Job Discussion Forums

[ESL Hobo]

Hi All,

When I came to Taiwan 7 years ago jobs were easy to come by.
My first year went really well until the very last few weeks when out of nowhere I was accused of being a witch, LOL. I stuck it out and finished my contract.

The second year things went very well until the last month and a half, when I got into a car accident in a taxi and was unble to complete my contract. I took off for a year and went back to my home country.

Next I came back and it took me a year and a half to land a job. Everything went well for 8 months until somehow the students decided
that I was Gay and taunted me relentlessly for weeks on end, I decided it wasn't worth it and just quit the job outright. Besides the school had been late on paying me twice and managment was deplorable.

I went to work in another country for a year then came back and havent been able to get a job anywhere for over a year.

I am a resident of TW and consider it to be my home base but I am finding it impossible to find employment. I am 50 years old now and I am beginning to wonder if it's my age or have I been blacklisted?

Any opinions

[BigWally]

ageism does exist in Taiwan, so I wouldn't be surprised if thats the case....although, there are a few "mature" teachers on Dave's who have regular work, so I'll leave some recommendations to them....

good luck

[ESL Hobo]

Thanks BigWally

It could also be the missing spots in my CV.
Perhaps they want someone with a straight through record.
But even in my non "school" related teaching experience I have been doing Privates, which I put in the resume, but perhaps that doesnt count for them.

Also perhaps there a lot more people applying for positions now and employers are choosing younger people who are easier to mold into the image a particular school wants to represent to the parents or clients.

I have heard that blacklists were officially banned by the government in the late 90's, but I wouldn't doubt for a second that this only forced them underground.

Again Thanks for the feedback

[pinkflyd7]

I've been back in the USA now for the last 5 months but I still get email all the time about jobs in Taiwan. I think there is still a big demand for teachers.

Ageism definitely exists. I was pretty friendly with the boss at Kojen, and I remember he passed on a teacher who had great credentials but was in his late 50's. He told me that he didn't think students would be able to relate to him the way they do with younger teachers.

I gave up teaching in Taiwan at 37 years old. I was the oldest teacher at the Kojen branch that I worked for, although there was one guy who was 36 who looked a lot older than I did (probably because he was bald). I definitely started to get the feeling that I couldn't keep doing this much longer.

[MomCat]

I'm just one of several teachers over 50 who are teaching in Hsinchu. Although I can't think of one right off that's teaching in a cram school. The gigs seem to be adults, privates, unis and international schools.

[markholmes]

When I worked at Kojen lots of teachers were 30 plus, including me. There was peopl in their fifties too. It didn't seem to be a problem in 2003 (don't know about now however). It did seem that most of the older men did mostly adult classes thoug and some did onsite teaching at offices, etc

[ESL Hobo]

Thanks for your posts.
I wouldn't mind teaching adults, but uni's and International schools are out because I dont have a Masters, some adult cram schools dont pay very well, some as low as 400nt per hour(after paying for gas and parking its just not woth it).
I was doing OK with privates for a while but they just arent very stable.

When I went to kindergarten(many years ago) we had the best teacher ever, her name was Mrs. Jenkins, she was 65 years old and retirering the year after our class finished. SHe was simply magnificent.