so next week!”. When I inquired them about getting more hours and/or older students and/or math classes, they’d just be dodgy and gave many excuses. “Oh it’s the winter vacation, so for now we can only try to give you as many students as possible. That’s why you’re teaching English!” “Wouldn’t teaching younger kids help hone your skills?” (The term they used was 磨練… 磨練 my ass) Just a lot of bs language used to pacify younger teachers.
On top of this, when a parent wanted to change the teacher, I just lost the student immediately, and they wouldn’t tell me about it unless I asked why. But when I got a bad class, with kids yelling and misbehaving (when I already told them wanting only older students), they told me I couldn’t abandon the class.
The final straw came when they asked me if I’d take a chemistry class. It just seemed like they couldn’t find any math/high school student.
In hindsight, I rarely met coworkers at the office. I suspect that other teachers got to teach online and/or had classes mostly in the city centre. Tianmu is probably everyone’s last choice.
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The problem I have is not the working conditions or the hourly pay per se, but the dishonesty. If they were completely honest in the interview, they should have said: “monthly salary about 15-25k in the first few months, and only after half a year or more would you get beyond 40k+ consistently. And, 99% of the time, you’d be getting English students, all 10-12 years old.” And of course I wouldn’t work there if they were honest.
Now, perhaps this is standard practice for cram schools, I really wouldn’t know. Or perhaps if I stayed longer, I’d get the 20-25hrs/week as promised. Or perhaps they were treating me this way because I have dual Taiwanese citizenship; perhaps they thought I wouldn’t complain about the hours and were prioritizing the “true” foreign teachers, making sure they were happy before I was. Who knows. But I will not work in a cram school anymore.
Thanks for reading.