Job Discussion Forums

[Jerry]

Hello from Birmingham, England.
I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice about finding a job at a university in Taiwan.
1) How does one find out about vacancies or people to contact?
2) Is it possible to get a job at a uni with just a MA in TEFL/TESL?
3) When should I start looking for a job if I want to start teaching in Sept.?

Any advice posted on this site will be greatly appreciated or feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]

Cheers

[surrealia]

This page will connect you with Taiwan's universities and colleges, although most of the websites will be in Chinese:

http://edir.yam.com/edu/sols/uscs/univ/

This page has plenty of job links for Taiwan (scroll down):

http://www.geocities.com/allhou/teachlinks.htm

However, most of the jobs are for kindergartens and language schools.

I can recommend two sites for information about teaching at Taiwanese universities:

http://scottsommers.blogs.com

and

http://users2.ev1.net/~turton/teach_index.html

The first of those two links occasionally has some job ads.

Another suggestion: you might ask a Taiwanese student in your area if he/she would be willing to help you send out some C.V.s by e-mail and snail mail.

This is a good time to start looking for teaching jobs at universities. And, you can get a full-time university job with an M.A.

[daily chai]

April is university recruiting time. Good luck!

[Aristotle]

Be advised there is a two month waiting period between the time you start teaching at a national university and your first pay check. If there are any problems getting your work visa it is not likely you will be paid for those first two months.
You will also have a very difficult time filing a suit with the courts or any other government agency because you employer is the R.O.C. government and you were working illegally.
Perhaps Mr. Scott Sommers would be willing to reimburse you for your lost wages.

[ScottSommers]

If Aristotle's advice weren't so dangerous, I'd ignore it for the garbage that it is. My suggestion is to ignore everything that he has to say about university and college employment in Taiwan. He has never worked at a university or colege, nor does he seem to have any reliable information about such employment. Frequently, his comments are simply wrong.

National university contracts start in August. At my school, we get paid around the 20th, depending on weekends. This means that you get paid on August 20th even though there are no classes. In fact, classes began on Sep 15 last year, and we got paid around the 20th that month as well.

The first year of employment, I was paid for both August and September on September 20th. Bear in mind that we had no classes until Sept 15 and it would have been possible to be working another job or be on vacation until that time.

[surrealia]

In some cases, Aristotle is right. I personally know several teachers who did have to wait 2 or 3 months for their pay, because the university administration couldn't get things done on time. Ming Chuan University sounds like they have their act together, however that's not the case at EVERY university.

There's a lively discussion about this topic at English School Watch English School Watch:

http://www.englishschoolwatch.org/webboard_detail.php?topic_id=397

[ScottSommers]

Let me quote from the Website you refer to
"I know of several places that do this regularly to
their new teachers (can�t name names, but I know
of 2 in Tainan county, 1 in Taichung city and 1 in
Chiayi county)."

The reply to this posting states
"...if your assigned classes are starting up soon and
there is no visa on the horizon (Taiwan�s Universities
are notoriously poorly managed, so this often arises),
they will just pass you over and leave you in your
country of residence, especially if they can get someone
who will come over flush with cash and start teaching
illegally."

More anonymous sources making 'Star Chamber' accusations against the Taiwan university system. For all I know, all of this is Aristotle talking to himself on English School Watch.

I once asked your man to give me a name. Any name. Just give me a name, so I can put on my Website and warn others to stay away. I want to know where the bad places are. You tell me, even anonymously, and if I find any reason to believe what you say, I will put this on my Website. I will make sure that as much as I can make it so, no one will ever work at a bad university employer.

[brian]

Scott has stated before that not every university is good. His posts are based upon his personal experiences and call into question the overgeneralization that often occurs by people who have had a bad experience. I agree with Scott. If someone has had a bad experience then please post about this and let us all know who to avoid.

Talking about friends of friends or 'I've heard...', isn't really useful stuff. Either post something containing some factual information, or admit that what you say is just a guesstimate.

Scott, did Aristotle ever provide you with a list of universities that he 'had reports' about? I recall suggesting that he do this to back up his assertion that they were such terrible places to work.

[ScottSommers]

Of course not.

[Aristotle]

That's because we don't trust anyone who would openly advocate working in Taiwan's universities under the current employment scheme. You have to be naive or well paid.

[daily chai]

Getting back to the original post, you will need a master's degree and a minimum of 2 years of documented full time English teaching--tutoring or private students does not count. This is as per the MoE's rules. Check their websites, or have a Chinese literate friend do so for the exact regulations.

[brian]

[Taylor]

ALL I WANT TO SAY IS THIS:

You will not be teaching "adults" in a normal university class. They are still kids who are mostly concerned about cell phones, movie stars, dates, shopping, etc. I am not blaming them in any way. I just want to clarify that they are not mature adults.

Teaching college kids is just that--teaching overgrown kids, for the most part. Don't expect to use the "Socratic" style of having students discuss their opinions on important issues.

If anyone can defend the college students of Taiwan as dedicated, hard-working learners, I WILL CERTAINLY ACCEPT YOUR POINTS.

[ScottSommers]

I'm not going to defend Taiwanese students as "dedicated, hard-working learners", nor do I think they are much different than you will find in North America. I posted quite a long passage addressing this point on
www.blinger.org
If you're interested in an alternative opinion, check out
http://blinger.org/archives/000413critical_thinking_in_nonwestern_leaners.php#comments

[daily chai]

Taylor and Scott, I've had a great experience with getting my undergrad students to hold discussions on the internet learning/course management system. They normally post 4-5 days ahead of the deadline, and they reply like mad to one another.
I've also had good results from going with forums. I found a few decent English-language interest forums where my students write in. They have to give me their member name by the second class, to ascertain as much as possible they are making the posts. I ask them to spell/grammar check on a word processor before posting, but otherwise I don't count off. This is to encourage the students themselves to make the posts, not their English major buddies. My grad students are phenomenal, and my English major students are also keen to discuss issues. Perhaps you can assign homework for students to think of 2 topics they would like to discuss... some will name cell phones, but others will name more cerebral stuff. HTH!