The newbie thread

Went to the interview and got told the exact same thing that I’ve been told 3 times now. “We only have part time positions available so we can’t get you an ARC”. I just don’t get it, how in the hell did everyone else get a legal job and a work visa?

The market is very tough at the moment. The supply of teachers is too high, and demand in terms of number of students is falling.

As for how everyone else got a legal job; some sorted out a position with a chain school before they came to Taiwan, while others did what you are doing and walked into schools chancing their arm. It was easier to chance your arm in the past. I was out of Taiwan for a year and came back in May. I knew that it was tough to find work so I made sure that I arrived in time for the summer recruitment window. It still took me until the end of July to secure a full time job which started at the end of August. You are looking for employment at a much worse time of the year.

I can’t give you any advice other than to keep on banging away, walking into schools. Eventually you’ll walk into a school just when some flakey western teacher has gone back home and you’ll land a position.

The market is very tough at the moment. The supply of teachers is too high, and demand in terms of number of students is falling.

As for how everyone else got a legal job; some sorted out a position with a chain school before they came to Taiwan, while others did what you are doing and walked into schools chancing their arm. It was easier to chance your arm in the past. I was out of Taiwan for a year and came back in May. I knew that it was tough to find work so I made sure that I arrived in time for the summer recruitment window. It still took me until the end of July to secure a full time job which started at the end of August. You are looking for employment at a much worse time of the year.

I can’t give you any advice other than to keep on banging away, walking into schools. Eventually you’ll walk into a school just when some flakey western teacher has gone back home and you’ll land a position.[/quote]

But if that’s true then I wouldn’t have had 2 interviews in the space of a week. I don’t buy that the supply of teachers is high, there are far fewer foreigners here than there were in Shanghai. I think the problem here is that schools are tax dodging and trying to persaude me to work illegally. The problem I’m having isn’t lack of job offers, it’s a lack of schools who seem to be willing to play by the rules and actually register me as an employee simply because they don’t want to pay their taxes.

That might be the case. However, it seems more probable that the schools simply don’t have enough students to cover a full time western teacher and from a business point of view can only employ part timers. I doubt that it’s down to schools trying to avoid paying tax.

yes, the market is tough. However, there is still a demand for qualified teachers. At least at my school anyway. There are alot of teachers out there who aren’t qualified, saturating the market. If you are serious about teaching EFL, get qualified, and your prospects will improve.

I am qualified, I have a TEFL certificate. Not only that, I also have Chinese language qualifications.

They told me that up front. They said they’d only pay me with cash, I won’t be put on their books as an employee, there would be no record of me at all. That way I don’t have to pay any taxes.

Ninmen how did you get a TEFL cert without ever teaching before?

Apologies. Then you shouldn’t have too may probs then. If all else fails, relocate to Taipei.

I have 15 years of teaching experience. I founded and co-managed a corporate training firm in the States and Japan. I have graduate degrees in ufology ($80) and humanistic arts ($140 and free DHL). There are other degrees, I think, and they cost a lot but its imaginary money from a student loan I don’t pay. Also, I published white papers on blogspot. Someday, I am going to get a law degree in something. Probably law.

TEFL runs courses ranging from around 20 hours to 150 hours, it all involves having to do some amount of teaching, but it always involves teaching a fake class (i.e. your fellow TEFL students), after you’re done if you pass then they will give you a certificate and you can go to Asia to teach English. I’m a good teacher, I’m very good at explaining things, just not very confident that I can make my classes stimulating and exciting. My problem is I’ve spent too much time in university and an academic environment where the learning is done in a very sort of rote, memorisation manner, it’s not really the way one should teach a language, but it’s how I like to learn.

Apologies. Then you shouldn’t have too may probs then. If all else fails, relocate to Taipei.[/quote]

Yeah if I’m 100% honest the reason I’m in Taizhong right now is because of a girl. She’s actually planning on moving to Taipei next September (so I’d be going then too), as I said the problem I’m having isn’t job offers (I’ve had two in the last 8 days), it’s getting good job offers, i.e. job + work permit + ARC = 100% legal job. I have no interest in teaching young children, not only that it’s also illegal for foreigners to teach children of a certain age anyway. But from what I’ve seen there are plenty of schools that teach people of high school - university age and older, it just seems that most of them are tax dodging, are quite happy to employ me but don’t want to get me a work permit.

As has been mentioned, it just takes time, which may involve a visa run. To be honest, adult teaching bushibans are few and far between. There are IELTS/business English/uni opps out there. Just search tealit and i’m sure you’ll find a school that’s prepared to offer you an ARC etc. Good luck mate.

Yeah, I refuse to give up, it’s not even been 2 weeks yet. I’ve got other opportunities lined up already, and I’m going to go back into some of the schools I went to before to ask them how my application is going.

Good news, managed to score a part time job at the local Uni. The guy also asked me to teach Maths in English, which would be much easier for me than teaching English. Don’t need to worry about teaching illegally because he while the Uni probably won’t get me an ARC for part time work he would have me registered as a student there learning Chinese, which works out well for me because the whole purpose of coming here was to learn Chinese. It also means I can continue to look for other jobs while I work/study. So hopefully this works out, but the guy was very positive in my interview. He also did say he would ask the Uni about an ARC, but probably not, but he would get me registered as a student and give me a discount if that didn’t work out.

On the same topic (in case people are still willing to chat) - I’m also a total newbie, the fresh off the boat kind (hi people!). I just arrived to Taipei, hoping to find a teaching job. It seems that things are very slow here in terms of hiring new teachers; very few ads on tealit and such. Are things really that bad? Does it make sense to just go to schools, hiring or not and push my resume? I have very little teaching experience and wouldn’t really want to work illegally.

So what’s the best time to be looking for a teaching job for the next semester, Spring 2011? I guess it starts about a week after Chinese New Years (03 Feb this year).

I’ve also been actively looking for work for the past 3 weeks and no luck. I have experience working with young kids, but every time I show up or call and they ask if I specifically have teaching experience and I say no they just say “we’ll look at your resume” and never call back.

It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. Everyone says there’s either too many teachers or it’s really slow. Some agencies told me jobs are declining because there’s not enough kids for the kindys and such (which created a lot of jobs, albeit illegal) and there are also more people coming and not as many people giving up contracts and going home (because I for one know the economy in the States is terrible right now).

Hang in there guys/gals. Keep looking, something could likely turn up.

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