This right here. Especially with coronavirus. I don’t love that I have to sit around waiting for the term to start next week instead of two weeks ago, but I got paid on Feb 5th for a months work, and I will be paid on March 5th for a months work. I’ve done the math and thought of all the people who seriously want me to teach them. I could make a lot more tutoring privately than I do in a public school, with a total time spent of much less than now. But when everyone is staying home for fear of the plague, I wouldn’t be making anything. Then what? It’s like the argument for and against the gig economy in the US. Hourly you might make more, but what happens when you don’t have those hours?
It is a toss up. One would assume that if you’re making 150k or more per month, you’re saving more for a rainy day fund. So there’s that. But today I’m quite happy about my full time job. Being paid while barred from work is a very privileged feeling
That eases my mind, thanks for all the info. I am wondering though if the public schools in Taipei are similar in the term of workload. Any idea if the New Taipei City Bilingual Program https://www.ntpcbilingual.com/ is similar to how you described from your experience with FET?
It looks like that is an MOE program and maybe part of FET itself (based on pay and benefits), but if you’re looking at doing anything with bilingual ed here, you might look at this thread: Bilingual Education: Is It Really Working?
I worked in the NTC program. The job wasn’t bad but it is a little bit of an island. Of course, it’s hard to compare jobs in Taiwan with jobs in America. I wouldn’t count on my performance bonus in the first year.
I disagree. Many private schools fill their classes with behavioral students who were kicked out of other schools. The admin does nothing to support you so there’s nothing you can do to discipline them. Swearing, playing video games in class, cell phones, eating in class, speaking nothing but Chinese… The kids can do no wrong as long as the tuition is paid up. That’s been my experience teaching here at private schools for 8 years. Also curved grading… Don’t even get me started about not failing anyone. If anyone fails it’s all the teachers fault. Not all classes, but enough of them. I’m going to take less money at the public schools next year.
Salary isn’t everything
Well our experiences have been different.
I’m not saying it’s a cake walk. Teaching and managing kids is a tough job. Having admin to back you certainly helps. But what goes on in my classroom, that’s my responsibility and I take it seriously. I and I alone manage my students. It’s one of the very first things teachers should know and realize that they should not depend or expect outside help. Have a solid management system in your classroom, be in constant contact with parents and things should go well.
For the extreme cases, I will ask admin for help. But that is very, very rare for me.
As far as grading goes…
I’ve always given true grades. Whatever admin does with them after I submit them is out of my hands. I’m not going to sweat about it.
Some teachers I know echo this. The ma baos and princesses that attend private schools are much harder to teach and much lazier than normal kids. Having more instruction in English is the only thing better about private schools here IMO. If your kids are already fluent in two languages, public schools are better. I know it’s fashionable to rip on Taiwan’s schooling, but it’s much better, much more comprehensive and much more interesting than the education I received growing up in the US.
Something that depends almost exclusively on your zip code
That may be true, but my kids have gone to school in Taipei, New Taipei and Taoyuan, and all have been great.
I know this is from last year, but I’m just curious what the going rate for elementary should be? I’m trying to figure out the standard rate for myself in Taiwan with my current credentials. I have an interview with a private school next week and am trying to figure out how to go about negotiating. I worked a year at cram school two years ago, one semester at public school in the us, and recently got my masters degree. Around where should I think about aiming my salary at in terms of negotiations?
Yeah make sure your teaching/contact with students hours is clearly stated in your contract or you can/will be effed over. My contract has me at work for 9.5 hrs/day (one hour of that is unpaid lunch break). 8 hours are direct contact with the kiddos. This was an “accidental” omission of information when I was interviewing with them, as they said the kids had PE class and clubs taught by outside instructors from 3pm onwards. Admin doesn’t think they’re abusing teachers (only two foreign teachers, everyone has left after one year since the school was founded). Yeah, cover your butt.
Meanwhile, public schools are clear: 18 classes (50 min) max for high school, 20 classes (45 min) max for jr. high, 23 classes (40 min) for elementary. Though the public jr. high school I finished at last year seemed to want to just put 24 classes/week into my contract for this year. Apparently the schools can do whatever they want with the contract MOE hands them.
That’s good information to know actually. I made a mistake of listening to some blatant lies when I moved to Taiwan the first time. The American who hired me convinced me that in Taiwan the contracts didn’t matter and that the government mostly ignored them. That American fed me a whole load of bs about different cultures and that laws didn’t hold the same weight in Taiwan. I was very ignorant back then and also desperate for a job and ate it all up. It caused me a whole world of hurt and pain.
But I definitely learned my lesson about contracts. The only thing I’m worried about is if the Chinese version of the contract doesn’t match the English one for some reason and I end up finding out too late. Has this kind of thing happened before?
You most certainly need to be able to stand up for yourself when it comes to contract violations here. But it’s not like a contract violation in the US gets instant justice either. Here, I went to the police once when the LSA didn’t want to hear it. The police sent me to the local ed bureau. The local ed bureau told me there was nothing I/they could do. If I had known then what I know now, I would have gone to the press and made as big of a stink as possible. Not sure if it would have solved anything.
I’ve always asked a local friend to read through my contract with me so we can make sure there’s no difference between the languages. (My Chinese is great but Chinese legalese is asking too much.) I would make the school read through the Chinese and explain the meaning of each part with you if you’re worried. They have an obligation to make sure everything is OK, even if that means taking two hours to read through every page of the contract, which, for the FET program, is like 50 pages long. My contract this time is only in English, so there’s no worries there. But it’s short, only a page or two, so that should have been a red flag!
When I first landed in Taiwan, I didn’t know anyone there so I didn’t have friends to help me out. I do now though so I’m definitely going to ask my girlfriend to help me look over the Chinese contract when I get it. I’m studying chinese on my own but I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll be able to read more than lunch menus. I’m not learning it as fast as I’d like, it’s really difficult for me.
I teach 16 contract hours at my uni. Between prep for classes, grading, extra-curricular tutoring, committee assignments such as working on a new textbook, and currently trying to get a research paper published, I probably work another 20-25 hours a week unpaid.
Yep. University is well-paid, but there’s a shitload of extra work. Marking papers, setting curriculum, preparing classes, entering grades, etc. takes a lot of supposedly “spare” time. It’s certainly no walk in the park. And there’s a serious amount of responsibility and accountability.
It’s not like you walk into a classroom and throw a sticky ball around for an hour, then go home.
Simultaneously the best and worst thing about it.