Global Village Organization (地球村美日語中心)

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
121

Yup. Just walk in. One tip for you is to sound enthusiastic when you talk to the manager on the phone.
I’ve had a great time at GVO. Just finished a 2 hour class tonight that went by like a breeze. Talking, laughing, couldn’t even finish the article in time because we were chatting so much. I left work in a far better mood than when I came.

I was able to negotiate a ‘normal’ wage because my classes are popular and (as far as I know) I’ve had few student complaints in 3 years. I did, however, have to have a chat with my manager, something like this:
“You guys like to hold on to good teachers, right? Isn’t it true that new students come through word of mouth? How much money will GVO gain (through new students) because you’ve got a good, fun, reliable teacher? Surely far more than the pay raise I’m asking.”
This raise took 3-4 phone calls and a couple of emails though. I had to let them know how much more other schools were offering me.
Logic won out in the end. If you prove you’re worth it, they will pay you.

122

That will all change one day in the blink of an eye with no explanation so enjoy it while you can! :discodance:

123

Somebody like NCT could make a pile of money working in a better school. I worked with Davids English 10 years ago, higher hourly pay , 600/hr, and we just read whatever we liked.

124

I have just finished a 6 month stint at GVO and it really hasnt changed. I taught there 15 yrs ago and then it was ~350 NT / hour and as you all know 500/ hour now when you join.

It is such a negative place most of the time. Unhappy students that do not like the magazine. If you dont do the magazine you are bound to get complained about as there is always one student that does want to do it even though everyone says they dont want to do the magazine.

Some counter girls are so rude it isnt funny. I just went to collect my final wage slip and the counter girl got pissed off as she was trying to get new students to join, fear of losing the commission from the new students made her lose her cool. She told me not to go back :loco:

Admittedly some classes can be fun but they are so few and far between, getting the conversation going in each class is usually like trying to get blood out of a stone. My last class was full of bland and passive students which is / was the norm. I will never go back again, the guy who wrote “you are worth so much more” is so right. They really do not give a flying fcuk and all the negativity that seems to be around GVO really makes it such an unpleasant place to work.

Poor pay and passive students…oh god.

I have been hearing of pissed off teachers at GVO for so many years I wonder how GVO keeps going.

125

They offered me 300-350 as an ABC about 2 years ago

what

126

GVO can keep going because it’s about the only place to teach adults in Taiwan. OK, I know it isn’t the “only” place, but it is one of the easiest spots to work teaching adults, especially outside of Taipei. This means people are willing to take any pay they can get, because they just don’t want to teach ankle-biters.

127

Creztor, I think you got it. The only choices are those. The adult brain dead or the ankle biters. Ive been teaching both over the past 15 yrs and have reached my limit. Doing such a mind non rewarding job for so long, ok for some they might find it rewarding they are lucky, I cant go back to teaching anymore.

Thinking of returning but to what only god knows. I cant find anything else on this tiny island. I doubt there is anything over in the Mainland.

128

I’ve just signed up with gvo, fingers x’d! Having worked with adults before, I’m pretty confident about enjoying this type of work, but to respond to some of the previous posts, if you work for an organisation that makes you feel negative - leave! If you’re not keen on the country anymore, same same, leave! Go to Korea, or Japan, or wherever but teaching ESL the world’s pretty much your oyster.

129

If you chose GVO, it’s because you weren’t good enough or you didn’t know where to go. I work for a company that pays people $540 per forty-five minutes to work from home.

130

WOW!!! :unamused: :unamused:

131

What a HERO! :roflmao:

132

Oddly, I got the same number of personal e-mails requesting work references as jeers in the thread itself. It’s hard to gauge you people.

But the facts are simple. If you get paid about the same to do the same work in your house, it’s a better deal.

133

And the Master hath proclaimed on the 1st day

A shall be for Apple

On the second day he created
B and proclaimed it shall be for Banana

On the 26th day he created Z for the most loved of all his animals, the zebra.

Then he rested.

And so it was and will be forever.

Amen.

134

LoL :smiley:

135

GVO here I come :slight_smile:

To cut a long story short - I am running low on funds, the wife is still nagging me that she wants to buy a bloody house and I want a change from teaching kids.

I have done two observations over the last week and so far everything seemed pretty laid back. Can it really be so?

I am actually a little nervous about my first class on Friday. :blush:

136

[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]GVO here I come :slight_smile:

To cut a long story short - I am running low on funds, the wife is still nagging me that she wants to buy a bloody house and I want a change from teaching kids.

I have done two observations over the last week and so far everything seemed pretty laid back. Can it really be so?

I am actually a little nervous about my first class on Friday. :blush:[/quote]
It really can be so. I’ve been there several years and never had much of a problem, really good job for someone who likes to work independently (HATE management breathing down my neck and GVO just leaves me the f alone).

Your key is to make the students happy. IF the students are happy, management won’t bug you.
Don’t go nuttso’s on grammar if you’re in a room with a bunch of retired people- they usually just want social hour under the guise of learning English, so chatting and introducing them to cool stuff is fine.
Ask your students what they want and what their goals are. Ask them what they want to focus on. Give them what they want.

Anyways people will give you shit about making less money, but if you factor in time for communication books, telephone teaching, preparing class, grading papers, planning performances, hobnobbing with the parents at school events, etc, you’re making more than most of the buxibans and kindys hands down.

I think I’ve posted a lot here about how to make the students feel comfortable and help them converse- I think it’s a couple of pages back.

137

[quote=“NonTocareLeTete”]

I think I’ve posted a lot here about how to make the students feel comfortable and help them converse- I think it’s a couple of pages back.[/quote]

Yes, I have seen that, thank you. In fact, I have based tonights lesson plan around your advice on those previous pages so I think I should be ok. Tonight’s class is a business class.

138

[quote=“NonTocareLeTete”][quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]GVO here I come :slight_smile:

To cut a long story short - I am running low on funds, the wife is still nagging me that she wants to buy a bloody house and I want a change from teaching kids.

I have done two observations over the last week and so far everything seemed pretty laid back. Can it really be so?

I am actually a little nervous about my first class on Friday. :blush:[/quote]
It really can be so. I’ve been there several years and never had much of a problem, really good job for someone who likes to work independently (HATE management breathing down my neck and GVO just leaves me the f alone).

Your key is to make the students happy. IF the students are happy, management won’t bug you.
Don’t go nuttso’s on grammar if you’re in a room with a bunch of retired people- they usually just want social hour under the guise of learning English, so chatting and introducing them to cool stuff is fine.
Ask your students what they want and what their goals are. Ask them what they want to focus on. Give them what they want.

Anyways people will give you shit about making less money, but if you factor in time for communication books, telephone teaching, preparing class, grading papers, planning performances, hobnobbing with the parents at school events, etc, you’re making more than most of the buxibans and kindys hands down.

I think I’ve posted a lot here about how to make the students feel comfortable and help them converse- I think it’s a couple of pages back.[/quote]

By working for a lower salary, you are helping to lower the salaries for all English teachers in Taiwan.

139

[quote=“BigJohn”][quote=“NonTocareLeTete”][quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]GVO here I come :slight_smile:

To cut a long story short - I am running low on funds, the wife is still nagging me that she wants to buy a bloody house and I want a change from teaching kids.

I have done two observations over the last week and so far everything seemed pretty laid back. Can it really be so?

I am actually a little nervous about my first class on Friday. :blush:[/quote]
It really can be so. I’ve been there several years and never had much of a problem, really good job for someone who likes to work independently (HATE management breathing down my neck and GVO just leaves me the f alone).

Your key is to make the students happy. IF the students are happy, management won’t bug you.
Don’t go nuttso’s on grammar if you’re in a room with a bunch of retired people- they usually just want social hour under the guise of learning English, so chatting and introducing them to cool stuff is fine.
Ask your students what they want and what their goals are. Ask them what they want to focus on. Give them what they want.

Anyways people will give you shit about making less money, but if you factor in time for communication books, telephone teaching, preparing class, grading papers, planning performances, hobnobbing with the parents at school events, etc, you’re making more than most of the buxibans and kindys hands down.

I think I’ve posted a lot here about how to make the students feel comfortable and help them converse- I think it’s a couple of pages back.[/quote]

By working for a lower salary, you are helping to lower the salaries for all English teachers in Taiwan.[/quote]

I both understand and agree with this. However, after three years of teaching teens it’s time to get the f@ck out. It is a shame that there are so few opportunities for teaching adult classes. I hope that after building up some teaching experience at GVO I can move onto bigger and better things.

140

[quote=“NonTocareLeTete”][quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]
Don’t go nuttso’s on grammar if you’re in a room with a bunch of retired people- they usually just want social hour under the guise of learning English, so chatting and introducing them to cool stuff is fine.
Ask your students what they want and what their goals are. Ask them what they want to focus on. Give them what they want.

[/quote][/quote]

From my initial experiences today I have to agree with this.

After going through the material in detail before the lesson, I turned up tonight and discovered that none of my students had the required book. Photocopying was completely out of the question (according to the lovely girls in pink). Therefore it just turned into a very loose conversation class. The backbone of the class came from the material in the book, however the topics kept going off on a tangent. It’s hard to say if the students were satisfied at the end of the class or not. I get the feeling that they were, however with Taiwanese people it’s never easy to tell. I tried to give the students lots of speaking practice, but I am worried that I put too much pressure on some of them. Tonight it was a small class of only six people, therefore the litmus test will be conducted next week when I see how many of those original six come back for more.