I don’t know how to explain that I fell in love with Taiwan.
So, I want to get my TEFL/TESOL to teach there. I have BAs in Anthropology and History. I’m not afraid of starting out subbing or buxibans.
My plan was to get the TESOL Certificate, while saving a cushion of $$, then fly there and find a hotel or room someplace, and begin looking for jobs. I’ve visited twice and liked Taichung better than Taipei.
I am now discouraged because I am seeing posts on here that indicate that only younger teachers are hired. I am young and healthy, but I am also 53 years old. I am frustrated because I have always taken care of others, then myself. I have no family or loved ones left alive anymore. Now that I think my experience and wisdom should count towards reliability and stability…it looks as though my dream of moving to Taiwan is not feasible(?).
I don’t know what else to do. I have a solid Office Admin. job (public sector labor represented) at a University here. Even though it pays bills…I want more adventure. I’m not sure how to look for work in other sectors. Where else can an English speaker work in Taiwan? I am planning to study Chinese as I save.
The above is not meant to sound maudlin…I am actually a supremely courageous woman of a certain age…I just wonder if there is even a chance for me to realize this.
Although I am not an English teacher , I could teach in Taichung . You should be able to get offers of work here . I don’t think that your age is the question , but a lower salary / benefits may be . You may only be able to get a job paying 70,000 ntd a month initially . You can rent a cheap studio for as little as 6000 a month but 13,000 is more realistic with cooking facilities in Taichung . Good luck
Getting 70000 ntd a month initially would be pretty good. Could be more like 50k initially as take what you can get . It’s not as easy to get English teaching jobs as it was that’s the truth but there is still some turnover.
China and Vietnam supposedly better.
What’s the purpose of coming to Taiwan can you save enough money for your life plans? Ive known older teachers here it’s certainly possible to get hired I just think the pay is pretty low.
As for doing other stuff yeah you can do other stuff but the pay is generally low as well. Generally unless you gave some skills and built up experience…There’s tax, marketing ， sales, auditors, QC ，proffs, racing car drivers, restauranteurs, farmers ,IT folks, trading biz owners, all doing their thing here . I get my pretty well in Taiwan but it took me the guts if 15 to 20 years to do it!
Yes, age is definitely an issue for teaching kids. Younger teachers are favored. I managed two language schools and in both the number 1 choice for the boss was white, female and under 35 , followed by white males. North American accents were preferred. “Black” female teachers were preferred over “Black male teachers”. American born teachers of Chinese descent were highly sought after but the bosses would pay them less than their white colleagues. Discussing contracts between teachers would result in termination of the teacher. I did push for change and a few older teachers and non white teachers were hired, but not many. Yes, age is a disadvantage here regardless if you had 1 year or 25 years teaching experience.
My main question reading your original post: what’s the status of your pension in your current workplace? How many years are you from qualifying for it? If you’re in a public sector union, you’re already almost at an age when people start to retire. Making a month-to-month living in Taiwan is relatively easy - but saving for retirement can be very, very hard. If, say, you’re five years from getting that pension, I’d recommend sticking it out. Having finances you can rely on for the future is really important. Plus if you’ve got that pension, it’d probably go a long way in Taiwan.
Although getting a TESOL or whatever certification will help you in the classroom, it probably won’t make much of a difference for getting a job. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect that “25 years old + no credentials” will win over “53 + credentials” in the Taiwan buxiban market. Teaching outside the buxiban market often (but not always) requires teaching certification or graduate degrees.
I haven’t worked in cram schools in a long while, but I suspect that if you’re teaching in those, your salary is going to max out around $70,000, and that’d be after a couple of years of making less and working whatever jobs you can find.
Yes, being older makes it harder. No, it’s not impossible (especially if you have credentials/ qualifications). You’ll probably have to drop your application off at more places than the average 20 something or early 30 something job-hunter, but you’ll land a position at a buxiban eventually. I’d look in a smaller city like Taichung rather than Taipei.
Hmmm…perception often becomes reality - especially in Taiwan. If you look at yourself as an “older” inexperienced English teacher - you are! But, since you’re a middle aged female w/business experience - there definitely are opportunities to market yourself as a business English teacher. Especially since you’re an older female - TW business mgrs tend to be predominately male and prefer to learn from female teachers due to the “face issue” learning from males.
If you view yourself as commodity - you’re going to be treated/paid as a commodity. You need to differentiate yourself from the get go! What you want to do is BRAND yourself —
So yes…
Get a TESOL/TEFL certificate and add any Business English certification, if available.
Go to https://domains.google/ and register your name as a .com (if available) for 10 years! Google domains allow you to create up to 100 email aliases that can be used to send and receive email using Gmail - think: learn@yourname.com, english@, payment@, etc. They offer instructions for setup.
I want to thank each of you for your responses. It gives me some food-for-thought and perspective. I’m doing research on some real numbers with regard to cost-of-living comparisons.
@lostinasia : I have only four years under my belt contributing to the pension (my road was a winding one to discover that focusing on helping people learn gives me satisfaction). Prior to that, I was middle management in marketing company and was able to accumulate a small 401K. Your comment does inspire me to further investigate when and how one becomes “vested” in my public retirement system plan.
@Brianjones: From my own (admittedly, cursory) research, I used comparisons of how much I actually take home now (roughly 70,000NTD/month). I do not live extravagantly, but choose to rent a studio apartment in a nicer neighborhood where I feel safe walking at night. I have lived in very rough neighborhoods and found it stressful, since I am a woman on my own. My rent for a studio in a brownstone with no off-street parking is 23,000NTD/month. An anecdotal comparison for that is someone I know who is working in Taichung at the moment and he pays 22,000NTD/month for a two bedroom in one of those fancy high-rises on Xitun around section 4? (The New Dubai). Granted, he works for some big company from Canada and I wouldn’t need that kind of space. My internet is 2000NTD per month, phone plan is 2700NTD, My utilities bill this month is generally around 1350NTD a month, but after some hot days this last summer when I indulged in a/c almost non-stop, this month I will pay 2300NTD. An all-inclusive bus pass here costs me 2100NTD/ month (this is subsidized pricing arranged through my job at the University… Metro/bus rides here are actually 77NTD apiece but you can make transfers for 2-1/2 hours). I was never that good in math, but I think I could make it on about $54000NTD a month (well, I figured in renting a one-bedroom rather than a studio…a person can dream, right?).
@DrewC and @Rocket: Yes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I am not jumping in with eyes closed…and it is a big undertaking. Being afraid is not an excuse to not move ahead…or at least it never worked well for me.
@astute: I will take you up on that PM after I explore your suggestions…those look like something I could do.
All of you who skipped the details: keep your advice coming, as you will…I hope to count on you as resources as I figure this stuff out.
I’m going to put Brianjones point about salary in stronger terms - you are not going to start on 70k a month with a cram school gig in Taichung. Plan for 50k and view anything more as a bonus.
Unless you get very lucky the starting salaries for cram school jobs in Taiwan are terrible and have been for a long time.
EDIT: I shouldn’t use the word salary as that’s also not the case. You’re entering the gig economy big time when you decide to teach English in Taiwan.
A small salary is stlll a salary. My dictionary defines it as “a fixed regular payment, typically paid on a monthly basis but often expressed as an annual sum, made by an employer to an employee.” I guess it depends whether you have a fixed monthly payment or get paid by the hour.
Starting buxiban jobs are going to be hourly paid. I suppose there will be a minimum monthly salary of sorts in that the school will have to pay Taiwanese minimum wage.
Hmmm… well, hopefully OP finds a permanent fixed salary and doesn’t have to settle for a spotty part-time gig like that. Things are definitely tougher than when I started out over a decade ago.
To be honest I don’t know how tough things are now for newbies. I’m making a slightly educated guess about what a newbie with zero teaching experience will encounter looking for work in Taichung. IME the bare minimum for a decentish salaried job is two years post-CELTA.
Did you get a salaried job with no experience ten years ago?
Depends on country. I worked seven years in the public service in North America. Youre usually vested after **one or two years.** You will get a pension at 55 or 60 or 65 (depending on your jurisdiction) but it wont be much with four years service, especially if you were admin. I was a senior advisor/management and my pension for 7 years of service will be about 600US per month at age 55. Not that much…Then again, it really is only gold plated if you put in 20 or 25 years.
Um…guys? I am standing right here and I can hear you…
I am already paid hourly. I am not afraid of having to hustle. I could go chapter-and-verse on what I’ve had to do to survive in my life…but who cares? We all have a story. We get to write it with the tools we have or we get more tools…what is the alternative?
What’s even crazier is I got my first uni teaching job a year later when I still only had my bachelor’s and only a year experience at a cram school. A friend who worked there referred me and so I got in. Lucky me. Now in Korea, like Taiwan, it’s impossible to get a uni gig without a Masters, a CELTA or TESOL cert, and a lot of years experience teaching. But things were a lot easier back in the mid 2000s.