Many public schools in Taiwan are now hiring foreign teachers. As an American, do you think teaching in public schools is better or worse than teaching in private schools or cram schools? I hope experienced people can give me some advice. Thank you all!
I’d rather work in a cram school. I don’t want to have to desk warm. I much prefer getting paid for teaching hours and thus only showing up for teaching hours. Plus, I like my mornings. I’d rather sit around doing nothing but drinking coffee and working ~1pm-6pm instead of waking up and going straight to work at 8am and having to stick around till 4.
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Diplomatic answer: depends on the school
Real answer: no
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Don’t you have to desk warm at buxibans?
Maybe some schools, but I haven’t had to. My previous job I showed up 5 or 10 minutes early to gather materials and taught straight through the day with no breaks and went straight home. There weren’t even desks for the foreign teachers in the building lol. The most I’ve ever desk warmed before that was a couple of 10 minute breaks between classes and a 30 minute break that I could just leave the school and go for walks until it was class time.
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This sounds like the perfect teaching job for Taiwan! Congratulations! 
I think teaching at a public school is a pretty good gig.
Perks: You get free flights home every year for summer, 14 paid personal leave/sick days, 5000 NTD towards rent, a rising salary the longer you stay in the system, and various other perks depending on what contract you’re on. The contract I’m on gives me 2 yearly bonuses (1 at Chinese New Year and 1 at the completion of my contract) but some only give 1. I’ve also noticed that I get more respect from the local community when they find out I work at a JHS or SHS and not at a cram school.
Drawbacks: As previously mentioned, desk warming can seriously suck. I find my soul being drained when I have nothing to do but sit at my desk. I try to mitigate this factor by always having a good novel to read, Chinese to study, or by taking small excursions outside of the school. Although you’re technically supposed to stay on campus during your working hours, you can probably get away with disappearing during your down time. For example, I only have 1 class on Friday so I vanish for part of it to film YouTube videos somewhere else in the city or even meet my gf for some recreation. Each school (and your relationship with the administration) will be different when it comes to that. The first one I worked at was anal about punching in and out on time whereas the one I’m currently at doesn’t have me keep track of my hours at all and showing up late or leaving early isn’t a big deal as the locals do it as well. One other random drawback is social media criticism. Public schools care deeply about having an upright appearance and you may get some flak if they find you posting on topics or with images they deem harmful to that image. I doubt it’s as much of a concern at buxibans but I can’t say that for certain.
There are a lot of other factors though like what about the teaching and work itself? You may be forced to teach from a boring textbook or you may be given free rein to do whatever you like. You may be given the maximum load of classes or you may be given less. They may want you to sit in the office during holidays and they might not care at all. The food at your public school may be decent or it might suck but you’ll at least be saving money if you opt to eat it. Anyways, I’ve never taught at a cram school here in Taiwan but still find the public school system attractive enough not to.
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Yeah as a non teacher, looking at it from afar, I think if you want to make a long term career out of it, it makes a lot of sense. If you’re here to just try the Asian thing or are otherwise not committed to the teaching life then no.
This pithy observation is spot on.
I taught in several public high schools over many years in Taiwan part-time (4 hours a week, usually freshmen) as a guest lecturer (often involuntarily as an agreement between principals of the schools and my uni). The experiences ranged from rewarding to nightmarish, with the majority in the middle of those, but I also taught several bright and promising kids, however it was a small minority, most students being in the vast middle. But there was also a small minority for which I would argue corporal punishment is a good idea (and I’m against it). It depends on the school you work at and their policies/attitudes and what kind of students it attracts (via the entrance exam). The main thing is, public school students have little to lose as students pay hardly, if anything, in tuition (according to my understanding) and almost all schools these days are desperate for enrollment so failing is far from a fear now these days.
Overall I very much prefer my uni classes
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The FET program has been around since the early 2000s. It just rebranded as TFETP in 2021 and starting accepting teachers from the Philippines and India as “Native Speakers” (even when said teachers are definitely not even close to native speakers)
Public schools have much more “prestige” in the eyes of locals, but everyone’s personal experience in the school is going to be different.
Contracts are supposed to keep everyone’s working hours consistent across schools but plenty of FETs teach 16 or fewer classes per week while others teach 20+ (contract says 20 classes max, including training and planning and meetings. But especially with so many teachers from the Philippines now, schools are increasingly learning that they can make their FETs do all sorts of additional teaching work for no additional pay and get away with it). All for the same pay scale. Non-MOE approved school teaching doesn’t count towards acclimated experience for pay, btw, so if the school doesn’t want to pay you, they can reject all sorts of years of teaching experience on you.
And if you have a good experience is going to be dependent on your local teacher — many are fantastic while others should have no right to be near children and need some serious lessons in non-violent communication.
Same goes for cram schools, tbh, but those are private businesses. One would think the MOE would have more sway over protecting the rights of teachers but that’s not always true. Your experience is not just dependent on the school, it’s dependent on who runs the show at that school at that time (could have the same principal and admin as before but the balance of power shifts). Cram school pay sucks though. Even British Council is only paying 950/hr, which is what they paid when they first came to Taiwan. With desk warming, assuming you don’t end up in a public school where they need to lord their power over you at all times and force you to come in even during school breaks when literally no one else is in the building except the person who stops by to make sure YOU are at your desk, the pay is still better than cram school and you technically get more (paid) time off. If, however, you land yourself at a “you can take your personal leave if you don’t want to work when the school is on break but it’s not a national holiday” school, life sucks. Unless you’ve come from a shittier to teachers country like the Philippines, in which case you’ll convince yourself that it’s worth it because the pay is significantly better than your previous life.
(And, since you’re an American, or asked what Americans think, I’ll just say that American public school teachers in the US, especially ESL/ELL teachers, have MUCH better pay and benefits than the equivalent position in Taiwan, even compared to the cost of living. You work 8-3 in the US instead of 7:30-4:30, which means you have a full DAY more off per week, Saturday work days are non-existent, and your summers are yours, not more desk warming or unpaid summer camps that you are required to run. Oh, and FET contracts (not work permits, the contracts themselves) forbid any outside volunteer or paid work. So you cannot do ANYTHING to boost your income as an FET without violating your contract, even if you have open work rights. In the US, you’re free to do whatever the heck you want outside of school hours and the school cannot control you because they do not own you.)
As for private schools in Taiwan, remember that parents pay a lot of money to send their child there so their child can be better than everyone else. How much the foreign teachers takes responsibility for failing students is dependent on the school. Most schools in Taipei do hire people with zero experience for at least 80k/month if they have an open work rights though…
As a former US teacher, yes. I currently work at a public high school in the south, and came from six years of teaching in China followed by three in the US (counting student teaching).
China was easy - students were respectful, took things seriously, and did the work, for the most part. The US was a nightmare: there’s this thinking there that if the student doesn’t respect you, they don’t have to be respectful, and that lack of respect is your fault. This flows from parents and trickles down to students and administrators. I taught classes where kids made it literally impossible to teach because they were so disruptive, and was told, “You’re mean to them because you expect too much. You have to build relationships.” “Expecting too much” meant expecting them to stay in their seats and respect each other and me. I’m not kidding.
Since coming here, I’ve not had a single case of classroom disruption. My school respects me and trusts me (it was like pulling teeth to get the academic director to observe a single class - standard practice in America - because “he knows you do a great job and he trusts you.”), and I haven’t had students swear at me, throw chairs, flip desks, sexually harass me, or do Nazi salutes in class all year (all of which happened when I taught in the US). I’m also able to save a lot more money than I would in the States, and my stress level has declined drastically. At the beginning, this was supposed to be a break from US teaching. Now I think I’d be a moron to go back.
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You have answered your own thread topic.
Just stay in Taiwan if you are happy here.
Yes, if the title of the thread had been “Do you think public schools in Taiwan vs the U.S is a good job?”, my answer would have been a hands down YES!
Since the OP put it this way:
In my earlier post I was comparing it to teaching jobs in Taiwan. Teaching in public schools in the U.S. now must largely really suck. From reports I’ve read and consumed (not experienced, mind you) teachers in America are largely disrespected (in society, never mind in the classroom), have almost no say in the curriculum, must be constantly vigilant about what they say in class for fear of political reprisals, on top of salaries so low it is often a struggle to live on them. The ones that do it and do it well are heroic angels IMHO.
But America is a huge place so it would naturally vary a lot depending on where you’re teaching. I’d be curious as to where your teaching experience was in the states if you’re willing to share. Even what I described as nightmarish experience I’ve had teaching in Taiwan, none would approach what you can get in some places like you describe in the states.
I remember going to a teacher’s conference in Taipei a few years ago and the speaker said “We are lucky to teach in Taiwan. When you say open your books to page 32 – they open their books to page 32!” Meaning, real discipline issues here are pretty rare.
Oh, and the fear of some rando active shooter coming in your class is vastly lower.
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I taught in rural districts in the Western US, both of which had ~40% of students on free/reduced lunch (a measure of the poverty level). Not the worst Title I schools, but a lot of kids came from homes with no dad, homes where mom worked a lot and was never home, or where education just didn’t matter. There were also some homes where parents did drugs. There were about 10 physical fights a year in one school, 20ish in the other. That’s what you get with American public schools - you have to take anyone that comes in the door. The only way they can truly be expelled is by maybe beating up a teacher or bringing a gun to school. In Taiwan, public schools have more rules around them and there’s limits to what’s acceptable.
One factor is that I think kids where I taught just come from really rough, unstable homes and the school district can’t control that at all. What they can control are the teachers, so they tend to blame teachers a lot because they have leverage over nothing else. “Your lessons aren’t engaging enough/the kids don’t like you enough/spend extra time with this difficult kid outside class because he needs to like you more.” It was difficult for me because I kept saying, “It is possible for kids to do school right if they’re held accountable,” and administrators would always stridently insist that by asking for students to stay seated and respectful I had “extremely high expectations.” They would insist that kids naturally have problems with impulse control and it was “part of their development”; based on my experience in China, I kept telling them, “This is not about development, but expectations.” It felt like crazy town.
I must say that in Taiwan it seems most families are pretty stable - married parents, planned pregnancies. That makes a difference. There’s also just more respect for authority in the culture. America in particular is breaking down as a society around lack of trust in authorities - from schools to police to the government.
But it’s also about collectivist vs individualistic culture as well. For example, my day when I was like, “Nah, I’m not teaching in the US next year,” was a day in which second period I had a student threaten a school shooting in my classroom because I kept asking him to stay in his seat, and then fourth period a student in another class - not mine, but I taught her - kicked a boy in the crotch, hard. The kid in my class who threatened a school shooting was back in class the next day (“We don’t think he’s a threat and he needs the stability of school,”) and in the other, the student wasn’t even suspended in school - she was back in class after lunch (“She’s had difficulties at home and it’s better for her to be here.”) There’s never a consideration for the other students; it’s all about coddling and “protecting” the students who are “struggling.” In Taiwan, especially when it’s public and parents aren’t paying for private education, they tend to ask, “What is safest and best for the whole class?” At least in my experience. As you can imagine, the stress level at the US schools was insane. Taiwan is very chill.
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The flipside to that Confucian culture of respect for authority and rote learning is that any rebellious streak of creativity gets stifled and kids never learn how to think for themselves. I know a lot of Western parents who see this and want to pull their kids out of the Chinese style school system before it’s too late and their kids’ brains are permanently blinkered.
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To anyone posting on here praising Taiwan’s education system/teaching experience and shitting on the US’s, remember that the US is huge and Taiwan is still a country of 26 million people. The anti US/“taiwan is better in all ways” shilling that I constantly see on here and on Reddit about Taiwan’s “superior” student behavior and student outcomes compared to the US just shows how little experience the people posting these things had at decent US schools before coming to taiwan where their only job as a foreigner is to show up and be a foreigner, with disciplining students in any way often strictly verboten.
I’ve never been in a Taiwanese school where, perhaps because I understand Chinese, I know the shit that happened before and after my English class was some wild stuff that I am so grateful I didn’t have to witness it. It’s so weird to read these posts and have people say “this never happens to me in Taiwan but it happened all the time in the US”. The best conclusion I can come to is that the people saying these things don’t understand enough Chinese to know what’s going on.
. Even at public “bilingual” schools, most kids in Taiwan respond to “turn to page 32” with a loud “tee boo dough”, aka. “Ting bu dong” without even bothering to enunciate the final sounds of two of those words. They then proceed to use “wah tee boo dough” as the reason they’re out of their seat and running across the room to punch their classmate in the balls, screaming “you are a shabi!” (Pleco says that word means “stupid cunt”) at everyone as a second grader, exchanging test papers with the person next to them instead of writing their own, stabbing their classmate with their x-acto knife (which everyone has), etc. The only time I haven’t seen behavior issues in Taiwanese classrooms is when the students are completely terrified of their homeroom teacher, who will screech at them, keep the whole class inside for every single break for the day, throw desks across the room, rip up student work, and keep students well past the already very late dismissal time.
Laws against child abuse are actually enforced in the US. Taiwanese teachers only have “control” over their classes because they are abusively controlling. As a foreign teacher with a coteacher, you don’t have to put in any of the work of “controlling” the kids cuz the local teachers already have that control. But when you don’t have a local coteacher? I don’t know any foreign teacher who solo teaches who doesn’t have stories that make the average Reddit r/teachers horror story sound like a really great day at work.
People who think Taiwanese kids are great are relying on someone else to instill the fear of god in the kids. In the US, it’s rare to coteach and you’d be fired and maybe even face legal action if you did most of the things Taiwanese teachers do to control their students.
You don’t know much about the average Taiwanese child if you think this statement doesn’t apply here. It is not better to have a lowlife, do nothing to support the kids parent than no parent at all. Not sure how many Taiwanese dads you’ve met who even changed their baby’s diapers. The ones I’ve met with three year olds who aren’t potty trained who also have never changed a diaper outnumber the ones who do/have changed diapers or are ever around to support the raising of kids. Most moms in taiwan are essentially single moms, from a “get help from husband raising the kids” standpoint. Fortunately for them, grandparents tend to be much more involved than in the US.
Where in Taiwan have you been teaching that drugs aren’t a problem? I’ve taught at combined elementary through junior high schools in Taiwan where ketamine was a problem in the elementary school. Where’s that “k” coming from? Dads, uncles, grandpas, etc., many of whom are also prominent politicians and police officers who often have a bunch of illegal KTVs and gambling places too. Doesn’t matter if you’re in Da’an or Kinmen, drugs are a problem here too. It’s just not in your face, especially, again, if you don’t know Chinese.
Again, what are you comparing here? Have you taught in rural taiwan? It sounds like you taught at a really rough US school and then came to teach at a well-resourced school in Taiwan where home life problems are well-hidden from the foreigner.
I don’t know what rainbows and unicorns land you live in, but this is not the Taiwan I’ve seen nor is it backed by statistics. Taiwan has a divorce rate of 2.3 vs the US’s 2.4. And the US has no fault divorce while in Taiwan both spouses must agree or one spouse needs to spend a years battling things out in court. So that means one spouse can just say “I’m done” and get a divorce in the US while in Taiwan, there’s enough leverage over the wants-to-divorce spouse that often, the divorce doesn’t happen.
As for “planned pregnancies”, no. Abortion is common, freely accessible, and not frowned upon in Taiwan. Teenager got pregnant? Get rid of that thing ASAP in Taiwan. In the US? Have fun getting any pregnancy medical access at all if you’re a women in many US states, let alone an abortion. Also, remember that Taiwan has a collapsing population as it is. People just aren’t making babies.
Blind respect for authority is not good for any society. And the things I’ve seen kids manipulated into doing (and the things people of authority have gotten away with because they are authority figures) are unforgivable in many cases. Healthy questioning of people with power “over” you is necessary to avoid really bad outcomes for society as a whole.
If you think Taiwanese people trust authorities as opposed to always being respectful in order to get what they want, you haven’t lived here long enough.
For the life of me, I cannot see how Taiwanese culture is in any way “collectivist”. They are just as individualistic in Taiwan as the US. It’s all about “me me me” and how “my child is better than yours” and how I will drag you down to get higher up in both Taiwan and the US. And things like sidewalks are not something that American parents protest because of their god given right to drive and park their car where they want. Probsbly because traffic laws are enforced in the US and a crazy parent barreling down the school walkway in their SUV would result in some great videos of an arrest in the US while the Taiwanese are taught to accept that that parent has important places to be, safety of children playing on the playground at school be damned.
That’s cuz all you have to do is show up, smile, say hello to everyone, go to your classes where the kids have already been threatened into behaving by someone else (and will be put in their place any time they act out, since you have a local coteacher), make sure your classes are “fun” and go home. Did it occur to you that you have significantly less responsibility than local teachers and that’s why your stress levels are so low? Do you talk to the other teachers in the school about their stress levels?
I have had all of these happen to me in Taiwan. We can add “called me the n-word” (I’m white) to that list. Even had classes where the boys would derail the class as they made up some really disturbing fantasies about how I had sex. Details. Really inappropriate. Seventh grade. I had forgotten about how bad it was until I came across the papers I had written, signed, and dated and handed to the principal and homeroom teacher, finally explaining that I would not teach that class until those boys were under control. The response I had, in writing, is that “this is a cultural misunderstanding”. No, responding to “how was your weekend? What did you do?” With a really inappropriate fantasy about my sex experience (in Chinese obviously. These kids can’t speak English) is not a “cultural misunderstanding”. It’s from boys who have been groomed and believe that talking to their teacher like that is appropriate. And from the written response I got about it was all “cultural” …yeah that kind of shit is stuff I don’t hear about in decent schools in the US. Does it happen? Sure. But kids get disciplined for it if the teacher has documentation. They sure as heck are not told “it’s ok, your foreign teacher is just overthinking things and doesn’t understand our underage sex culture”, which I’m pretty sure is what that class was told, given at one point it was EVERYONE, not just the boys, talking like that to ALL the English teachers, not just me, the foreigner.
Not a single disruption? Now I have to conclude that you’re not a real human who has spent any time in a classroom populated by humans.
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Huh. That says a lot. But it’s how you said it in that post that tells me the most. Perhaps it partially came from my end - my years at US schools, were very difficult, and there’s emotion that bleeds through for me.
If you don’t like it, that’s where you’re at - nothing right or wrong with it. I prefer teaching here. Somehow, while showing a complete lack of understanding of my actual situation here and in the US, your post got away from that. Did I say teaching here was perfect? No. Are public schools here preferable? Per my experience, YES. Maybe you need to sit with the emotions that set off with you. You sound very unhappy, and I don’t actually think your post was about me, despite the hurt you caused me. It obviously took you a lot of time. This may be the internet, but I am an actual human being and your tirade’s lack of consideration stung in ways it didn’t need to. I’m not sure posting with such vehemence on Forumosa will solve what you are clearly undergoing. If you don’t like public schools here, again, that’s fine. But we should be respectful of each other here - for whatever reason, I feel we can do better than what that post was. Hope you feel better soon. Genuinely. I’ll keep you in my thoughts.
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I much prefer Taiwan teaching to Canada. University, not K12, but a world of difference.
Ok, also a world of difference with the interactions with students (less problems, but also less enthusiasm, they’re just kinda switched off). And the job doesn’t have the same perks (Taiwan has perks Canada does not, even if the job is lacking).
I might be willing to go back to Canada, to the right job in the right place, but the students would not be a reason to leave here and go there. Quite the opposite, for me.
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You had a bad experience in the US because you were at a bad school. Not all schools in the US are bad. The one I student taught at was fantastic — no physical fights ever (on school grounds during school hours. I’m sure the kids got into all kinds of trouble outside of school), incredibly respectful students, consistently enforced discipline policies.
Now you’re in Taiwan where, regardless of how great the school actually is, you don’t have to take on the responsibilities that you had in the US. For what is considered a decent salary compared to the cost of living, you just need to show up and teach in Taiwan. Classroom management is not your responsibility. Whether or not your students slept in their own home last night is not your responsibility. If they had breakfast is not your responsibility. That’s because you’re the foreigner, a special import for everyone to enjoy. If you were treated as and hired as a local teacher, you would be dealing with the things you outlined as problems in your US school, even in Taipei.
And I am making plans to go back to the US to teach soon. Chinese teachers are in huge demand and the pay most certainly reflects that. The working hours are significantly fewer than Taiwan’s and there’s no desk warming during breaks or Saturday “make up days”.
But schools that have Chinese programs in the US don’t tend to be the ones where the problems you’ve outlined are a glaring issue. Just as the “bilingual” schools in Taiwan tend to be in places where families have resources and you assume that students there aren’t living in poverty.
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You edited your post after I wrote my reply.
I’m sorry if my post hurt you, but people need to stop posting about one place being better than the other with absolutes. All places have problems and the ones that you said don’t exist in Taiwan are a sign that you haven’t been paying attention to what’s really happening, not that they are facts.
I wouldn’t say I’m deeply unhappy with Taiwan or taking those emotions out on any one person. I’m someone who’s been here long enough to know that much of what I was fed when I arrived was a load of nonsense and simply isn’t true. The fact that people think Taiwanese kids are better behaved than kids in “The West” is a product of fear-based discipline is a huge problem to me. That foreign teachers are a separate thing and not actually teachers who receive the same treatment and respect as local teachers is another.
Have you read other things I’ve posted on here? I’m someone who points out realities of Taiwan when others are seeing everything through rose-tinted glasses and ignore all problems by saying they don’t exist. I know plenty of people who love their lives here as a result of that mindset, but people who don’t live in Taiwan still come onto this site to get a feel for what a future life in taiwan might be and realities need to be pointed out. Much of what you said about Taiwan is false, especially about poverty, marriage, and pregnancy, but people have you believe that’s the truth when you first move here. Then you live here a while and realize there’s a side to taiwan that you just didn’t see before. I feel someone responsible for calling things as they are, as so much of what’s posted online about taiwan is simply not true.
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