Hi,
One American friend wants to move to Taiwan to learn Mandarin. He was top 3 in high school but did not go to university. He has no degree but has a not bad job in SF. Is it easy or possible to find a teaching job for him here in Taiwan?
Well of course he can work illegally if he’s willing to accept the ‘conditions’ such a status entails.
Question: If he has such a good job in SF, why does he want to come to Taiwan to work illegally?
i believe he said he wanted to come to taiwan to study chinese…not to work…
sorry, missed this the first time…what “status” are we talking about here? the illegal foreign “teacher” or the naive foreigner being screwed repeatedely by the big bad bushiban owner?
seems to me that teaching illegally, and i assume we are talking about teaching english and not chip making in Hsinchu, provides one with lots of freedom to quit crappy jobs without the paperwork…
Don’t want to discourage your friend, but what does he hope to accomplish by learning Mandarin and how much time has he alloted to achieve his goal? He should probably think seriously about these questions before uprooting himself and moving to Taiwan, particularly if he’s going to try to support himself for the long term without a bachelor’s degree and the possibility of getting a legal job.
I love hearing each year’s new entrants saying, “I’m going to spend a year in Taiwan learning really good Chinese, and then I’ll get a great job back in [insert name of country here].”
You can certainly learn Chinese here, but my question to anyone who has other options is, are you really committed to Chinese itself, or is there ANYTHING else you can do with your life (because your life will likely be much easier if you don’t commit it to the whole Chinese-language thing, IMHO.) A year might be a nice vacation but it’s not likely to do much for your friend in terms of being able to have a proficient level of Mandarin.
Just my NT$0.66, your mileage may vary.
Terry
Oh what a bile spitting bunch of replies!
Strictly legal myself, I was certainly not condoning illegal teaching, merely stating the facts.
Legal or otherwise, if your friend is committed to the teaching profession then what’s the beef? I certianly don’t share Noshrink’s apparent contempt for such people.
Thanks to you all! My friend said he’ll never work illegally. It seems like he has to change his plan!
…he can’t learn Chinese in San Francisco?
This forum has caught my interest. Is it possible to legally teach English in Taiwan without a university degree? I have been given contradicting information saying “Yes” it is a must (to get a work permit and an ARC) and others (including the legal section of this website) that say “No”.
Can anyone tell me, in practice, what the answer is.
Thank you,
Scott
quote[quote]Can anyone tell me, in practice, what the answer is. [/quote]To teach, then yes you need a degree. Certain other work, well then no. For example, the foreigners who helped put the MRT together were blue collar workers by trade.
Anyone (particularly native speakers) can teach English in Taiwan.
If you want to do it legally, pay taxes, get an ARC, Nat’l Health care, and work permit, you MUST show a degree.
If you want to use a visitor visa and work teaching privates or for illegal buxibans, or for legal buxibans willing to hire you illegally, then, NO, you don’t need a degree. But you’ll have to go through extending your visa through a language school, or popping out of the country every two months or so for a ‘visa run’.
If someone is coming here to study Chinese, he/she can eventually get a Student visa if he/she signs up at Shida, Fujen, Chinese Culture Uni, or other schools which are eligible to give student visas. In this event, he/she can stay in Taiwan as a student, not have to do ‘visa runs’, and teach illegally as he/she sees fit.
It’s done all the time.
So, to recapsulate, NO degree is necessary to teach illegally. There are other considerations and dangers involved in doing it this way, but I still know several rather good teachers who are not legal in the sense of having a degree, work permit, and ARC.
One of them is a mature woman whose taught English on and off for the past 12 years in Taiwan, and who makes loads of money every six month stint she does here. I wouldn’t question her ability to teach either, as she’s very experienced and professional. Also, she happens to teach quite a few classes to government associated hospitals, corporations who don’t seem to mind in the slightest that she’s doing it illegally.
When I first came to Taiwan, most people taught illegally here, things have only changed in the past 6 or so years where the government welcomes teachers (with degrees) to hold work permits and ARCs.
quote[quote]...he can't learn Chinese in San Francisco?[/quote]Hehehehe. No.
San Fran has the largest population of Chinese in N.A. (80k + at the last census), but you’d be surprised at how many don’t speak Mandarin much less Cantonese. The San Fran Chinatown is worthless for that - it’s pure touristy stuff. Oakland’s China town is very good, relatively speaking, but don’t expect to find a teacher there. Fremont has the largest population of Taiwanese, and some very nice Taiwanese eateries, but whose gonna teach you mandarin? No one, that’s who.
When I worked at ETRADE, the boss for the Chinese version of the web site spent 6 months looking for a person fluent in Mandarin to be the site producer. Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get 1 person out of 80 some odd thousand. I applied internally, but my reading and writing are so poor that I didn’t qualify.
FB
quote:
Originally posted by Fuzzball:San Fran has the largest population of Chinese in N.A. (80k + at the last census), but you’d be surprised at how many don’t speak Mandarin much less Cantonese. The San Fran Chinatown is worthless for that - it’s pure touristy stuff. Oakland’s China town is very good, relatively speaking, but don’t expect to find a teacher there. Fremont has the largest population of Taiwanese, and some very nice Taiwanese eateries, but whose gonna teach you mandarin?
Disagree. Even my neice, at the tender age of 7, learned to speak Mandarin and read some Chinese at a Chinese school in lower Haight. But these days, the bulk of the Chinese populate the Richmond and Sunset anyway, not Chinatown, and if you really wanted to learn with private tutor, post a sign at SF State or UCSF, there are loads of Taiwanese students who’d love to make some cash teaching, I’m sure. I agree that Chinatown is a tourist trap, and still largely Cantonese, but the whole Bay Area is chock full of Mandarin speakers. Especially, San Jose, Milpitas, Freemont, and Palo Alto (Silicon Valley)…
Berkley offers tons of Chinese classes, both for non-native speakers and for ABC’s who speak ‘kitchen Chinese’. The problem with that is getting into one of those classes - it’s almost impossible because they fill up so fast during registration.
I took some Mandarin Chinese classes through the UCLA Extension program a number of years ago. When I came to Taiwan I could at least communicate on a basic level and recognize some characters (although the class taught simplified, it didn’t take long to transition to traditional with the constant exposure).
I’ve heard of great results from US-based university immersion programs. Expensive but effective; learn a lot in a short time (so I’ve heard).
If looking for one-on-one practice, I agree with the previous advice of posting at a university for a Chinese tutor.
Perhaps we ought to move this part of the thread to Learning Chinese!
By ckvw
quote[quote]Perhaps we ought to move this part of the thread to Learning Chinese![/quote]The only part that should be moved, is from where it went off topic.The answer to the origional question was summed up pretty well by Alien, except for the part where she said he’d have to leave every 2 months, that should read every 6 months.
amos,
Not everyone gets an extendible visa up to six months when they come here. Sometimes people get two months and they just gotta go…some may get only one.
whatever…but let’s not mislead anyone into thinking that they’ve got six trouble-free months because even if it’s extendible, they need to extend it twice!
Alien, granted that sometimes people may only get a ‘one month’ visa, but these are rarely the case. If you are coming in from a Western country, you’ll be given a two month extendable visa, and this can then be extended 4 more times at one month a piece, providing you are studying Mandarin or Tai Chi at a Government approved place. Thus totalling 6 months. I’ve had friends come in from Australia twice with just a passport and no other documentation, and both times been given the two month extendable visa. The 2 month extendable visa’s are definately more common than the one month.
quote:Well, it depends on how many stamps you've got in your passport in and out of Taiwan, and where you get your visas from, now doesn't it?
Originally posted by amos: Alien, granted that sometimes people may only get a 'one month' visa, but these are rarely the case.
This thread is now closed. The question has been answered, and I don’t feel like muckin around with this issue any longer. If you’d care to start a new thread questioning the Taiwan government’s visa and work regulations, please take it to the Legal Matters forum.
Thank you your cooperate.