Hey there, basically I just don’t want to teach elementary or kindergartners, anything else is ok though I prefer teaching TOEFL/IELTS or GRE if possible. I am a male, late 20’s, White looking(ish), Eng PhD student at Tsing Da, good TOEFL and GRE scores myself (like super good) and my accent is pretty much neutral American. Should I even bother?
What do you mean?
Are you a native English speaker?
What makes you think you shouldn’t bother?
Yeah, it’s difficult to see what the problem is here.
Haha yeah sorry. The thing is I am not a native English speaker, though as I mentioned my accent is pretty much neutral.
That’s a legal issue depending upon your country and work visa status.
native speaker or not isn’t a matter. What you need is a passport.
Not a legal issue if you are a student at Uni here, actually. Should be fine, just get the work permit through your school.
Yeah I can get the work permit relatively easily, all I need is a signature from my advisor but I don’t have a passport or uni degree from a country where English is an official language. Again my english is good, I don’t have an accent at all and I have the TOEFL and GRE scores to back that up. I know people studying here that teach kindergartners but I don’t want to deal with young children. Any tips on where to start looking?
The passport is only a requirement if you’re getting a work permit through the employer.
What TEFL related qualifications do you have?
OK, this is quite old experience, but I would guess that a lot of this hasn’t changed much.
To be hired to teach TOEFL/GRE, they are not looking for a white face. That’s not enough. They don’t care how well YOU did on the GRE. They are unlikely to hire you and advertise that you’re not a native speaker of English, and if you are seen to be a native speaker, then who cares how well you did on those exams, because it’s completely different to take them as a learner of English. See what I mean? You either need to be in an area of serious teacher lack for those test prep courses, or else bring some other stuff to the table. (My experience was in the Taipei buxiban cluster near the train station, so a remote location may be more forgiving.)
Now, do you speak Chinese? Because TOEFL and GRE classes at most big buxibans are taught in Chinese. This isn’t about learning English. It’s about getting the score on that test. The companies will probably ask what strategies you know for taking the test, what test question patterns you’re aware of, and so on. They’re looking for stuff that applies to their students, not to the general public who speaks English already. And they would really prefer that you can explain these strategies and question types and fine grammar points in Mandarin. Again, it’s not at all about improving anyone’s English. It’s about helping them short-circuit the test questions and get the right answer in the fastest time.
I have fluent Mandarin and a PhD in foreign language education, and the best I could get out of the big companies was a gig teaching TOEFL listening. It was considered that despite my teaching experience, knowledge of grammar and ability to teach it in Mandarin, the Taiwanese teachers were the ones to do all the other sections. I’m really not even sure why they thought listening was “suitable” when the others weren’t, but that’s what they decided.
That being said, I made a lot of money per hour doing it. But it was amazingly boring compared to “regular” teaching, too. Again, this was a significant amount of time ago, but I think it’s worth having these issues in the back of your mind if you plan to pursue this.
Last but not least, most companies probably won’t have a full-time job for you, unless it’s doing a lot of non-TOEFL/GRE stuff as well. That could be teaching in a kindy, even, or some other anqinban class they have, or whatever. If you need full-time for a visa, that might be an issue. So you’re up against (often “famous”) Taiwanese teachers to begin with, with enormous classes, and trying to get a job that might not exist. Classes, sure. Jobs – I don’t know.
If it were me, I’d probably start my own side action instead, just picking up a couple of students and charging them a premium based on my non-Taiwanese native speaker-ness. Better teaching, more money (most likely), less stress, and more feeling of actually doing some good for someone’s English. Those factors may or may not be things that are important to you. I just throw it out there for you to think about.
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I agree that private classes are the best way to go. I didn’t want to suggest them because of legal issues.
If the OP has no qualifications then the likes of CES or the British Council are out of the question. Places like ELITE or Trinity might be worth a shot.
I don’t have much experience of teaching TOEFL, but IELTS isn’t taught in Chinese. In my experience, at least. It’s usually exams like TOEIC that seem to be taught that way.
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