I first visited Taiwan around 18 years ago when I was still in college. At the time, my goal was to improve my Chinese skills, but, as most young people do, I also decided to teach English to make some money. At the time, I got a good job at ELS, which was the biggest buxiban at the time (they eventually got their butts kicked by ELSI and went out of business). The pay was good and the hours reasonable.
After teaching for a few months, I happened to stumble upon a job with a trading company helping with their communications and doing other odd jobs. The pay was only 1/2 of my English teaching pay.
So why am I telling you this? With the hindsight I now have, combined with the great wisdom I have accumulated since then, I can tell you with confidence that:
Teaching English was a waste of time. Sure I made a few local friends, and I made a little money. But the job in the trading company was far more useful to my “life experience” than teaching English ever could have been.
Anyways, in the end, this is just my opinion. But I hope some of you “youngsters” will think about this and keep it in mind when you have to decide between teaching English or getting a lower paid job in the real world of Taiwan.
While I respect your opinions about teaching English in Taiwan, I feel that it’s not fair to those that enjoy teaching as a profession. I know many folks that have found their nitch teaching English in Taiwan & Asia.
It’s not a waste of time if while teaching you learned something new; if you made some great contacts along the way; if you had some fun or if you were doing this during a transitional period.
Besides, trying something new not only helps you decide what you want to do in the future but it also weeds out what you do not want to do in the long run. And these life lessons are vital.
I have chosen a route to work in a field I’m quite passionate about – marketing/communications/PR for a multi-national company. But I consider myself lucky because I knew what I wanted from the beginning.
I respect those who are at crossroads and are take the time to decide what they want to do… whether that’s teaching or working in a coporate environment, or a non-profit organization or going back to school.
I think this quotes sums it up –
“Success is having what you want. Happiness is wanting what you have.” ~Dale Carnegie
I also have a 9-6 office job but my housemate is an accredited English teacher here in Taiwan who takes her work very seriously.
She cares about her students and is actively involved in helping them to learn proper English and in taking college entrance exams abroad. She is also very picky about which students she is willing to take on. If they are not serious about studying the language, and/or if their parents signed them up for lessons just because, she turns them down.
Teaching is a profession.
Unfortunately English teachers get a bad rep in Asia because too many don’t treat it as such, and locals don’t understand enough about how to evaluate one’s knowledge or teaching skills (of a second language) to be able to distinguish between the two.
People are very qick to knock teachers. Every one of the users on this forum with degrees, diplomas MBAs etc. have all been taught by teachers. There are many people knocking the profession while at the same time utilising teachers to educate themselves and their kids.
Have you ever taken a Spanish class or a French class? Did you look down on the teacher? I think not.
Teaching English is a profession and it may not be as cool as working in a dotcom (although this is soon to change) but at least teachers are actually helping people.
Teachers spend alot of time and energy educating the people of tommorrow as against other people who sit in the office playing on the interent complaining about the teaching profession !!!
What really surprises me is the teaching of english by non-english speaking people. I personaly know many of my friends from Russia to east europe to latin america who have got absolutely no grasp over english languag but they are in this business and are making big bucks then what I make working as an professional.
I guess teaching english provides an easy access to easy money but yah for those who like to teach and its their profession, then all the good wishes for them. The thing to note is that one smelly fish spreads the smell in the whole tank. Probably their must be better recruitment procedure for the people interested in teaching english.
This topic is also going on in Rants and Raves under the Hess=Mess caption, but its more focused that monstrous, loser organization, Hess.
Also, don’t confuse yourselves with real, accredited teachers. You had six days of training, they have years, ok? Any white complected person can do what you’re doing on Taiwan. I’ve seen foreigners who aren’t from native English speaking countries, doing what you’re doing, and they can’t speak a lick of English, so please don’t compare yourselves with real teachers.
I think this string started with a wrong approach. No teaching english is not a waste of time if you sincerely wish to teach. If you have dreams of doing something else but are just sitting at an English teaching job cuz you are used to the lifestyle, THEN you are wasting time. In the end, I hope that English teachers from overseas put their heart into teaching English and not just moderately for the buck.
hey, moving on to the trading company is good advice! you were there to learn more chinese and to work in the business world… not to teach english. good for you for knowing what you wanted and how to go about getting it. thanks for the direction.
The quality/appropriateness of the people doing the teaching is one issue, but the issue at the start of this thread is whether teaching is the right thing for the reader to be doing.
I came here to teach, because I wanted a change. I’ve come from a serious, high-pressure environment after too many years and now I’m doing something I like doing.
The money isn’t great, and it’s not really a ‘life experience’ for me either. It’s a pleasant enough way to spend time in a new culture and formulate my own opinions about whether I want to go back into the fray on this side of the world.
There may be no real benefit in wiping 4yr old arses, wherever you are in the world, but language is an integral part of thinking. Teaching reasonably mature human beings to ‘get their heads round’ a foreign culture is not only of benefit to them, it forces you to examine and explain it to them. I think that making sense of the absurdities of western culture is a more beneficial life experience for anyone than consigning yourself to cubicle-land before you’ve learned to think for yourself.
And if you choose to do challenging teaching, instead of just baby-sitting in English, then you’re going to learn a lot about dealing with people. It beats shuffling paper any day, and you might also like to bear in mind that the younger generation often have to deal with stuff like student loans etc. Money is not the most important thing in life, but it’s up there with oxygen. The people who try to tell me otherwise are usually the ones who have never really been poor, and are therefore not qualified to have an opinion.
So thanks for the advice, but kindly take the trouble to find out a bit about the people you are advising before telling them what’s best for them.
Unlike you, I started out by working in a business field and then went into teaching. The biggest reason was, that I could not live with the fact I was helping the local business tyrants exploit and enslave the workers in so many of the factories I went to. Most business people turn a blind eye to the great injustice being done to the workers in the factories, both here and in China. The majority of the foreigners I met stayed out of the factories or were not permitted to see where the product they were selling, was being made. Profits are the only thing that matters to the business people of this island. I CAN NOT EVEN COUNT THE NUMBER OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES I HAVE SEEN IS THESE FACTORIES. I suspect you are looking for some kind of assurance that you made the right choice. You won’t get it from me.
[color=darkblue]It is my opinion that teaching English is not only one of the most honorable professions for a foriegner on this island. It pays as well or better than most any other occupation availble . [/color]
There may be no real benefit in wiping 4yr old arses, wherever you are in the world, but language is an integral part of thinking. Teaching reasonably mature human beings to ‘get their heads round’ a foreign culture is not only of benefit to them, it forces you to examine and explain it to them. I think that making sense of the absurdities of western culture is a more beneficial life experience for anyone than consigning yourself to cubicle-land before you’ve learned to think for yourself.
And if you choose to do challenging teaching, instead of just baby-sitting in English, [/quote]
just another point, teaching children successfully–i’m specifically talking about 3rd grade and up but i won’t deny anyone else’s experience–can be just as satisfying and challenging, and financially rewarding as well.
An English Teacher works about 20-25 hours a week and if it is scheduled properly could have a lot of time to do other things. It’s respectable. Just make money to make more money. Be an entreprenuer and start a part time business. Once you make enough, retire in your country.
I spent nine years working as a translator/marketing manager for one of the largest CAD software companies in Taiwan. It was nice; got to travel a lot to Europe and the Middle East and the money was good. Now I am teaching and wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Teaching rocks!
I greatly enjoyed my stint of teaching some years back. It didn’t pay much, but gave me a huge amount of pleasure and satisfaction. I wouldn’t want to go near teaching kids, but would be more than happy to find myself back in front of the right kind of class of well-motivated adult students again, if only I could fit it into my schedule and do so legally.
I’d like to say a few words to the author No 6 in this thread who is known as Guest, no real name unfortunately.
Sir,
I first want to quote something you said:
"I personaly know many of my friends from Russia to east Europe to latin America who have got absolutely no grasp over English languag but they are in this business and are making big bucks then what I make working as an professional. "
Look, I am Russian. I have graduated a 5-year Education University and 4-year Linguistic College. I have been teaching English as Foreign Language for 7 years at a well-established education/research institution and I am a Senior Lecturer now. I also do some research in the field of English Terminology, etc. I am reluctant to unroll all of my CV here though I just want you to see that there is no need to label people and judge all non-natives like you did. It seems to me you haven’t met professional teachers of English who come from a non-English speaking country. I can assure you that a person who speaks 2 or more languages equally well (and professionally) is more likely to succeed in teaching this foreign language to a non-native student like himself. And there is one more thing I want to add - you guys can afford to make mistakes (spelling, grammar, stylistics, etc), I cannot afford this. I have deserved the right to teach English through all the hard work I do. So please - no labels.
Maoman, that wink at the end of your post just keeps me from telling you not to be so nit-picky (oops! I just told you anyway, didn’t I?)
Sputnik, you have to admit that there are some folks teaching English out there who really don’t have a good grasp of the language and have no business teaching anything other than basic levels. Admittedly, there are native English speakers out there who make less-than-ideal teachers but still manage to find students willing to pay them good money.
I think most native English speakers would agree that a fluent non-native English speaker is just as qualified as themselves to teach the language, and sometimes more qualified. Student goals and learning styles also influence who makes the “best” teacher in different cases.
While I agree that sometimes a high-level trained non-native speaker will have a higher understanding of grammar than a native speaker, there is a certain type of grammar mistake that a native spealer will never make. She just knows that it feels wrong. I think Maoman is sometimes a bit picky about this, but in this case Sputnik made three of these mistakes, thus (it could be argued) effectively weakening his case somewhat.
I just want you to see that there is no need to label people and judge all non-natives like you did. It seems to me you haven’t met professional teachers of English who come from a non-English speaking country. I can assure you that a person who speaks 2 or more languages equally well (and professionally) is more likely to succeed in teaching this foreign language to a non-native student like himself. And there is one more thing I want to add - you guys can afford to make mistakes (spelling, grammar, stylistics, etc), I cannot afford this. I have deserved the right to teach English through all the hard work I do. So please - no labels.