No one is organising this and it’s going to be a flop. I doubt they will get to the point of actually replacing the foreign teachers. Maybe they will eventually improve the quality of teachers but that’s where it will stop.
Also they increased the salary table from 10 years to 15 years this year showing that they are now recognising that foreign teachers are more permanent.
But… they also changed the “housing allowance” to become “rent allowance,” essentially deducting 10,000NTD for those with dependents and 5,000NTD for those single and own a house in Taiwan…
I’ve been co-teaching a lot but also have my own classes as well. I definitely worked the whole summer minus a week I took off to go to America to visit family
I’m definitely quitting next year. I only stayed on a second year because my principal is really great and I said I would stay one more year as a favor to him for being so accommodating to me. My school is really great but I’m fed up with the moe
That part was silly. Yes, they are technically an English speaking country.
But have you ever spoken to a Filipino? Most have incorrect grammar and are often hard to understand. Try going to a Far Express store and you’ll see when they tell you the total amount at the checkout! I heard it was $500 but she was somehow saying $700?
Yes, Taiwan needs English teachers… but at this point you might as well hire locals! Many Taiwanese teachers speak better English than the ones I’ve seen!
Probably hundreds. The girl I’m currently dating, and the 2 before her, all Filipina
I’m sure they’d be much happier to, but probably not enough with the skills and the paper
And there are other things. Culturally Filipinos are closer, easier to work with than a revolving door of westerners with their critical suggestions. And the power dynamic, they can choose between westerners who expect equal treatment and higher pay, or the Filipinos…
This depends on the school. For example my school doesn’t require me to work during winter or summer breaks, whereas another school in my city requires their foreign teacher to do it. It’s just desk warming though. I also have winter and summer camps to complete. Winter is 3 days and summer is 5 days. No extra pay for these, but we get between 1-4 extra days off depending on how long the camp is and if you are the camp leader.
The majority of local teachers at my school don’t have to work during the breaks. Some are assigned to work camps during them, some have office duties that they have to come for, and I noticed last summer that some just come in for no reason.
My school requires me to do many things not just desk warming. I attended many meetings and was expected to design new curriculum for the next year and many other tasks. But I think it’s better than sitting doing nothing
They never asked me to do anything too crazy and I often would do more than they asked for. I think the workload is fine in general. I’m just annoyed about the pay scales and the MOE dropping salaries (they cut the attendance bonus but refused to update to the new salary chart) oh and they made me pay for two weeks of quarantine with no reimbursement and cut both my end if year bonus and my vacation time. They also pushed my official start date to the day I arrived in Taiwan even though the only reason I couldn’t come when the contract started is because the Taiwanese government blocked everyone who wasn’t a citizen or already on an arc from entering the country.
Basically they blocked us from working during covid lockdowns but forced us to suddenly be unemployed for months and take a hit from pay and vacation. And they now also use old pay charts to further cut pay. So I’m really pretty salty about the whole thing
sounds like some government members are plundering funds. LMAO. not surprised at all. Create big overly ambitious project, get $, promise the foreigner a nice chunk of change and then just slash everything. reeks of some corruption. It is taiwan though, not surprised at all. Plunder central.
sounds like the big initiative program of taiwan bilingual at lightning speed was all a big front to get $ into the pockets of those who were “in charge” of the program. so now the program is exactly what it will be, filipino majority and a waste of time for everybody else.
The pirate afterparty is at the KTV where general chang is dropping your hot stacks on strippers.
Oh they absolutely are. Every step of the process is “how much money can I skim off?”
@DogmaticStoic, you might want to get a lawyer and fight for your rights on this one. I’ve seen a number of public schools that don’t pay what the MOE states (like 10k or more less. And often the airfare allowance is like 25k total for one person instead of the 2 people x 40k each way). Since it’s standardized across the country, you know for certain someone is pocketing the difference. I had a school straight up tell me that there “was no money for a blood relative’s plane ticket” one year. Someone was really unhappy about their loss of an 80k bonus when I made a stink about it.
From what I’ve heard from people and my personal experience. The best balance I’ve found is finding a buxiban with a nice enough boss and ok colleagues that will pay you a monthly salary. This will give you paid days off and security. Also buxiban work is generally easier than actual schools.
Then if you want to make money, get your name around your local area. Make phone calls, resume drop, just let people know you’re around and available. Public schools, kindys and other buxibans.
You’ll soon have a reasonable stream of subbing opportunities and this is where you can make good money, you have more bargaining power as finding a sub is a nearly impossible task for most.
Only works well for people with open work rights though. Bit tougher if you need ARC sponsorship and work permits but definitely still doable.
Edit: Taiwan tends to really appreciate ‘locals’ if you do this you are probably paving a good path for yourself to open your own buxiban in the future.
Which is cute, because no one in the schools or moe wants to hear anything any of the foreign teachers say or do anything to think about how to make that possible.
So the FETs, by either teaching classes totally on their own or chilling in the back of the room with an LET teaching and helping with pronunciation, all in designated “English with the foreign teacher special classes”, not even the regular actual English classes, will somehow teach all the teachers in the school how to teach all the subjects in both English and Chinese. We haven’t touched on the part where none of the current Taiwanese teachers were required to have an English proficiency that would invite teaching their subject area in English. But the FETs are there to train the local teachers!
It’s not for everyone and probably terrible if you have kids. But one phone call turned into a $1000/40min class that is a 4 week gig twice a year for the foreseeable future for me. $152,000 extra a year from a 5 minute phone call. No interview or demo either.
The question was in reference to having your own school, so yea, presumably, if one is the boss, then they can make those kinds of decisions. That’s what I would do, but easier said than done…