Hello readers,
I got a job through RTT in Changhua. The “formality” contract pay is 57,000 NT a month, and that is what the foreign teachers there are making now. I think there are 23 teaching hours a week, but it’s definitely a 40 hour a week job with no sick or vacation days except Chinese New Year. During the interview, the coordinator said my salary is negotiable. I’m a licensed teacher in the US and will be finishing my master of education in teaching in may while working at the school. How much should I expect to make? Any tips on the negotiation with the principal? I was thinking to ask for housing to be included and three hours of quality one on one chinese tutoring a week. should I ask for 90,000 and settle for 75,000? I don’t even know if they have a pay scale.
thanks for your help,
lindsey
Your masters will probably do you no good, but with a US TL I would say realistically $70,000 is the max. 100hr contracts pay between $60,000 - $70,000. I would be quite interested to hear if they pay you more than that! Good luck!
[quote=“LindseyBrown”]Hello readers,
I got a job through RTT in Changhua. The “formality” contract pay is 57,000 NT a month, and that is what the foreign teachers there are making now. I think there are 23 teaching hours a week, but it’s definitely a 40 hour a week job with no sick or vacation days except Chinese New Year. During the interview, the coordinator said my salary is negotiable. I’m a licensed teacher in the US and will be finishing my master of education in teaching in may while working at the school. How much should I expect to make? Any tips on the negotiation with the principal? I was thinking to ask for housing to be included and three hours of quality one on one chinese tutoring a week. should I ask for 90,000 and settle for 75,000? I don’t even know if they have a pay scale.
thanks for your help,
lindsey[/quote]
Taiwanese aren’t really hagglers the way they are in India or China, so if you ask too much they will think you’re greedy or daft. There’s no way you’ll get above market price here unless you have some special leverage and know how to use it. If you get more than the other teachers get, that’s a headache for them. Best to take offers in Taiwan more or less at face value in terms of the remuneration, although there is some room for negotiation on a modest scale.
FYI, if you are in fact new to Taiwan, 60,000NT is about double what your equivalent Taiwanese Female makes here in her own country (probably working 60 hours a week!). Believes me, no one thinks your ‘underpaid’ at $57,000NT and they will not pay you more than what the market is paying teachers with your credentials. You might want to ask the people at RTT for advice before you go overboard at the negotiating table.
And there are always dozens of people waiting just outside the door with almost exactly the same credentials, so you’ll never be arguing from a position of any strength.
What sort of job is it? It’s not in a government school, right? If it is, you’d be getting completely screwed on a contract like that. I’d suggest trying to get a government school job. I’m just wondering why you say it’s for 23 hours per week, but it’s definitely a 40 hour per week job.
Whether you end up taking that position or not, you should try to get into the MOE (Ministry of Education) programme for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Any years of experience outside the Taiwanese system don’t count. Your first year in the programme with an M.A. would pay you 67,925NT/month, plus a housing subsidy (5,000NT/month if single, 10,000NT/month if married). You’d also get paid vacation (only two weeks) and paid national holidays, and probably a fair part of the winter and summer vacations off also. Technically, I’m supposed to be at school working during the winter vacation, but since no one else will be here, I won’t have to be either, and I’ll still get paid. It’s an eleven month contract (hence the extra, unpaid time off in summer), but you get a performance bonus of one month’s pay, half a month’s pay, or no pay, so it pretty well turns into a twelve month contract. There’s also paid sick and personal leave (though you do have to make up classes you miss or get a sub).
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]What sort of job is it? It’s not in a government school, right? If it is, you’d be getting completely screwed on a contract like that. I’d suggest trying to get a government school job. I’m just wondering why you say it’s for 23 hours per week, but it’s definitely a 40 hour per week job.
Whether you end up taking that position or not, you should try to get into the MOE (Ministry of Education) programme for the 2011-2012 academic year.
Any years of experience outside the Taiwanese system don’t count. Your first year in the programme with an M.A. would pay you 67,925NT/month, plus a housing subsidy (5,000NT/month if single, 10,000NT/month if married). You’d also get paid vacation (only two weeks) and paid national holidays, and probably a fair part of the winter and summer vacations off also. Technically, I’m supposed to be at school working during the winter vacation, but since no one else will be here, I won’t have to be either, and I’ll still get paid. It’s an eleven month contract (hence the extra, unpaid time off in summer), but you get a performance bonus of one month’s pay, half a month’s pay, or no pay, so it pretty well turns into a twelve month contract. There’s also paid sick and personal leave (though you do have to make up classes you miss or get a sub).[/quote]
This sounds great. 4 questions for you. 1.What are the hours for a contract like this? (I.e. How many hours a week are you actually at the school?) 2. Do you need to be bilingual and are they preferential to American English? 3. How easy is it to get these gigs, do you need a teaching liscense from your home country, Do they prefer people with experience teaching in Taiwan? 4. Are you likely to get a job in Taipei, or are these openings in farther away locations?
Thanks, and do tell!
[quote=“achdizzy1099”]This sounds great. 4 questions for you. 1.What are the hours for a contract like this? (I.e. How many hours a week are you actually at the school?) 2. Do you need to be bilingual and are they preferential to American English? 3. How easy is it to get these gigs, do you need a teaching liscense from your home country, Do they prefer people with experience teaching in Taiwan? 4. Are you likely to get a job in Taipei, or are these openings in farther away locations?
Thanks, and do tell![/quote]
- The official hours are forty hours at school, and the really good thing is that they’re civilised hours – I finish at 4:00pm, except on Wednesdays when our “English Club” goes until 4:30pm – so you can have a normal social life or participate in hobbies in the evenings. There is almost never work on the weekend (this weekend, we have to work both days, but that’s so we can get a straight run for two weeks all the way through until the end of Chinese New Year afterwards, instead of having to come to school for two days between the end of semester and Chinese New Year). You only teach 20-24 lessons (I can’t remember the upper limit, but it’s not more than 25) of 45-50 minutes each (with breaks of ten to fifteen minutes between lessons). You have to be at school the whole time, though so long as the school isn’t strict, you can nip out at other times to go to tbe bank or so on. Depending upon your schedule, you can actually end up with a lot of time on your hands (hence why I lurk at Forumosa so much). Also, if your lessons are cancelled for some reason, you don’t lose money (because it’s a salary, not a wage). So, this week, my junior high school students are doing exams and it’s the last week of the semester. So, no classes for me Tuesday to Thursday. My elementary school students (only two lessons per week) were tidying their school, so no classes for them today either. It’s cruisy like that. So, I’ve been using this week to put together the first month or two of what I’m going to be teaching my advanced students next semester. Friday onwards is winter camp, which isn’t a camp in the sense of how we think of camps in the West, i.e. tents and canoes. Winter camp in Taiwan basically means more lessons, perhaps with a couple of cooking or art activities thrown in, but it’s still going to be pretty cruisy here – I’ll only have three lessons every afternoon for five days. All of this, including the reduced hours and break for winter vacation and Chinese New Year, is paid. That’s not something you’d get in many jobs here.
I should also mention that you may be teaching at multiple schools. I teach at two. I have heard of people teaching at three. Some teach at one.
- You don’t need to be bilingual. It’s hardly expected, but welcome. I teach in a small town in Taidong County, and few of my students have anything beyond very basic English (many don’t speak Chinese as their first language). I can speak better Chinese than many can speak English, so it helps, but it’s not necessary. Most teachers in this programme are recruited from abroad, so they have little to no experience with Taiwanese culture or the languages here.
The standard curriculum they use with their Taiwanese teachers is American English and generally speaking, their contact with English in Taiwan will overwhelmingly be American English. It really depends upon your superiors. My superior is really eager for my students to experience different things, so he’s supportive of me and my differences (I’m Australian). I don’t modify my accent, and when I teach spellings or other things that differ between different forms of the language, I usually teach both so that the students are aware of the differences. I’ve actually found this to be a complete non-issue in the governmental system. Also, I don’t follow the textbook. I do my own stuff with the kids.
- I’ve already answered the part about experience in Taiwan. To be honest, they don’t have as many people in this programme as they would like, so they can’t be too picky, except that you must be certified to teach (not necessarily English or EFL) in the West, though I have heard that people on marriage or long term visas/permanent residency can get into this programme. I don’t know how correct that is. I am a certified teacher and married to a local. Several people in this programme are, actually.
In terms of getting a job in this programme, there are two methods. The more common method is to apply through the MOE programme, which I believe you have to do through a recruiter. The less common method is to contact one of the people in charge at the county level, which is what I did. I wanted to work on the east coast, so I contacted the person in charge of the programme in Taidong County.
- My understanding of it (but I could be wrong) is that not every county is involved in the programme (I believe Yilan and Taoyuan Counties are not), and I don’t think Taipei City is. I could speculate on the reasons for that (bureaucratic independence, perception of less need to run this programme in Taipei because of the access to English learning there, etc.). At one point, there were positions in Taipei County. I don’t know if there still are, though obviously, there’d be quite a high demand for them if there were. In terms of where you would be working, it’s largely based upon how many schools apply for a foreign teacher and where there are vacancies (not every school that applies gets a teacher if there aren’t enough teachers, so they’re generally pretty eager to get teachers to renew their contracts). I should imagine some sort of placement preference would be given to teachers who have been here longer, though I can’t be certain. You can list some preferences for where you would like to go, I believe, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Most of the people I know through this programme are in Taidong City. The rest, including me, seem to end up in quite small towns. I think that as well as being unlikely to end up in Taipei City, you’d be unlikely to end up in any of the other major cities, or even their counties.
I do occasionally rant and rave about teaching here (okay, I rant and rave all of the time), but it’s actually pretty good here. Unless you get into a really great niche field, this is probably one of the best jobs you’ll get here. I’d like something better abroad, but if I had to stay here for the next ten years, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. There’s much more of a supportive atmosphere here and I think that if I were to stay here for another five years, I would actually teach my students in the fourth grade all the way through to the end of the ninth grade and they’d be pretty good at English by then, and in this town at least, I could actually change the way English (and English teaching) is perceived. It’s the complete antithesis of teaching in a buxiban or an English Village or whatever the hell almost everyone else does in this country.
One day, I’ll get around to taking some photos of my school and the surroundings and post them here. I can see mountains practically 360 degrees, there are pineapple and banana plantations at the front of the school and surrounding the school, and there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of trees and shrubs on the school grounds, which is extremely unusual for a school in Taiwan. We even have lots of lawn here. There are a few dogs that live at the school and occasionally wander around. My wife comes up here for lunch every day and brings our dog and all of the kids know him and ask after him if they don’t see him on a particular day. It’s tres casual here.
Tanks Guy, Great answers. I’m pretty tied down to Taipei City, so this program probably isn’t for me. Not to mention I don’t have a teaching license from back in the states. I wonder if you can get one of those on-line these days?
[quote=“LindseyBrown”]Hello readers,
I think there are 23 teaching hours a week, but it’s definitely a 40 hour a week job with no sick or vacation days except Chinese New Year.
I’m a licensed teacher in the US and will be finishing my master of education in teaching in may while working at the school. How much should I expect to make?
[/quote]
I wish I had a master of education!
You should not make less than 800NT$ for every real teaching hour. That’s about 74000NT$ per month.
Plus! Paid vacation and health, retirement etc.
So they pay you 600 an hour. That’s the lowest you can get without your qualification. But with so many teachers coming here, without sufficient money and backup plan, it might be taken by someone else who is desperate.
Still, May is with capital letter. just kidding.
Sorry to add this!
But you can take the job first and renegotiate later. Taiwanese people do this too. All the time.