[quote=“Quarters”]Foresight International Education Center
Does anyone have experience with this agency? I have received a pretty tempting job offer through them and want to hear some feedback before I sign in ink.
Classes consist of conversation (core), reading and club classes.
Curriculum and a basic syllabus is provided.
The salary for this position is 60,000NT. [/b]
The contract would run from March until July. Afterwards, FIEC offers a summer camp program and an option to resign. Included in the contract is a re-signing bonus of 30,000NT, which is payable upon completion of the second contract.
Is this a good offer? Too low pay, just right, or higher than average?[/url][/quote]
Sounds very iffy to me. You don’t know the class sizes. The day is too long for that salary. No mention of vacation days. The re-signing bonus is just a lie showing that their offer is very one-sided. They are obviously not interested in hiring quality, so what incentive do they have to re-hire you and keep you for the second contract?
How long is an hour?
Too cheap. No other incentives. I’d be negotiating the hours and/or pay. But it’s an agency you’re dealing with, so they’re probably crooks. By looks of the March - July thing, my best advice would be “Run Forest, run!”
I think it would be less stressful to find a 5-9 buxiban job and a 9-11 kindy job (although I wouldn’t do kindy, but it’s tax-free).
I didn’t take the job. Ends up that it required certain qualifications[color=darkred]*[/color] that I do not currently possess. My job hunt continues…
My dealings with Foresight were nothing but good. I have no reason, through my interaction with them, to believe anything other than they are a nice company to work with.
[color=darkred]*I apologize for using certification in my post; I have since changed it to qualifications to better represent what occurred.[/color]
[quote=“Quarters”]I didn’t take the job. Ends up that it required certain certifications that I do not currently possess. My job hunt continues…
My dealings with Foresight were nothing but good. I have no reason, through my interaction with them, to believe anything other than they are a nice company to work with.[/quote]
Oh! So they want you to be a certified teacher! Wow! Do these schools live in a dream land or something?
“We want a top qualified teacher. We want you to work all day and we’ll pay you as low as possible. No vacation. Only six months. Come all the way to Taiwan and get an apartment and you pay for all of that. It’s a good deal. But you must be a really good teacher with diplomas and certificates up the ying yang. Hmm. Yes.”
You are making too many assumptions again j99l88e77! You don’t know what “qualifications” are lacking in the candidate. You don’t know whether the school offers free accommodation (which it does) or not. Show me where it says “certified teacher” any where in this post? I don’t know about the market in South Korea (as your profile suggests you are there now), but the job offer was paying anything but the lowest possible wage. You mention a 6 month contract, again, taken out of context. Where does it say there is no vacation pay? I truly believe you have no idea what you’re talking about and instead the only person in dreamland…is you!
Anyone who’s been teaching in Taiwan more than, say, three months knows that the majority of jobs offered through agents are not offering the top conditions and pay to the teachers, and sometimes make arbitrary requirements above and beyond those required to get a visa. If you think this job is a “favorable” one compared to the vast majority of English-teaching jobs, then it’s you who are living in fairyland – or you have never taken a job at a Taiwanese institution that required you to “be around” all day long.
Like it or not, the only thing foreigners in Taiwan have to sell is their language, and we package that by units of time. Each unit of time has a price tag if it is devoted to “work”, and the unit price tag for this particular job works out to be fairly low – while the potential “mafan” value is high. For someone completely new to Taiwan with no frame of reference and wanting to “belong” somewhere, it might be great. For someone who has a few more resources, connections and a life, probably not so much.
As for requiring a “certified teacher” – I’d ask them right back: Since I’m certified, will I have control of the curriculum? Class size? May I determine which materials will be used, or participate actively on the committee that will make that decision? If you want certification, you’d better expect a level of autonomy most Taiwanese schools wouldn’t be comfortable with.
[quote=“j99l88e77”]Oh! So they want you to be a certified teacher! Wow! Do these schools live in a dream land or something?
“We want a top qualified teacher. We want you to work all day and we’ll pay you as low as possible. No vacation. Only six months. Come all the way to Taiwan and get an apartment and you pay for all of that. It’s a good deal. But you must be a really good teacher with diplomas and certificates up the ying yang. Hmm. Yes.”
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I have no idea where you drummed up all that, but let me clarify for you…
No, actually the job offer was to work from 9-5:30. That isn’t all day. I am sure the pay could have been lower…so it wasn’t as low as possible.
Actually the vacation time would be the entire month of August, before the start of the new semester. Is that paid vacation? No. However, they do offer paid vacation for National Holidays. Work for any buxiban under the table, and I guarantee you that you won’t be paid for not working on a National Holiday.
They were offering accommodations.
I apologize for using the word “certifications” in my previous post. In hindsight I realize that a much more suited word would be qualifications. Hence why I edited my post. They never asked for a teaching certificate.
I Hope that helps you to understand the real situation and not the assumed situation.
I don’t know why James and FEIC is getting such a bad rap on here from some. I will say again, my limited time spent in contact with FEIC and James was positive. James was curtious and upfront about what was being offered. Everything was and is on the up and up. If the opportunity presented itself for me to work through their agency I would seriously consider it.
Having to be anywhere from 9 to 5:30 in the name of English teaching in Taiwan is above and beyond the usual requirements for jobs that pay more money per month.
I’ve met you and you seemed to me to be that sort of person who is fortunate in being able to enjoy just about anyone they happen to be with – which might mean that you wouldn’t see this being required to be there for such long hours (trust me, in relation to the English teaching industry as a whole, these are onerous hours) as such a hardship. A lot of other people would though – especially when they started saying to themselves, “I could be teaching a private student for NT$1000 an hour instead of sitting here chatting with beginners/editing bad academic papers/writing a report no one will ever read/doing nothing but having to look busy/etc.”
Five days a week, 9 to 5:30? No thanks, not when there are plenty of jobs with better conditions available. I am NOT commenting on this particular agent, only saying that given the entirety of English teaching jobs available to a presentable young man like yourself, you could do better. Much better. As for agencies in general – I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they seem to get most of their takers from abroad, rather than from people already established in Taiwan.
This was originally a PM I sent to Ironlady in regards to this thread. But now I figure it would be useful out in the open too…
I really appreciate the comments people have made (especially Ironlady) regarding recruiting agencies and teaching English. I don’t know what it is I am doing wrong, but I seem to be finding only the bottom of the barrel jobs in Taipei.
I have posted my resume on Tealit and other job listing sights, actively called and emailed schools that posted attractive ads, and have pounded the pavement in my neighborhood. All efforts seem to only turn up offers that pay too low and have too little hours. For example: Sunshine English School offered 500 NT an hour for 12 hours a week, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday working 4 hours each day. It’s hard to find other jobs that fit that particular schedule to make up for not enough hours or pay. This is just one example out of many offers that are the same.
Where are these fantastic jobs that pay so much? Why is it that agencies seem to be the only ones offering salaried positions of 60K and more? Is it just the wrong time of year to be looking for a job? Will things look better after CNY? Am I looking in the wrong places? Agency jobs really don’t look all that bad when it comes down to what you bring home on Payday.
There is temptation to work for kindergartens because they offer morning hours, which fill in that time gap. However, isn’t teaching at a kindergarten illegal for all foreigners regardless of visa status?
Hey, Ironlady, I’m a little bit curious. You mentioned being able to find a job for 1000NT per hour! Really! Where? Can I have it? I think it’s really easy to say, “You can do better!”, but where are all these “dream jobs” you’re talking about? I’m not a “newbie” and I certainly don’t think 1000NT/per hour jobs are common. In fact, I believe industry standard (in Taiwan) for set hours is often 600NT or lower. That’s not to say you can’t find 700NT per hour, or higher, especially if you’re teaching privates, but as it goes, privates cancel and thus cannot be counted on as regular income. You talked about the “industry” in Taiwan and how English teachers are required to measure their time in units, but I think this argument is more about hourly wage vs. salaried position. If you don’t like the concept of salary, that’s fine. If you’re not a 9 to 5 kind of guy, that’s also okay. However, the flip side of this coin is that a salaried position has its benefits, of which many have been outlined within this post. I’m always leery of a would-be-employee who says, “Me, me, me!” Of course, you should fight for your rights, attempt to negotiate better terms for yourself and not be taken advantage of. On the other hand, you have to be a team player and be open-minded to management and what they’re going for, such as following a curriculum, marketing ideals, etc. (if that’s what’s requested). I mean no disrespect, but your argument seems a little one sided. It’s great you can say, “You can do much better!”, but how about backing it up? That’s what “Quarters” is asking of you. Can you answer his call?
Money as an English teacher generally is not made as a salaried employee (unless you can get in somewhere like the Foreign Service Institute, which used to pay NT$1500 an hour and that was 10 years ago to boot; but it’s tough to get full-time or visa-issuing hours in that sort of pay range).
Money as a “garden-variety foreigner” usually means getting a visa job that annoys you as little as possible, and then gradually building up your network of private students and side jobs. Mind you, I am in no way responsible for any way in which this is at odds with what the Taiwanese government recommends or requires one to do or be.But practically speaking, you take the benefits of the salaried position (which in most cases do not lead off with “big money”) and then make the money elsewhere. You get your visa and insurance through the salaried position.
And I do not see where saying to someone “You can do better than sitting in an office 9 to 5:30 every day for 60K a month” is in any way what you are describing. I am aware of what the going rate is for English teaching in Taiwan, and it is NOT NT$300 or so for a native speaker with all his limbs who cleans up fairly well. I’m also aware that the hourly rate will fall in a salaried position, but the usual measure of “full-time” for an English teaching job is NOT 40-plus hours a week!
“Be a team player” is management talking. There’s nothing wrong with doing a good job and doing what you promise to do in a job, but the idea is to work to live, not live to work.
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