It’s noticeable how flat the EFL environment is in Taiwan. Take the Tealit job board, which I just browsed. Of the 30 openings on the first page, 26 of the employers constantly advertise. TLI, VIS, Kang Chiao and Tree House Academy are just a few names I never stop seeing on that board. I’ve contacted several of these employers over the years–invariably dysfunctional communication or no communication their side–and even had a ridiculous interview with one of them and I now know why that one is always fishing for labour. I had another interview that appeared to go well and then I never heard from them again. Fine, but why keep advertising?
Perhaps they’re also experiencing
from their candidates…
I see what you did there
Probably hard to keep their revolving doors staffed with the kind of people they want, while maintaining the ability to do whatever they want
Got to keep the workers in a constant state of fear.
Add more work until the teacher is getting an average of 200 nt an hour or they quit and are replaced with the guy that did an interview for a position that didnt exist at the time of the interview.
One of them is the place I work at. The hours, pay, and raises are wrong. Just lol…
But Taiwan starting paying is $650 an hour /s
Glad more people are talking about the actual pay now
That’s it I think. They don’t have any jobs to offer just want to keep their options open. So the job candidate is just a sort of ‘option.’ You get the impression that there is someone in each of these schools who gets a kick out of holding some kind of imaginary power. Really not cool…I also understand that when you say NT$200 per hour you are factoring in office hours. That’s why all ‘full-time’ jobs here are a bad deal. All of the 26 employers previously mentioned are looking for ‘full-time’ employees. Or not.
Even with part time you’ll still need two jobs or a significant other.
I exaggerated about 200 an hour. However, everyone should work out for themselves their actual pay per hour. Sometimes 700 an hour at one place is better than 800 at another and that 1000 an hour job is not worth it when you spend 2 hours checking homework for a 2 hour class.
Most of those schools (well, most private schools in Taiwan, tbh, since none of them have to follow labor laws) make sure their foreign teacher salary ends up averaging 200NT/hr. Contracted hours are from the moment the students arrive in the morning to when they’re supposed to be picked up, only parents have no problem showing up three hours late to get their kids. And you’re expected to be in the classroom and ready to go when they get there in the morning! Prep on your own time, as that’s “an inherent expected part of your job”! Parents have to work during the week, so you need to attend meetings with them on the weekends! Etc.
The schools in the initial post are all 60-100k/month pay schools, but if you’re at the school working 10 hrs/day and have to attend dumb shit on the weekends, you’re better off at any random cram school for 600/hr. Also, if you’re actually qualified to teach, the FET program (@22 classes max/week if teaching elementary, less in jr and sr high since their classes are longer) has had inflation-adjusted pay raises twice in the past three years. The same cannot be said for private schools, which are offering the same salaries that were considered garbage a decade ago while raising tuition and fees on their students each and every year.
Common sense tells me that one should avoid private schools at all costs, but schools that are constantly “hiring” should be avoided both as perspective teachers and as perspective families looking for where to send their child for an education…
Do English teachers need to know math now too?
From what I understand, as long as they’ll accept low enough pay, they don’t even have to know English
Not the ones who work 168 hours a week and sleep when they blink. Anyone else is just lazy.
Thank God for that! Financial planning is over the line
I didn’t.
80k/mo = 20k/week.
At 40 hours/week, that’s already dragged your hourly rate to 500/hr.
But many private schools expect teachers to be in some sort of supervisory role for the whole 9 hours they’re there (breaks are not legally required for private schools remember), so that’s already a 45 hr/week gig without any legal requirement for overtime.
So now you’re at a nice for Chinese speakers 444/hr.
Except you were supervising or teaching the brats the whole 9 hours you were at work, so you haven’t graded a single assignment yet, haven’t contacted a single admin or parent yet, haven’t sat in a single useless meeting yet, and have yet to plan any lessons or prep any materials. So 200/hr is probably being quite generous at that point.
That’s very true.
Unfortunately, that’s very true. Last year I worked at a cram school for a miserable 630 an hour. However, I did not a stroke of work outside my hours and was home early most days, never started before 9.00AM and had a proper lunch break. It was not great but tolerable. I don’t know about all those schools that constantly advertise on Tealit. Some of those jobs might be okay. But if they’re asking you to be at work by 8.00AM that’s an automtaic red flag to me. Forget it right there. And it’s not because I can’t get up in the morning–it’s 06.21 right now–but I just don’t want to start my day job at that time, and do lots of onerous extra work including supervision.
site doesn’t even work for me. odd
Same here. It’s often down in the morning for some reason. No need to look at it though really, Lol.
Yeah Tealit is really dead. Those companies likely have a massive turn over , so they just constantly need a stock of teachers to draw from. Similar to what recruitment agents do.
I would suggest people turn to Facebook where there is more accountability. And yes OP they can even interview you and ask for a demo when there isn’t even an opening.
One way is to ask for payment if you are required to demo if they refuse then they’re not very serious.