[quote=“tomthorne”][quote=“Cassiopeia”]Hi all,
Just checking in (not to disrupt a very valid discussion on renting vs. home ownership 
)
I appreciate the feedback, and it seems to be that the issue isn’t so much crazy-expensive costs if things are budgeted wisely and you’re living in the right area–but making sure you have a school that guarantees enough hours to be able to save up. I will keep that in mind and pass the information along.
To the poster who described Kaohsiung, thanks a lot, while I have been kind of set on Taipei Kaohsiung sounds like it has what I’m looking for in Taiwan.[/quote]
I’m going to stick with my first reply, Cassipeia. Assuming you can get enough hours to earn at least 50k a month, saving 15k should not be much of a problem.[/quote]
At 4.3 weeks per month, earning 600NT’/hour, that’s 19.38 hours per week.
Actually, that’s not including tax, so you’d need more than that then.
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”][quote=“tomthorne”][quote=“Cassiopeia”]Hi all,
Just checking in (not to disrupt a very valid discussion on renting vs. home ownership )
I appreciate the feedback, and it seems to be that the issue isn’t so much crazy-expensive costs if things are budgeted wisely and you’re living in the right area–but making sure you have a school that guarantees enough hours to be able to save up. I will keep that in mind and pass the information along.
To the poster who described Kaohsiung, thanks a lot, while I have been kind of set on Taipei Kaohsiung sounds like it has what I’m looking for in Taiwan.[/quote]
I’m going to stick with my first reply, Cassipeia. Assuming you can get enough hours to earn at least 50k a month, saving 15k should not be much of a problem.[/quote]
At 4.3 weeks per month, earning 600NT’/hour, that’s 19.38 hours per week.
Actually, that’s not including tax, so you’d need more than that then.[/quote]
Are newbies not even getting 20+ hours a week these days?
How about private tutoring? Is there still a market for that? I always figured I’d work at a school for (hopefully) 20 or so hours a week, and then supplement that with private tutoring. Surely there is still a market for that?
I’m not sure if there’s much of a market for anything these days.
A whole bunch of my mates who work for a big local school have just received a part time contract for the new semester - not enough new kindy intake. 78k down to 54k. It’s just carnage. I’m going to be buying all the rounds from now on 
.
Although I haven’t had enough time recently to be interested in taking on private students (life-balance, not high workload), it has been my experience that it takes time to build up a clientele. Posting online is not as effective as word-of-mouth, which a newbie is not going to get until they have a track record.
I’m not sure if there’s much of a market for anything these days.
A whole bunch of my mates who work for a big local school have just received a part time contract for the new semester - not enough new kindy intake. 78k down to 54k. It’s just carnage. I’m going to be buying all the rounds from now on .[/quote]
Grief! That’s a 31% pay cut, just like that.
[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]
Grief! That’s a 31% pay cut, just like that.[/quote]
And it will feed through as a double whammy in a couple of years when the kindy students move up to the buxiban classes. I don’t think it was an inauspicious animal year 4 years ago (it was the pig, wasn’t it?), so it’s not down to that. I’m going to ask around all my other mates who work at other kindy/bilingual/immersion/whatever schools and see whether they are experiencing the same problems or if it’s just this particular school.
Of course, the long time senior teachers are taking what kindy classes remain in order to keep their full schedules. It’s only the relative newcomers who are losing hours. However, that’s just switching deckchairs on the Titanic. It really isn’t looking good, at all.
I was also chatting to a couple of newbies in town last night after work. One of them had arrived with no job looking for work, the other had a job lined up at just under 50k a month - and he seemed really pleased about it 
. WE’RE DOOOOMED!
Perhaps it isn’t so much a case of there being less English teaching work available nowadays as it is a case of there being less teaching work for foreigners. I mean to say that nowadays there are more local teachers who speak pretty good English and can do the foreign teacher’s job just as well.
So stop doing such a good job, everybody, otherwise there will no foreign-teacher jobs left at all.
tom: Yes. Ouch! Double whammy indeed.
I don’t think it is just that particular place. I am the only foreigner in my entire area. The Taiwanese English teacher at my elementary school also teaches at at least one of the other elementary schools around here. I think I’ve written before about how there used to be at least five elementary schools around here and now there are three. All three are way below capacity. At my elementary school, my current grade six class had 21 students. The grade five class is fairly large also (I don’t teach them, so I don’t know exactly). My grade four class has ten students. The grade three class has a few more, but not too many. The grade two, one and kindergarten classes fall off a cliff and would have ten students each if they’re lucky.
My junior high school has whole wings that are either unused or have classrooms that have been converted into things like a large aboriginal activity centre. We now fit all of the homerooms, teachers’ offices and some additional rooms, in one wing of the school. Those classes have, on average, around twenty students each. Next year’s grade seven classes will apparently be close to thirty each (two classes) though. There are sixteen teachers at my school (not sure if that includes me). That means that at any one time, there are ten teachers who are not teaching.
My village has several abandoned houses. The average age in my village must be up in the fifties at least. There are elementary and junior high school kids (I rarely see senior high school kids, but they’re probably sleeping or studying), seemingly almost no one between the age of eighteen and thirty-eight, and then a ton of old timers. The interesting thing is that plenty of my students actually have lots of siblings (at least for Taiwanese of their generation). I guess people just leave and never come back.
You think things are in decline around your neck of the woods. You should see here. It’s beautiful and casual, and probably way more traditional, which makes it really nice to live here, but it’s just about in terminal decline.
adikarmika: I think a large part of the problem is there’s possibly a much greater supply of teachers now. Hess is a lot more picky, so I’m sure other places are too. People are overqualified these days. Also, the MOE programme seems to have grown a lot in Taidong this year (almost 50% more teachers next year). I’m wondering when there’s going to be a big British invasion, or maybe all of those teachers are going elsewhere to teach.
[quote=“adikarmika”]Perhaps it isn’t so much a case of there being less English teaching work available nowadays as it is a case of there being less teaching work for foreigners. I mean to say that nowadays there are more local teachers who speak pretty good English and can do the foreign teacher’s job just as well.
So stop doing such a good job, everybody, otherwise there will no foreign-teacher jobs left at all.[/quote]
First, I’m no so sure this is true, at least from the perspective of teaching for communication. Local teachers are generally better at teaching for tests than native English speaking teachers here, but local teachers still often make non-native speaker mistakes. With all due respect to my former colleagues teaching at a junior/senior high school, maybe 5-10% of them even have near-native fluency.
Second, it’s less a question of whether local teachers are good teachers, than it is consumer demand for native speakers. What has more of a negative affect on the market for native English speaking teachers is that there are fewer students and a steady oversupply of native English speakers.
Which would explain why certain staff members are able to spend so much time on internet discussion forums. 
adikarmika: Even with more students there is a limit to the number of classes we teach per week. In my previous job, I was at capacity, but I still had lots of time on my hands.