TEFL in Taiwan: The Good and the Bad

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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I am posting 3 articles today, 22 Nov. 2008:
TEFL in Taiwan: The Good
TEFL in Taiwan: The Bad
TEFL in Taiwan: The Ugly

N.B. The odds of my following up on any of these threads is very low!

The Good is presented below, after an aside requesting shareable info about schools.

I’ve been looking for a way of sharing info about schools. While there is a smattering of posts about schools, it is insignificant when compared to the number of schools and complaints out there. Websites’ apprehension (to law suits and loss of ads) is compounded by a tendency to lash out against critical complaints which (often hasty, and articulated for an assumed non-hostile readership) fall short of legal thresholds of proof! The transient, passing-thru nature of the complainants only adds to this: they turn their backs and never look back.

Pay-based blacklists won’t work, methinks. I’ve looked at Usenet, freenet, mailing lists, etc. Would anyone be interested in bartering READMEs? I’m not looking for a rant, a forum, or for a list of the wrongs committed against you; just a brief, 1 page, bullet point, plain-text outline of the good, the bad and the ugly of a school. For now, I’ve written 2 such files. I’ll barter them under the conditions that free bartering can continue, that the files are not to be modified, and that they must not be presented/posted for general access. Contact me at the internetDog domain which is not a com but an org, and you should contact ‘gbuswap’. The Subject line has to say “GBU Submission”, precisely, plus the school’s name. If the format/content within has problems, I’ll send you suggestions.

TEFL in Taiwan: The Good

  • The Taiwanese are the nicest people to foreign teachers (FTs) that one can imagine. Sometimes, I just want to give them a collective hug! There is a tremendous amount of goodwill here which one hopes, with apprehension, will not go the way of other countries’.

  • The Taiwanese are forever helpful eg going out of their way to help find someone in the office to translate for you. It is embarrassing when you realise the corresponding treatment they may receive back at your home country!

  • They are very welcoming towards, & open to meeting, foreigners.

  • You can respectfully observe the public minutiae of daily life and rituals w/o fear of offending the local hotheads – which could be the case in some other countries.

  • You’ll have lots of disposable income. Cost of living in Taiwan is not low: the locals do complain about inflation. But your income is so far above the national average that you can live very comfortably as well as put aside money. You’re getting above a professional’s wages.

  • Once you get settled in a not-too-bad school, you can certainly save significant money. It will take you more than 1 year, and may well take you a few years, to get to that point, but it will get there (I’m told). And the lifestyle is pretty good.

  • Many of the conveniences and foods of the West can be found where you live or at a nearby city.

  • There is a huge number of English schools in Taiwan. Every little village seems to have a few such schools!

  • It’s a cliche, but the mix of the modern and the traditional (esp. religious) make for a fascinating view. And it’s a small island that can be easy to explore.

  • Taiwan’s air is not polluted!

(Now pause. Take a deep breath (no pun). And read on.) Well, the air is not discernibly/any more polluted than any major Western cities you’ve been to.

I have certainly read official reports of pollution in Taiwan. But similar ones do exist about the FTs’ home countries; the very ones which they ignore, if not dismiss.

So why do people say this? I will not go into the causes, but will instead recount a specific case.

I once ran into a FT complaining about the air in a small town with no nearby sources of pollution. He talked as well of soot on his face and in his apartment, neither of which I had experienced. I asked him if he was riding a scooter. The answer was yes. By riding in a pack of scooters, you are effectively sitting in a tunnel of exhaust fumes.

If you break this habit long enough, then you can address the question of whether, outside that tunnel, the level of air pollution is discernibly more or less than that of the smog-infested Western cities you’ve come from. IMHO, ordinary respiratory organs cannot. Scientific equipment may well suggest otherwise, but I fully expect that their comparable judgements have existed for half the places I’ve lived in.

Either way, one thing is for sure: if the first thing you do upon arrival is to buy a decrepit 2-stroke scooter, then you’ve forfeited any right to complain about the problem you’re contributing to. You claim to know better, and can certainly afford better, so set an example! Slandering a generous nation, and dismissing responsible action with macho calls of ‘man up’ or ‘grow up and get a scooter’, makes you a hypocrite;

  • If the school lays you off, then they have to give you 2 months’ notice (which is the typical notice period for premature contract cancellation), or instead give you severance pay. Any lay-off has to be with the same 2-month notice that you have to give them. The CLA has confirmed this.

(AFAIK: If they try to fire you by accusing you of misconduct, incompetence, failing a student survey, etc, then they have to give you written notices and provide opportunities for improvement and follow-up assessments; it is non-trivial to prove justifiable cause. Confirm with the CLA.)

  • If you are an hourly worker, and they don’t give you enough hours, you are not bound by the 2-month notice. You can talk to the CLA, and walk.

(I suspect that, if you used to be full-time, and they then drastically cut your hours, then there may be grounds for arguing that this is a de facto lay-off. In that case, severance pay may be due. Confirm with the CLA.)

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What are you on about and why? Brevity is a virtue.

The ‘good’ points look like silly crap lifted from a chainschool/agency website.

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[color=#408040][Note by moderator: This post was originally made as a separate thread, but I merged it and its responses in here][/color]

Continuing the “TEFL in Taiwan” thread of 22 Nov. 2008. Here are The Bad.

Some people don’t like to hear bad news. I know that I will be blamed, one way or another. So be it!

  • Savings.

You won’t be making much money in your first year. Sorry!

Exception: People who live a spartan lifestyle for a whole year in school-provided accommodation, and who somehow had low initial costs.

The reasons include the costs of coming here, of getting established, and of your return. In addition, your tax rate would be 20%, and a Western lifestyle costs more.

Those who don’t complete their year (and there seems to be no shortage of them) return in the red. Exceptions, if any, may include those with some sort of parental support back home eg housing.

I expect that the actual number of people who can save significantly during their first year is as representative as that of those who (claim to) earn $100k.

If you stay for more than 1 year, then your finances will look quite good. However, this assumes that you have not changed location, haven’t run into schools which don’t give you hours, and haven’t paid any penalties for contract cancellations et al, and any visa runs have been successfully done on the cheap.

It takes a few years to find a good school – so I hear. There are success stories posted out there, but people tend to forget what they had to go thru in order to get to where they are. And that struggle costs money. For example, in your first year, you will have, at best, an inadequate idea of how to time the whole give notice + find job + health check + Work Permit + ARC process. Schools, on the other hand, have been doing this for years. You may easily find yourself signing up, in a hurry, with a bad school for your 2nd year. This will cost you.

Note also that pay rates here have not gone up in years, and in fact seem to have dropped recently. Furthermore, the (2008) recession has hit here as well as in the rest of the world.

  • Not as many jobs as it seems.

There is a huge number of English schools in Taiwan. But much of the demand is due to the high turnover. One would expect that the good jobs don’t come on the market often. And some schools seem to be constantly hiring! Much like other industries, schools seem to have a liking for wide-eyed newbies. And there’s a plane-load of the latter coming twice a year. … It’s a cargo cult of sorts, the TEFL business here!

They do prefer employees with some experience, of course, but so long as it is on their terms. It does not behove the hire to wise up on contracts and rights, let alone on non-perfunctory teaching methods.

So, if we take out the duplicated ads, the illegal kindies, and the part-time jobs, and dare even to avoid the most objectionable contracts, then I wonder how many would be left. There is a huge number of schools, but how many are kindies, and how many do not have a high turnover? In brief, how many good ones are on the market in proportion to the number of applicants?

  • Illegalities: Taxes

I’ve never dealt with a school here which did everything legally! (Other people have echoed this as well.) My policy is to not get my hands dirty. Thus if they don’t pay taxes, I make sure that my taxes are paid. Always get each pay slip and your Withholding statements.

  • Illegalities: Demos

Most/all schools want you to do a demo. Some get you to do it in front of staff members acting as students. Most want it in front of real students. The latter is illegal unless if they do the following:

  1. the principal has to be present;
  2. your CV has to be on the table in front of the principal;
  3. most importantly, there has to be a notice on the classroom door stating the date and time of the demo, and how many teachers will be demoing.

The length of the demo is immaterial to the CLA, and even payment. (Yes, I, too, was surprised by the latter but this is what the CLA told me.)

Schools will assure you that you can ignore the above. However, if there is a raid, you will be deported, and they will get only a fine. Raids do happen, and foreign teachers (FTs) do get deported. You will be stupid not to demand the above.

  • Illegalities: Kindies

You cannot work in kindergartens. All these places advertising morning classes with “very young” pupils are hiring you illegally. People do argue the minutiae, and split legal hairs, but your ass is daily exposed to deportation. (Don’t ask me how Hess does it. I suspect better juridical juggling than other schools’!)

  • Illegalities: Privates

Most FTs aren’t permitted to teach private classes on the side. If you do engage in this, then, in the least, you’ve forfeited your right to whine about the schools’ illegalities.

  • Illegalities: Probation

Some contracts include a probationary period. This has no legal basis. The CLA has stated this categorically.

  • Illegalities: Deposits and penalties

buxiban.com is your source for this. In brief, schools can’t withhold money from your pay cheques, and they can’t penalise you for sick leave. (Sick days are unpaid, though.)

  • Council of Labor Affairs (CLA)

This is the governmental body you can take grievances to.

You may not think much of the illegality of kindergartens. However, the CLA is your only recourse, and, in the face of all the misconduct by the schools, you will need them. They got me out of a mess which took others months to get out of.
N.B. They are impartial, so present your case meticulously.

  • Housing

Unless if you live in the 3 big cities, apartments may not live up to your lowered expectations. Think no kitchen, no bathtub, and no shower stall. The glitz of Taipei, and all those shiny cars, can be deceptive.

And the rest may not be what you would have signed up to live in for a whole year, had you not already signed the school contract and paid the inbound costs. Add this to the brew, and you’ll understand the midnight run.

My policy is that, though I negotiate the contract beforehand, I sign it alongside the lease. One school in a small town did not even let you sign the contract until you’d physically moved in – presumably to ensure that you’ve committed, rather than intending this as an interim job while you commute from the big city!

The crude cliche of family-centred Chinese life manifests itself in towns which barely have any housing for singles. Unless if it is a university town, the apartments are little more than pigeon boxes for those who work away from home, and run back to their ‘real’ towns on the weekend. In one case, there was no laundry machine in the building, and no laundromat in the town! Meanwhile, expensive cars and modern, for-sale family houses abound!

Initially, I’d assumed that the reason why some schools offer ‘free’ accommodation is because creative accounting made them money. But, it seems to be a basic necessity as well.

On the plus side, rents are a very small portion of your income.

  • No real vacation time

There really is no time off. No vacation for the first year. Most schools want some sort of Saturday work. Chinese New Year holidays are not necessarily long, and flights are expensive and hard to book at that time. Unpaid leave is negotiable in only some schools.

If you do get 2 days off, though, it is easy to see the island in a hurry. Nearby countries are cheap. too.

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All of this is already around. What’s your purpose in posting this, if as you say in your other thread, you won’t be monitoring the responses? Spam? Stirring the pot?

A lot of it is complete crap.

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What’s so bad about taking on privates? I hardly see how you can equate that with some of the nasty things the chain schools seem to be doing.

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Privates are evil. I hate them with a passion. All of the shit of teaching with none of the fun. I only did 'em for 2500NT. Hell, it was 20 grand a month…

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[quote=“Buttercup”]All of this is already around. What’s your purpose in posting this, if as you say in your other thread, you won’t be monitoring the responses? Spam? Stirring the pot?

A lot of it is complete crap.[/quote]

Actually, I hope people not yet in Taiwan and considering making the move will read this, and the other post started by the OP author. (Why 2 separate posts? Word limit?)

The reason so many foreigners fall into the traps set by the employers is because they aren’t aware of the games that are played. Most people don’t know that deposits and penalties are illegal. Most people don’t know teaching in kindies is illegal. The games that are played are possible because newbies are uninformed. It’s also the reason why things don’t get much better, because as the OP mentioned, either in this thread or the other he/she started, there is always a cargo of fresh, unaware, uninformed meat on the way, ripe to be taken advantage of. It will get better for all of us if people stop taking the crap. Informed newbies might be better equipped to help stop the madness.

I got played a few times when I first got here. I rolled with the punches and learned from it, but I did get taken advantage of quite a bit because of my ignorance. Now I know better, and like the OP author I see the crap schools pull on teachers. I see the plethora of ads with double-speak that would be incredibly enticing to someone who doesn’t know better. Had I read posts like these, I could have made better decisions. I would still be here because I’m here for personal reasons, not for TEFL reasons, but my first year would have gone much more smoothly.

In general, I also agree that good jobs are incredibly hard to find, but how I define a good job would be one where the employer treated me like an asset not a commodity. In 4 years and 3 different full and part time jobs, it hasn’t happened yet. It’s also my dream to find a job that pays me vacation, holiday and sick pay, but those TEFL jobs are rare.

I’ve accepted my the situation and am not saying Taiwan needs to change, but I do think people considering coming here to teach, they should get information and have realistic expectations.

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My point was that it is a pointless post as the info is already on flob. One of them something about how Taiwanese girls don’t trim their bushes. Not cool.

And information don’t cure stupid.

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[quote=“gbu_swap”]N.B. The odds of my following up on any of these threads is very low![/quote]In that case, the odds of these threads falling rapidly down the forum list and into second-page oblivion is [sic] very high. This is a discussion board. We don’t post “articles”, we try to discuss things with people.

Still, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have information like this posted again, even if it’s an a format that’s rather uncomfortable to read. And there are the glimmerings of a useful discussion going on.

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Any chance you could repost those, gbu? I didn’t get a chance to read them and am now highly curious thanks to the strange responses you’ve gotten so far.

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For everyone’s information, the OP has got in a huff and removed the content of his posts from this thread. Apparently he had put in an enormous amount of time on his creations and I was wrong to interfere with them. (Am I wrong here? Is pubic hair really a vital topic of discussion in TEIT? :laughing: )

Anyway, removing posts is against the site rules, and rather bad form. I’m giving the OP a few hours to put back the removed content, and if he doesn’t, I’ll ask Maoman to suspend him so that I can put back the removed content myself without worrying that it will be removed again in future. (Or there might be an admin function to just disable posters’ editing rights–I’ll ask Maoman about that.)

[quote=“barfomcgee”]Any chance you could repost those, gbu? I didn’t get a chance to read them and am now highly curious thanks to the strange responses you’ve gotten so far.[/quote]Don’t worry, I saved them. They’ll be back later today, one way or another. And you saw the one I temped, right?
viewtopic.php?f=110&t=74648

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For long timers, it’s a subject that has been beat to death. For a newbie or a not-yet-bie, it’s important to hear pros and cons.

Had I known some of the things discussed here, I might not have made some of the bad choices that I did. You might say that it’s been discussed before, but as noted above, these threads drift off to oblivion after a while.

Having more complete information, good and bad, helps make more informed decisions. You may not like the OP’s style, but some of what was written is true and worth considering before making the trip over here.

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[quote=“CraigTPE”]You might say that it’s been discussed before, but as noted above, these threads drift off to oblivion after a while.

Having more complete information, good and bad, helps make more informed decisions. You may not like the OP’s style, but some of what was written is true and worth considering before making the trip over here.[/quote]That’s what I said, wasn’t it? That’s the reason I didn’t temp those two posts. The same reason I’ll reinstate them if the OP doesn’t first.

How about carrying on with the discussion for now, and I’ll come back to this later? Going out for a few hours now.

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Thanks, joesax. I can see the temp for “the ugly” but not “the good.”

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Thanks, joesax. I can see the temp for “the ugly” but not “the good.”[/quote]Ahhh… I merged the Good with the Bad, in here. Responses were fairly similar, and I felt the topics deserved to stay together.

I’ve just reinstated the removed posts–Maoman informed me that I have a “lock post” button that will stop the OP removing content from those posts again.

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This is uncalled for!

Here is my side, hoping that it will remain unmolested.

Every piece of writing is written for a readership. My posts’ were those yet to arrive in Taiwan. It brought together a lot of information scattered about, as well as much information that I had never come across on-line or which I had found to be confused or contradictory. To wit, demos’ legal procedure, severance, Individual Income Tax Statement, and probation. Feel free to google for counter-examples, but, at best, I will respond to only those respectful posts which demonstrate intelligence and a comparable amount of time spent.
The cost to me has been in time spent. If a reader was to spend a little more time in contemplating this than s/he spent on a quick-fire reply, this would be obvious.
This is also related to my lowering of expectations wrt responses. Mine predates most people’s acquaintance with the Internet: I simply do not have the time to argue with people who neither spend the requisite time, nor maintain a civil tone. Do your homework, and you’ll earn my time. The posts were written with full knowledge of what may (indeed has) happened; but they were done to help others. If you don’t find them useful, move on! Why are you at home on a beautiful Saturday morning, complaining?

Why were there 3 posts? It was a work-around for a deficiency of such web forums. In traditional Internet forums, and more sophisticated web forums, sub-threads are visible and so multiple conversations can go on without clutter. In this (and similar phpBB/CMS-dependent forums), all posts are usually in-line. By breaking the post into 3 shorter parts, discussions could be separated. QED!

As for the 2 lines, out of over 300, which contained the pubic reference: I knew that they’d be used as an excuse, especially if one’s idea of humour involves canned laughter or mugs to the camera.

This brings me to a point wrt Forumosa. I’d browsed the site rules prior to joining and posting. Unfortunately, I missed the no-delete rule. As I’d previously noticed edits, some apparently by the authors, and an Edit button was available, and I felt that my post had been gutted and trivialised, I took them out before the discussion really got started. The latter could still continue on another site (to be found by google) or could continue on forumosa (with the articles hosted elsewhere). I left only a brief note, lest it too be axed.

Though more remains to be said, and has been in PMs, I cannot discuss the edit issue any further: I cannot depend on even this paragraph remaining intact! The site mentioned in the Good post has a gbu sub-directory where the original articles remain. I’m outta here!

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:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: Oh the irony! :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

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Thanks for the feedback, gbu_swap! Don’t worry! I had a very nice Saturday afternoon!

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Rub it in! I was teaching. Oh, actually it was pretty fun :slight_smile:

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[quote=“Tempo Gain”]Rub it in! I was teaching.[/quote]Oh, sorry. Ummm… OK, it was a horrible afternoon really! I was forced to drink beer, eat delicious home-cooked beef and tomato pasta, and chat about life, the universe, and everything! I’m still recovering! :laughing:

There was actually quite an interesting bit in the second of the OP’s posts, about two-fifths of the way down:[quote=“gbu_swap”]Most/all schools want you to do a demo. Some get you to do it in front of staff members acting as students. Most want it in front of real students. The latter is illegal unless if they do the following:

  1. the principal has to be present;
  2. your CV has to be on the table in front of the principal;
  3. most importantly, there has to be a notice on the classroom door stating the date and time of the demo, and how many teachers will be demoing.

The length of the demo is immaterial to the CLA, and even payment. (Yes, I, too, was surprised by the latter but this is what the CLA told me.)[/quote]Anyone heard of anything like that? A legal way to do demos? To me, it sounds a bit like some guy at the CLA made this “rule” up. I don’t think it’s safe to assume that other CLA folk or other officials would recognize it. But I might be wrong. What do people think?