English Teaching in Kinmen County

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

I’m a recent university graduate that has just entered the world of overseas English teaching. I chose to be placed in Taiwan, (I have no Chinese language experience). However, I found out by email today (July 22, 2006) from the Ministry of Education in Taiwan that I would be placed in Kinmen County, Taiwan. I had no idea where this place was - for all I knew it was probably a suburb of Taipei. I was a bit surprised after a quick Google and Wikipedia search when I found out that Kinmen is an island next to Mainland China instead of Taiwan with a population of about 60 thousand people in the main city of Jinchen.

HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS:
** This is what I would like to know about the following:

  1. What is Kinman County is like?
  2. What teaching English is like in Kinmen County? Is it a good area to teach?
  3. Does anyone know anything about Jinchen Junior High School (this is the school I would be placed at)?
  4. How do you get to the island?
  5. Is there an international community of English speakers on the island?
  6. Any tips for teaching in Taiwan? Where is the best place to teach?

Regards
Jesse

2

Sounds like a good gig to me.

HG

3

Yep you’ll find a great international group of expats… maybe 5 on the whole of Kinmen.

Junior and Senior High School kids who will probably say fuck you a lot. They learn real fast.

You’ll be able to take swims to China and party over there before coming back to the monotony of Kinmen. Unless you have a good book collection. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Actually you might enjoy it a lot but you won’t be close to the main part of Taiwan. You’ll probably save a lot of money that way.

4

benefits:

it’s supposed to be extremely beautiful there.
you should save lots of money.

drawbacks:

are there really as many as five foreigners living there?
reports from previous teachers say that there’s not much to do there at all. boredom/desire to leave sets in quick and teacher turnover is high.

some people may consider the drawbacks as benefits and vice versa, but this seems to be the general consensus.

if you don’t think it’s for you, send me a PM and maybe i can help you out.

5

Ha … but there is fishballs every day or beef noodles, Gaoliang, and other Kinmen famous foods … :slight_smile:

… and you can save about 50,000 NT$ a month :bravo: