I am looking for any online place that those trained in Montessori gather or converse. While I only speak English, my daughter’s Taiwanese tutor can help us with any site that may be in Chinese.
I know that the AMI Training Center in New Taipei City offers some courses in English, but I haven’t been able to get any response via email from their website, am not currently in Taiwan and don’t speak Chinese.
Any help on finding online communities or connecting with someone who has taken training there would be appreciated.
**** Note:
Someone moved this message to “Working in Taiwan” but I don’t think it belongs here. I am neither looking for work nor looking to talk to someone about work or working in Taiwan.
I am trying to find information on or connectiond to the AMI training center in Taipei. I was just looking for places I might ask those questions.
Hi, AMI Elementary licensed teacher here (for more details please PM me). I have many things to say about Montessori in Taiwan (and have said them in a few places on this very forum!)
Regarding an online community, I don’t know of anything Taiwan-specific. There are a few foreigners that have started schools around the island, and they have websites, but I don’t think there’s more than a few hundred people trained in Montessori (in any form and in total) in all of Taiwan.
For the training center, I initially applied for their 3-6 y/o program but they wanted the entire payment upfront (370k NTD?) so I told them to eff off. Most training centers offer various installment plans so you don’t end up with that much money tied up at once.
I know the elementary program that’s currently in progress at the New Taipei (Xizhi) training center has trainers from abroad + Chinese translation. I would imagine that if you’re a native English speaker and the teacher is not Taiwanese/Chinese, the course could be completed in English. Be aware that due to Taiwan’s COVID entry restrictions, the teachers haven’t been able to enter and therefore it’s been fully online to an unhelpful level and with schedule changes that none of the US training centers had to make. I know people in the program and they feel that they have basically learned nothing yet. But that’s because you simply cannot learn Montessori materials through a screen.
I don’t know about the primary (3-6) training though. There are a lot more primary teachers in TW and China, so the course might be 100% Chinese.
Also note that there are mostly only fraudulent (use Montessori materials and have AMI/AMS licensed teachers but don’t do Montessori) Montessori schools here. I’ve been to at least five elementary schools and only one was close to Montessori, but even that one had interruptions to work periods in order to accommodate dance and music and theater and EFL and PE classes taught by outside teachers. Most of the other ones were just an embarrassment to the whole idea of Montessori. I have not been to any that are run by foreigners though! (I think they’re all AMS). If you’re hoping to stay here long term to work or do your observations and practice teaching here, I cannot give you the name of one single AMI school that would be worth going to do that at.
That’s not to say the training center itself is bad, but you’ll want to make plans to go elsewhere (abroad, ideally through world of mouth from people who have been there that you trust to understand Montessori) when it comes to observations and practice teaching.
I think he’s looking for taiwanese teachers who were trained at the center rather than foreigners who go here. He is located in America and wants to help sponsor someone to come over as an au pair.
I think it’s going to be pretty tough to find a Montessori trained teacher from Taiwan who is under 26 and willing to come work in America. It’s possible but I think asking for the Montessori trained teacher will make it very difficult. If it’s any taiwanese under 26 with an elementary license, there are a lot of people I think that would be interested. Especially since there are way more local teachers here than jobs at schools.
In that case, @Cassidy, dont bother trying to contact the training center. They don’t really have anyone working there and there isn’t the same kind of job networking/job posting that other training centers have. The impression I get is they very much exist to collect tuition money and maybe remember to let you know when classes start. You could try the training centers in the US. Most of those have job boards. Or the AMI website. I saw a lot of people looking to start pods at the start of the pandemic that posted on there.
While Montessori trained (even without an actual teaching license) would be my preference, it isn’t a prerequisite. I found that au pair agencies in the US just don’t have any candidates from Taiwan in their databases (and some agencies won’t even work with those from Taiwan). I thought if I needed to recruit my own au pair, I might as well start looking for what I prefer first and expand if I don’t have any luck.
It is good to hear that there might be interested elementary trained teachers. I had just assumed it would be similar to Korea where you would never find an actual teacher who would au pair, but the Montessori trainees are mostly less qualified.
If I strike out looking for someone with a Montessori background, do you have any suggestions on the best way to look for the type of folks you suggest might be interested? My biggest concerns would be to find someone creative who could do play-based learning as opposed to strict learning and who is more academic and/or outdoorsy than looking to drink and party.
I know I am at a disadvantage in looking because I don’t speak Chinese but am looking for someone who doesn’t speak much English. Although if I know where to post in Chinese, our current tutor will do it for me.