Taiwanese teachers.
I don’t do teacher training anymore. It pays well, but as you say there are a fair few difficult personalities who end up in the teaching profession.
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That would be beyond the point. He’s explaining why, in his opinion, wasn’t fair or well done. And he doesn’t say he was amazing, he says he wasn’t terrible.
And I think he already got the support and insights he needed.
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I guess I’m just not surprised this kind of job has a high turnover rate when it doesn’t take much besides having grown up in an English speaking country to do it. And plenty of those here. They probably don’t feel the need to train people and give notices when many people probably line up for this job that’s capable. So maybe not amazing but not terrible isn’t cutting it?
I guess I agree with you. For being a GOOD teacher you would need more than that though.
Only Taipei city seems to guarantee having swimming pools.
Another example of divide.
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Remember that everyone here studies English too - it doesn’t mean they have any ability. Most of my first-year university students take swimming for a few weeks as part of their PE course, and few of them are comfortable in the water. They write about how difficult swimming a 50-meter length is for them.
Now I’m curious about regional differences. Maybe next year I’ll investigate if there’s a difference between Taipei and non-Taipei students.
I think they aren’t allowed to graduate if they are unable to swim 25 metres. Seems a bit ridiculous to me. What if they are afraid of water?
swimming classes in public schools are pretty common and mandatory regardless of regional differences.
the only difference is probably the hygiene of the pool.
kids complain smelling pee in swimming pool
In the future @SuiGeneris why don’t you let the person the question is addressed to actually answer the question first?
Besides, I didn’t make any judgments about the competency of Taiwanese vs Western teachers. You jumped to those conclusions on your own. I assumed they were Taiwanese, since East Asians tend to avoid direct confrontation when possible. A western teacher would be more upfront with their displeasure in the course. And look at that, I was right.
I looked at the OP’s English…good enough to do the job. As often as not Taiwanese companies get these type of subjective quality calls totally wrong. Unless it’s a high level native speaker making the call I’d guess something triggered the manager, took a dislike to the OP or his writing, but not competent/professional enough to sit down with him and give reasons.
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The Chinese editor was more angry with the “guy invites colleagues from different departments to dinner” which was even more puzzling to me.
I find this hilarious. I work for a Taiwanese company where many in senior management, and HR in particular, studied and worked abroad. Maybe this is why staff are actually encouraged to eat out with people from other departments specifically to foster camaraderie and so we actually know what we are all doing. Not that we have to know, our work tends to keep us silo-ed.
So, each person can reimburse 2 meals a year to our Welfare Committee of up to 750 bucks a head provided we email in photos showing that the group was made up of people who were not from our own department.
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I love the photographing. Every time we have a meeting some guy comes in and photographs us as proof that it actually took place.
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Pool parties are common many places. When I worked for TutorABC for a short painful time, one of the classes that came around was about suicide. The student who signed up for the class told me she was waiting on cancer test results and that suicide was an interesting topic to her. I wanted fun topics like treating colleagues to dinner and pool parties.
This is quite a common policy in Taiwan companies. I well remember going for team lunches at Hsinchu Science Park and the manager pulling out her phone to grab evidence the lunch took place.
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Iirc, I read an article on a swimming class on the ground at some public school last year, or 2 years ago?
The oddest thing about it is someone must be checking the photographic evidence - presumably a senior manager. It’s really strange that they could be arsed to do that.
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It’s a pity there is no trust then.
That reminds me: they all take driving lessons and have actual driving licenses…
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It’s a very big cultural difference. When I first started teaching here I couldn’t believe that I had to clock in with a little card every morning. Teachers don’t do that. And in a buxiban with 3 English teachers can they not see whether we’re here or not?
Haven’t they heard yet of bills?