English Teaching in Taiwan is Finished

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
41

I have to agree with TNT above. Also I am talking of teaching English as a CAREER. For a couple of years or if you dont want to develop a CAREER have a blast.

As for salary:
If you are from a high cost country or high wage country a great Taiwan salary of 100,000 plus is still no great shakes. But then you look at your take home and realise that you can probably save a bit more.
Taiwan is a country that is suited for rich people. As soon as you go over 100k you definitely can save a stack of money and maintain a fairly decent life by taking holidays to some cheap places when you need them.

But on my salary here of 60k plus I would almost be on social welfare in Ireland. Converting it into Euro will you give you the willies. That is kind of an absurd situation. I have existed on that salary for a few years and while it reduces my quality of life I am on my way in my chosen profession. If I return home I can definitely get a high paying position as an Asian regional manager in my field due to my experience and contacts. I can transfer this experience to my own business or to work in probably any European country. I’ve also in the main enjoyed my stay here although I do admit I put up with some things knowing I will move on to ‘greener pastures’ in the future. In general I believe my earning power from working in Taiwan experience will balance out my lack of savings in the last five years within a couple of years of moving ‘home’. Overall it should be contribute much more to my earning power if I had just stayed home. Again learning Chinese fluently is a key factor.

My first job in Taiwan teaching English still earned more money than what I earn now (3 yrs ago). My second job for six months earned 32k/mth. I couldn’t make my rent etc. and had to take on a buxiban job in the evenings commuting an hour across town, I had to sneak out of work early in the evening- Thems was tough times!
The next one earned 55k. This one 60k plus.
Some people literally called me a loser to my face. Teachers used to scrunch up their face when they asked expecting me to have a fat salary and I told them what I earned. I had to endure every half assed teacher I met telling me how they just got back from Bali or home or whatever for the third time this year. I visited home once since I came here. But this year I anticipate to break past my highest paying teaching job figure very substantially. Now if I could just learn Chinese better …this year!!!
Sometime you’ve got to take two steps back for one step forward (or two steps sideways would be more appropriate).

Teaching job is not a bad one for some people. Of course it pays well and you can get the most fulfilling positions if you are a real teacher. As for long term career development it’s not too great for most BA type people. It doesn’t really earn more with more experience. You may ask yourself did you study ‘history, english, art, science , computers etc’ so you could do this all day??? What am I going to do when I go home?

The reason Maoman is making so much money is because he speaks good chinese, white, has a marriage visa and is a little older (30ish???). THe other reason may be that he is an excellent teacher. Of this I don’t know but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Not to put Maoman down but I guess after having those advantages above I could reach close to that wage on my very average teaching skills. It’s much easier for the parent to justify the added expenditure. You fit the bill of what they want and make them feel comfortable by speaking Chinese. Since Maoman is also Canadian he has a N.American accent which is also useful. To speak Chinese well and find the right girl to get married to is a big investment in itself so fair play. But for teaching Maoman got some advantages and another ten years to polish them off. Maoman comments that it’s the other things in life that make you rich. True BUT you need a very strong financial bedrock otherwise those other things just wont exist!

The lack of a pension and retirement scheme is important the older you get. So if you consider teaching as a career and will stay in Taiwan for the best part of your life you should really aim to earn over 100,000k so you can put away some savings. I met a 50ish English guy here who was busting his guy trying to save some money because he didn’t save any in his first stint as an English teacher. Also if you know anything about compound interest or saving the earlier you start the better (I learned all about saving early and compound interest from another English teacher I met here…the same guy taught kindergarten all day…he spent an hour convincing me how it was important to start saving in your 20s…still haven’t started saving…but he had his head locked on). The later the more difficult. If you are not earning 100,000k you’d better hope you or your partner have some inheritance.

Another thing here is guys with Taiwanese partners. Unless you are lucky you will probably realise that many Taiwanese families financial status is insecure. You will feel pressure from this because there is no govt. to take over welfare if something goes wrong. You’d better hope there is an elder son or somebody responsible to take the rein in this situation Otherwise you have suddenly acquired more parents!!!
So if you have a Taiwanese partner you probably have more responsiblity to ensure some secure finance, especially as most (NOT ALL) of us can earn 2-3 times what they will earn.If you are thinking of moving back home you will also require money as a property deposit or simply to pay for your relocation.

I think this is important if you live here for a while. Most English teachers very much live a ‘surface life’ here without getting involved in personal and family life or having any real commitment. I don’t think a lot of westerners understand that most of the world is a paycheck away from poverty. That every middle class person here knows direct examples of their relatives/friends/acquantainces who got into debt or their family broke up and that now exist in total insecurity with no govt. support. Why the hell do you think they push their kids so much in school. They all know that is not really great for the kids. But the fear from seeing these examples of old people pushing cardboard around them is a powerful stimulus. I bet if you talk to those old people you would find that many were not always so poor. Can you really blame Taiwanese in this situation?

People come here to Asia working a year or two or on a quick holiday thinking wow that was a good experience those people sure think different but we do things better at home. Everything is better at home blah blah. The reason things are better at home is because our country is so great, our people are so clever, we treat each other better, we are more kind to each other. We are superior in some sense. You wouldn’t see us accepting the treatment that Taiwanese accept from their bosses. They think why do the Taiwanese do this or that or save money so much etc.
Some (NOT ALL) of these things come clear if you get to be part of a regular family here. Many of our partners speak English so they are pretty much guaranteed a job. It is their family’s financial status (i.e. parents losing job/debts) that will impinge.

42

HeadHoncho, that’s the most insightful post I’ve read in a month. Well put.

43

nice post honcho.
I think this debate is a bit of a no hoper. In Taichung you’d have to be the freakin mayor to earn 100k. My g/f is taiwanese, has a masters degree, speaks perfect english, and cant get a job for more than 34 thousand. Her sister is a lawyer, 6th year, and earns 45k. If some overweight foreigners think they have it tough they should guess again. All they do is peddle prepositions and ‘conversational’ English. Tough life! Try going home, spending half your income on a crap place to live, which you will still pay for when you are 60, and have every jerk in the place make their lives better by putting yours down. Teaching here is dead for the opportunistic ill equipped traveller. But for the serious and the thoughtful then taiwan is a great place to earn your keep.

44

You do realize that not all foreigners are overweight, right? Just most of us. :laughing:

I don’t know, some of us have pretty high quality prepositions to sell. :wink: Actually, what you describe here fits many long-time foreign residents of Taiwan. Pretty much anyone who wants to settle down and have a sense of security of home in this country ends up in the mortgage cycle of despair. Some escape, but most eventually get caught. Many of the foreigners I know who make the 150K or more do so because they work like dogs and it’s not because they love money or are thrilled with overwork, it’s to keep up with the payments on the roof over their heads. Most folks who make 100K are much better qualified, experienced, connected, or motivated than the “opportunistic-ill-equiped-traveller” you describe . . . most.

You have to weigh your options, opportunities, and potentials. Balance those against your wants, desires, goals, and fantasies. Pick a combination that will work, is fun, and won’t kill.

45

Wolfman, I’ve enjoyed reading your posts. Nice to have newcomers with a fresh viewpoint join in.

In Taipei, it isn’t too difficult to work 30 hours a week and make NT$80,000 a month. Most of the folks I know who’ve been here for more than a year are doing that. Find a job that pays NT$700 with four hours a day, and you’ve already covered $55,000-60,000 of that. Take on some private students, teach weekends, or get a morning job for a few hour a day, and you’re there. There are several routes you can go with.

The ability to speak and read Mandarin helps a great deal in getting over the NT100,000 a month benchmark. It also makes life here a lot more fun.

46

I was discussing with a bushiban owner about why it is a bad idea to open an English school in Taiwan.
She told me that the population on Taiwan is decreasing at an accelerated rate. The number of students in the next few years will drop by up to 40% by some estimates to reflect the age change in the population on Taiwan. Is this accurate?

47

You can see this happening already. While I am sure there are loads of counter examples, I personally do not know anyone who has opened a legally licensed school and hired others to do teaching who is making money. I am sure it can be done, but the business market has changed. In the past, anyone with could open a school and attract students. Increasingly, bushibans will become like any other industry; opening a new business will market knowledge, professional management, and planning skills. All this means is that the market is maturing.

48

[quote=“Boomer”]I was discussing with a bushi ban owner about why it is a bad idea to open an English school in Taiwan.
She told me that the population on Taiwan is decreasing at an accelerated rate. The number of students in the next few years will drop by up to 40% by some estimates to reflect the age change in the population on Taiwan.
Is this accurate?[/quote]

the obviuos arguemnt the other way is that if people only have one kid, then they would have more money, thus be able to send the one kid to English class.

What I see is the number of bushibans decrease not because of the number of students declining but because the smaller less efficent, not so well marketed ones may loose out and close up, sending the students to teh other school down the road (no doubt this happens already as does poaching from different schools). At the moment you can sell classes to a lot of Taiwanese by saying your school teaches english.
But this is changing, people are demanding better for their kids, and shopping around

However in the future if you do not have the staff, ciriculum to compete, and since the margins will be tighter a small school, unless it can build its reputation of being a high calibre" school; may disappear.

49

[quote=“Alien”][quote=“stevieboy”]

I teach because I like children.

[/quote]
Michael Jackson likes children too.
:wink:
Do you imagine yourself a 55 year old children’s English teacher?

I don’t think many buxiban owners relish the idea of old fellers, unless they’re really desperate for foreign teachers.

Why not teach in your home country?[/quote]

As a Bushiban owner, age is less important than the raport built with the students.

50

[quote=“patterson”]nice post honcho.
I think this debate is a bit of a no hoper. In Taichung (Taizhong) you’d have to be the freakin mayor to earn 100k. My g/f is Taiwanese, has a masters degree, speaks perfect English, and cant get a job for more than 34 thousand. Her sister is a lawyer, 6th year, and earns 45k. If some overweight foreigners think they have it tough they should guess again. All they do is peddle prepositions and ‘conversational’ English. Tough life! Try going home, spending half your income on a crap place to live, which you will still pay for when you are 60, and have every jerk in the place make their lives better by putting yours down. Teaching here is dead for the opportunistic ill equipped traveller. But for the serious and the thoughtful then Taiwan is a great place to earn your keep.[/quote]

VERY interesting post. I agree with much of it. I own a school (fully licenced, complete with the silly certification hanging on the wall with the obligatory mug shot of my spouse affixed), and my wife and I have the two highest salaries there, NT$35,000 a month each. Of course, a 60 ping house runs us NT$8,000 a month out here…and the school just started turning a profit, so at some point we will actually see more money out of it.

We actually are expanding into areas other than English, rather than expanding our English offerings. The reasons are two fold, one is the high cost of English teachers (I could equip a good computer classroom for 12 for less than 2 months salary for a native speaker and get 90% of an English class’s revenue in the computer class, and the computer teacher will run me about NT$25,000), and the other is the high turnover. We limit classes to 12, and charge something on the order of NT$130 per class hour per head. Paying the salaries a lot of you folks want is simply not within our budget and paying more for the classes is not in our customers’ budets. If you are making 2-3x the average salary rate, my guess is that your classes are huge, and I question how much teaching can be done in groups larger than 12-14.

IF we were to hire another native speaker, it would be a painful interview process for the applicant. Our worst nightmare is getting someone who is a short timer looking to live at a western standard of living in Taiwan. My personal take is that if I want to live at a U.S. standard of living, I’d go back to the U.S… People seem stunned that natives work for NT$35,000 a month and seem quite happy about it. I know people making NT$20,000 a month who are quite happy with their lives and their livlihoods.

Just a view from the other side of the fence. From my standpoint, it doesn’t matter how GOOD the teacher is if that teacher is losing students like teeth after Haloween.

51

Yes, parents are becoming more picky about the type of learning environments they would like to give their children.

Have the expectations of some parents become too unrealistic?

A student in one of my Wife’s classes was yanked out of the class by his dad when he discovered that after two months his child wasn’t able to read English texts. :? (They had just begun learning ABC!)

I don’t want to say that the father was off-base since the student was his child, but how would an owner handle that situation?

52

[quote=“jwar”]Yes, parents are becoming more picky about the type of learning environments they would like to give their children.

Have the expectations of some parents become too unrealistic?

A student in one of my Wife’s classes was yanked out of the class by his dad when he discovered that after two months his child wasn’t able to read English texts. :? (They had just begun learning ABC!)

I don’t want to say that the father was off-base since the student was his child, but how would an owner handle that situation?[/quote]

I will not hesitate to say that parents like this are off base. The father needs to examine his expectations :slight_smile:.

53

[quote=“Boomer”]I was discussing with a buxiban owner about why it is a bad idea to open an English school in Taiwan.
She told me that the population on Taiwan is decreasing at an accelerated rate. The number of students in the next few years will drop by up to 40% by some estimates to reflect the age change in the population on Taiwan. Is this accurate?[/quote]

If you put a school up in an area where there are no other schools you will make money. Open where the market is already saturated then you are sunk. But if you really wanted to make money start call the FAP and burning all the schools near you. You wouldn’t make any friends but you’d probably make more money if the other schools cannot provide a Native Speaking teachers legally. I would not do this but hey it might work.

54

[quote]If you are making 2-3x the average salary rate, my guess is that your classes are huge, and I question how much teaching can be done in groups larger than 12-14.
[/quote]

Or the parents are paying higher fees. I have 7 students in my 3 hour afternoon class. You should be able to figure out how much they pay per head.

Brian

55

Hah, some of the local buxibans have already tried this trick.

It’s aggressive, yes. But not necessarily unfair to do this, is it?

More to the point, standards have to rise. Yes, there are buxibans that have dropping school rolls, but then there are just as many with increasing school rolls.

It’s never been about how many students you have. It’s about how much moolies are left after your expenses are paid.

If you have 10,000 students and you still pay more than you earn, it’s game over sooner or later.

Anybody tried branching into other businesses, publishing, etc What’s that like?

Kenneth

56

[quote=“Bu Lai En”][quote]If you are making 2-3x the average salary rate, my guess is that your classes are huge, and I question how much teaching can be done in groups larger than 12-14.
[/quote]

Or the parents are paying higher fees. I have 7 students in my 3 hour afternoon class. You should be able to figure out how much they pay per head.

Brian[/quote]

That makes sense too, out where I am, the population is 90% working class and we would never survive if we raised our rates. In Taipei, or maybe Hsinchu/Taichung/Gaoshiung, I’d imagine that the level of wealth might support this model (and having a few classes with 7 students, there is a big difference between 7 and 12 :slight_smile: ).

57

I guess it’s not a question of whether the buxiban scene is slowly dying but a question of how owners can diversify their income streams in order to make more money. My old school had no idea on how to attract students, they did the same old things that every school does, passing out flyers at the schools. I studied marketing in college and I did something really cheap and creative and we doubled our student attendance. The only thing that sucked was that I didn’t paid to do it but the experience was pretty cool too.

58

In the bushiban business, there are four things that are critical to success and survival. They are, in this order: location, teaching quality, location, and location. Rent two buildings across the street from the local gradeschool and supermarket, and the marketing does itself :wink:. We haven’t even bothered with flyers after the initial grand opening :slight_smile:.

59

Ya know…I have been thinking about re-reading that Dialetic Materialism (sp?) stuff that Marx wrote about.

60

[quote=“Grasshopper”]I studied marketing in college and I did something really cheap and creative and we doubled our student attendance. The only thing that sucked was that I didn’t paid to do it but the experience was pretty cool too.[/quote]What did you do?