Private schools can basically screw over their teachers in every way they please. No need for overtime, can require 6 day work weeks, etc. Thats why a cram school job with a salary (or a cram school posing as a day school) can actually be a safer option.
Wait, so, if I have an APRC, a private school doesn’t need to pay into the pension fund for me? I mean, my office now is paying 6% or whatever, but if I switch to a private school, I lose that? And is a public school the same?
It’s disturbing how different this is from the real world.
depends on how you ate employed
Yes, there seems to be a dumb loophole on that. It really needs to be addressed and talked about.
And it’s the same for public school teachers? No payments to the retirement fund?
There are infinite loopholes for private schools. Make sure you take any contracts under a microscope and know you have basically no protections under the law if it’s not in your contract.
6% to the labor pension if you have an APRC or are married to someone with household registration, if I remember correctly. Nada to anyone on a work-based ARC.
Every new piece of information I hear makes one or the other worse and worse until I don’t know which is the better choice. Why would private schools get special treatment?
Something else just occurred to me, do private schools usually have a policy for quitting? If they aren’t governed by the LSA, what recourse do you have if you want to leave a job and there isn’t a clause covering the amount of notice you need to give? My current with a company contract doesn’t, but I know what to do if I quit because I can follow the LSA law.
I know the general rule is to make sure everything is in the contract, but given that I started this thread over a month ago, I think I’ve really left it too long and all the good schools will be taken and I’m going to have to take the first acceptable one.
I finally to do an interview with Teach Taiwan yesterday. I wasn’t planning to, but I think I’ll try to do a recorded teaching demo. I fumbled on a couple of the questions in the interview, and I want to try to make a better impression.
Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do as a teaching demonstration? All I’m coming up with is EFL or history related lessons. The email says any subject, but I’ve learned from this thread that schools often expect teachers to teach “integrated studies” and I don’t know where to begin with that. What’s the best way to do it? Should I bother making PowerPoint slides or just stand up and talk for ten minutes? Should I pretend to interact with students? This will be done in my living room because I don’t have access to a classroom.
How did the interview go?
Any questions beyond the given ones?
Allowed to ask your questions?
I would suggest searching youtube for demo ideas. Is the demo required or optional?
Optional, but like I said, I think I didn’t do great and I want to do something that makes me look better. I scheduled the interview for early in the morning so I wouldn’t have to miss much work, but I didn’t sleep well and I wasn’t at my best.
YT is a good idea. I was wondering what a school in Taiwan specifically might want to see.
Since it doesn’t matter what subject you do it on, just choose the one you are best at. Definitely don’t use integrated activities. I would recommend standing up fand pretending to interact with students. If you have a whiteboard even better, use it. If you don’t then just make some flashcards and use them. I would stay away from PPTs for a recorded demo.
Why is that? I have awful handwriting and it’s going to stretch this out if I have to print something. I can type up a slide in a few minutes and either teach next to the TV or screen capture the slides.
For some reason I was just picturing you holding an Ipad or recording yourself just sitting in front of the computer going through your slide.
It should be fine having it on the screen next to you during your demo.
It would be easier to do it “online class” style with my head in the corner, but I’m sure I should at least stand up. If I can’t interact with students, I should at least stand up and move a bit.
I think I know what I’ll do. I just remembered about the dozens of articles I’ve written for students on various subjects. I’ll just take the facts from those and turn them into a lesson.
Is it normal not to find a job until now? Is it possible that either public or private schools will still be looking in Taipei? The job listings seem to have dried up, except for two private schools that are at the bottom of my list. So far, I’ve only had two interviews, both at private schools. For one school, I put hours into planning a good demo, but I misjudged the students’ abilities and guessed wrong about the style of class they were used to, and basically blew it. They said they might give me a second chance, but I haven’t heard back. With the second, there were red flags and I didn’t follow up with them.
I also had an interview with Teach Taiwan and another recruiter a week ago, and applied to a third. The first interview went OK, but I wasn’t happy with it. I did the optional recorded demo, but I’m not sure if it was good enough. I wouldn’t call myself enthusiastic as a teacher. The second interview went better. That is a recruiter for private schools, but the first thing the interviewer said is that schools may not want me or may not want to pay me much because I’m overqualified and they’d rather have cheap teachers.
With Teach Taiwan, they recruit for NTP, and there aren’t many schools I could commute to from where I live in Taipei. The second one recruits for private schools, but said some have filled their positions and others were busy at the end of the school year. The third recruits for public high schools, and said the MOE hadn’t released a list of open positions in Taipei yet, which seems odd this late, like maybe there aren’t any.
So have I waited too long? Should I accept the first offer I get even if the salary is below what I expect? Should I start applying to schools that are further away than I’d like?
I really don’t want to go back to cram school teaching. I was good at it, but it doesn’t pay nearly enough.