I taught at a cramschool near Tainan for six months during 2004. I had a very bad experience and ultimately we agreed mutually to call it a day and I returned to South Africa. At the moment I am thinking about returning, but am not sure whether the fact that I was there before may make it more difficult for me in terms of having an ARC granted. I am also fairly adamant that I want to tutor/teach adults/more mature learners, but have been told that this is more difficult to find. Is September a bad time to come in terms of finding a job?
It wasn’t a problem for me, and I didn’t make any kind of agreement when I left the first time -just scooped up the last paycheck and departed. Returned 1 year later and got new ARC (this was over 4 years ago) no problemo.
I work in the adults department at one of the large chain cram schools in Taipei. I’ve been there for 5 years, and I’ve noticed that the 2 major turnover periods are:
#1) June, due to the end of the school year (and thus many teacher contracts), and
#2) September, due to the beginning of the new school year.
Summer is usually a busy season, even for adults’ departments (although much of the enrollment is high school & university students). One of the other veteran co-workers and I, we’re going to leave at the end of summer, for higher pay elsewhere. The pay is not very low for new teachers, but it IS low for veteran teachers, since raises are minimal. We’ve already given notice, but we’re staying just to help out our director. Our department is looking for new teachers.
In my opinion, there’s still quite a stable adult English market. But there ARE fewer openings at individual schools because there are so many schools now.
Unless it was a seriously messy break-up, I don’t believe it should be difficult for you to get a job or ARC. I’ve met several people through the years who’ve come back to TW a second time around, and I haven’t heard of any trouble. (Of course, if there had been trouble, they wouldn’t have made it to our school!)
How did you get fired from your first job?