Where can I find public school and public university positions?

Hi,
I am Canadian. I am looking to teach at a public university or public high school. I prefer to teach adults instead of high school students. I never taught ESL before. I have a 120 hour TEFL certificate. I do not have TEFL experience. I have experience teaching math to high school students and university students. Where can I find ESL/EFL/EAL positions at public university or public high school in Taiwan? Thank you for your help.

1 Like

I think government issued teaching certification is needed for those positions. Do you have them?

1 Like

Do you have any good reason for thinking that?

Yes. I do.

Not every school is public, and not every position is English teaching, and in Mandarin, but a list of recruitments at universities is here.

https://tjn.moe.edu.tw/jobshow.php

The same but for high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. High school is 鍘中.
http://tsn.moe.edu.tw/index/JobTShow.aspx

2 Likes

Just curious, but why not a private uni or private school?

1 Like

I was checking this one, though not where I got my current job
https://www.most.gov.tw/folksonomy/list/ccc231ac-724f-4297-9199-b2fbebe3c263?l=en

I understand the pay and conditions are both better!

1 Like

They’ve changed it slightly. The Ministry of Education is now hiring TWO types of teachers: FETs (Foreign English Teachers) and ETAs (English Teaching Assistants). An FET position requires a teaching license valid in your country of origin (and it must be a country where English is considered an official language by Taiwan), but an ETA position doesn’t.

As you might expect, the pay for ETAs is quite a bit lower.

Based on what the OP has said about himself, I think looking at private junior highs, high schools and universities would be a better idea.

If you don’t have any TESOL experience, you’re going to want a job that trains you, especially if you aren’t licensed (by which I mean qualified to teach in public schools in your home country because of university degree/sufficient training and internships. A TESOL certificate does squat in terms of preparing you for pretty much anything in the classroom in the beginning of your teaching career and a substitute teaching license only proves that you graduated from college and don’t have a criminal record).

Also, please familiarize yourself with the lingo, especially since your TESOL certification should have covered it: ESL is for people learning English in an English-speaking country. Taiwan is not an English-speaking country, so you would be teaching EFL. Any job posting for “ESL” teachers or schools with a page listing their “ESL teachers” should be avoided, as it’s an obvious reg flag the people running the school don’t know a thing about English language education.

Idk what to suggest other than starting in a cram school that will train you and then slowly building up a resume and, more importantly, experience. I’d be careful of the MOE ETA program, as I was an FET for years and there isn’t any training/regard for your needs as a teacher if you don’t know how to very directly demand it. I doubt ETAs will be trained any better, and pay for that is only NT45,000/mo. If it’s anything like the Fulbright ETA program, just avoid it all together, as you’ll be thrown into a classroom alone with zero support and drown. At least cram schools pay better, even if they often lack support too. But 2021-22 will be the first year for MOE’s ETA program, so you could be a guinea pig for everyone else. As said above, you can’t teach in the public schools for a reasonable salary (starting at 62k/mo) if you’re not licensed.

TESOL certs are pretty worthless from a hiring perspective (they may get you extra money, or occasionally if you enter a good in-class program you can achieve credits from it you can transfer to a Masters program), but I don’t agree that they’re worthless from a pedagogical perspective. Maybe I just had good instructors, but I think it strengthened my teaching abilities a lot. Perhaps more than my M.Ed, which was all about theory and research, but didn’t focus that much on practical classroom management.

3 Likes

OP has already addressed this:

I was looking at the original post, which didn’t mention teaching licenses, only TEFL

If you have a valid teaching license in anything at all and come from a country that is considered “English-speaking”, apply away!

Thank you Tando!

thanks

Thanks TT

1 Like

Thanks Nz. I have a substitute teaching license. I found out from your post is that my sub license is not valid. I am in the process of trying to get my full teaching license. However, I do not know when I will get it as it will depend on the issuing authority.

Do you know of good cram schools that is willing to train me? I prefer to teach adults over high school students. I am open to teaching high school students.

Thanks!

Hi Nz, where can I find cram schools that teach adults or high school kids?

MOE used to accept sub licenses for the FET program, but my impression was they started the ETA program so that there would be a clear distinction between experienced/trained teachers and those who would be something more Iike an intern or student teacher. You can try applying for FET with your sub license, they might accept it. Most go to elementary and junior high, but there are some in high schools. I will warn you though: the older the students, the less English they are able to communicate in. After about a week into 7th grade, the sole purpose of English class is to learn grammar using Chinese and memorize worthlessly uncommon words. It’s very difficult to engage high school students in interactive/fun English lessons because even the act of saying “hi, how are you?” at the start of class will get a collective (in Chinese) “this is so boring we learned that in first grade”. Even cooking or science experiments, which can peak their interest = local teacher insists on translating 100% of what you’ve said. I’m speaking only from my own experience in Taipei (jr high) and in the boonies (elementary and junior high with some high school/vocational high school clubs)(all public schools), but it seems to be a common theme.

I can’t speak for the quality or reputation of any school, as most schools are great on the surface for at least a few weeks before turning on you. The “honeymoon phase” ends quickly for most schools and you might discover that their sole focus is actually squeezing as much money out of parents and getting as much free labor out of teachers as possible. (The private school I teach at in Taipei, for example)

If you want to teach adults, I know British Council has adult classes. My understanding is that pay is very reasonable. I’m not sure about their training.

HESS seems like a jumping off point for a lot of FOBs, but they’re generally small children (kindy and elementary only, I think).

I think all private and international high schools will require a teaching license. I know Kangchiao (they have a few branches) lets non licensed teachers into the elementary section, but the high school has some international certification that requires teaching licenses. It’s possible other ones will accept you for your education level. Check out Facebook or tealit (maybe?) to see what jobs are posted

sublicense has been accepted as a license as far as its validity period is longer than 30 days and accepted all over the state. City or school specific license is not acceptable.

ETA is a position for people without any license but with a correct passport and any degree, just the same with eligibility for cram school teacher.

2 Likes

It’s still a bit up in the air right now with the new online registration, but this may change next year. I was talking to someone in another county yesterday and four of the teachers there might be losing their jobs. Two of them somehow got signed on without any teaching certificate, one has some kind of “lecturer’s certificate” issued in Taiwan that may be declared invalid, and another has a sub license.