I interviewed with Teach Taiwan already and sent my background check. Based on others’ experiences, when is it normal to expect job offers? Early June? I’m based in the US now. I saw their post for the NTC openings on FB, but didn’t list NTC as one of my preferred locations in the interview
What’s an interview with them like?
I received 3 offers from schools next day after my interview.
1 Like
From my experience, they give you the questions prior to the interview so you have some time to prepare your answers. If I understood correctly, they record the interview (via Skype) to show it to schools that would hire you. It felt more like a “ask and answer” interview rather than a conversation if you get what I mean
2 Likes
Did you do your interview close to the semester start date?
1 Like
I feel like we are at a similar point: Too old for cram schools. Or at least, that is how I feel.
I work at a cram school right now and they treat me pretty well. My only problem is that I am overworked. 34 teaching hours a week plus three or four hours of grading. It is easy because I have taught the same stuff 100 times, but it also hard because I am bored out of my brain. I loved it up until a few years ago but now it is torture. Not really, it is just boring. I was thinking about going back to the UK and getting my teaching license, but with a family, that is not an easy thing to do.
I would love to teach PE at a school. It seems like they are a bit flexible concerning having a teaching license so maybe I’ll apply. If they don’t get back to me, then fair enough. I know private schools would be willing to hire me because one was willing in the past. However, it just seemed like a bigger cram school. And like I say, they treat me pretty well where I am now.
Yes, my interview was at the beginning of January and I started right after Chinese New Year but Teach Taiwan takes new teachers all the time, no matter if it is the beginning of a new semester or not.
I think teaching licence is no longer required so you might be ok with the application. I teach PE and it is fun!
1 Like
Wow, that’s a lot. You must hourly and, if you’re not underpaid, getting a lot more than you would at a public or private school. If you’re on salary, that’s way too much work unless you’re very highly paid.
Just a bit,. You’d basically have to have been a teacher in your country at some time in the past, or become an assistant teacher here for a year at low pay.
That’s my impression. I’ve gone through their FB pages and seen frequent Saturday events with foreign teachers there, though they may be rotating. Some do pay well, so it may be worth it.
The problem with cram schools and where I’m working now is that they are the end of the line, dead-end jobs. It’s never going to get any better, and I don’t see any possibility of retiring and living well. Working in a “real” school here, at least it pays better and, if there’s not too much take-home work, it might be possible to get additional training, and the experience could lead to a teaching job in ones’ own country. Thinking it through now, I don’t know if it really is a better long term option, but for me, it does pay better.
Thanks for the info. I guess I’m impatient to receive offers. Ready to quit my wagie job and get back into teaching abroad
1 Like
Hourly. Public school would be less money than I’m on now. Probably by quite a bit.
The private school teachers I know make 100k which is less but comparable with what I make when you consider they have paid time off/bonuses etc.
I’d still prefer public, especially if I could teach PE.
Maybe I just need a vacation and to teach less hours.
1 Like
Can’t you just do that now? I’m not sure how teaching at a school here will lead to a job back in your own country if you are still not a qualified teacher.
I know a guy who just went back to the UK and went straight into teaching from a cram school here. He gets qualified while working.
Is it a better long term option? Not sure.
If you leave your job, tell me where it is. I haven’t seen a school offering 34 hours. I don’t know how they’d manage it. It might kill me, but I could do with the money.
I think I’m just thinking out loud. Possibly, to answer your question. It depends on which American state I’m willing to teach in. It would be relatively easy though expensive to get all or most of the qualifications to be certified, or even fully certified, while here. But the generally good pension plans for teachers wouldn’t mean that much if I’m only working for 15 to 20 years, and I’ve not paid enough into SS to get much back, so that leaves me with a small retirement in an expensive country. Add that to dealing with the madness taught in some states and the opposite madness of living in most others… I don’t see how there’s any place for me there, but I don’t know if I can stay here long term. And I don’t want to drag my family to yet another country.
I’m really thinking out loud at this point and it’s not productive and off the point. I should have thought this through 15 years ago.
2 Likes
That’s pretty much it. The schools might have different textbooks so content will be different between schools. Foreign teachers also don’t really have to follow the textbook, so it can actually be very different. At my school it’s mainly learning about yourself, teamwork, and culture in the 1st semester. During the 2nd semester it is environment focused.
I don’t know any schools that have cooking class. Although you can definitely incorporate cooking or food into some lessons. I just taught had a unit about culture in grade 6 and we mainly focused on food and trying some different food.
I know of a few teachers that teach science and PE. It can be a mix of stress and relaxation. The last teacher I knew that taught it said it was easy but he hated it. He would either lead the kids in stretches and then the local teacher takes over, or he would explain a few simple things about a sport and then the local teacher takes over. It becomes stressful when you need to do your evaluation.
Environment and culture, I can understand, but how do you teach about teamwork and “yourself” in a CLIL class.
Every private school I’ve looked at, their FB page has post after post of cooking lessons.
Just rank the kids by stretchiness. Or do you mean when the teacher is evaluated?
Teamwork is mainly just teaching the benefits of working in a team and how to work effectively. Like the students will do a task by themselves and then again in a team. Another class might be a team competition, then asking the teams what they did to win.
Teaching about yourself is usually talking about feelings, finding things you might be interested in like new hobbies, and possible ways to explore those hobbies. Like we might do a show and tell where the students show off their hobbies and talk about how they got started in it. Then in future classes students might ask them more questions about that hobby.
A lot of the indicators(objectives) that we can get are very broad, so you can teach them in lots of different ways. There was one I had for 4th grade that was something along the lines of the beauty and aesthetics of architecture. That one was really hard for me to plan and teach.
Ah, I was just talking about public school. I don’t know anything about private schools. I don’t even know if they teach Integrated Activities.
This is for public school. The teacher gets evaluated. It happens every couple months. There are bimonthly evaluations just done by your director at the school. Then there are open classes held once a semester. Usually you get evaluated by a professor then. Finally there is an external evaluation, once a year, where the city government sends two teachers and a professor to evaluate you.
The external one is usually the one the teachers worry about the most. If you ask me though it’s stupid. Half the time they are just rehearsed performances and don’t reflect how you truly teach. I did it one year and my director and coteacher had me teach the lesson two times before the evaluation so the students would know what to expect and everything could be perfect.
2 Likes
Hang on, is the Chinese for this class “綜合活動”? The textbooks for that class make an excellent Chinese learning resource as a foreigner, as you really learn the terms you need to use with your students 
That’s a lot to deal with for classes they don’t seem to take seriously. Or do the evaluators know the schools don’t take the teachers seriously?
I think you’ve both mentioned textbooks in Chinese. They don’t really expect you to know Chinese, do they? I’m sure they don’t expect it, but are they aware that you can’t teach the class without knowing it, if that’s the case?
I got a reply from TFETP to my question about qualifying with a US state substitute teaching certificate. It was simply that it depends on the regulations of the state. But they didn’t say what regulations the state should have for it to be accepted. I vaguely remember someone said in another thread it should be statewide and not for an individual school. The one I have, I can teach statewide, but teachers, sub and regular, have to register in a particular district. But it’s possible to register in more than one. I don’t know if they’ll accept that or not.
TFETP said to just apply and they’d pass it on the evaluating committee.
Ren He posted another ad looking for teaching in NTC on 104. It could automatically renew, but I emailed them to see if they were recruiting.
They’ll probably accept it. I did the Illinois sub license which did ask me to register in a certain district. It’s still a state license. Teach Taiwan had no problem with it.
If your textbook has some Chinese, you can use Google Translate or just find a different textbook online or not use a textbook. I found that teaching in China was waaaay different from what I expected based on growing up in the US. Not only because of cultural differences but also because being a foreign English teacher in Asia is just its own ball of wax.
You can absolutely do your job with no Chinese. I had a principal in China who didn’t like me speaking Chinese with the students. It might make things harder as far as getting the students to follow instructions, but ultimately not a big deal.
I find that it makes it nearly impossible to connect with the students. For those that aren’t going to speak English under any circumstance, having Chinese to ask how their day is going or what they thought of the school lunch today or whatever else makes a world of difference. I will never again take on a “you’re the English teacher, do not even say ‘ni hao’ around the kids” type job. And as much of a headache as learning Chinese might be, learn some key phrases, even if you can’t say them well. It shows you’re making an effort, for whatever that’s worth!