Job Discussion Forums

[Ronnie]

I would rather teach adults than kids. It seems like China, Taiwan, etc. all would want a beginner ESL teacher to teach kids, very young usually (like 7 years old from what I've read). That doesn't really seem like my cup of tea. I'm about to graduate with a Business degree and would rather teach adults or young adults.

Are there any Asian countries where I'm more likely to teach adults? or maybe I'm just better off in south america or something

[Tainan]

Hi,

What you say is definitely true, sadly, of Taiwan, which would have been a paradise for me otherwise. Whether Taiwanese adults all speak all the English they want already, or what the reason is, I don't know, but the degree to which small children dominate the teaching field is so great that when I told someone I was teaching the typical response involved something about "the kids", even though I hadn't said anything about who my students were at all--as if it wasn't even conceivable that one could teach anyone else.

Once--here on Dave's or on another forum, I forget--someone who actually was teaching adults said that his students often asked him about his personal life and, being gay, he was wondering how honest he could be in response. One of the first replies he got was from someone who expressed outrage over why someone would discuss sexuality with small children. Of course, people responding to a post without really reading it are not new, but it seemed emblematic to me of the degree to which teaching, in Taiwan, is assumed by almost everyone to mean teaching small children.

Having said all this, there are jobs teaching adults, and I found some of them. The problem I had in Taipei was that these schools were offering me a few hours a week without a legal visa, so had I stayed I would definitely have had either to leave Taipei or to teach some classes with children while slowly (I would hope) picking up the kinds of classes I preferred along the way.

As for China, whether what you say is true depends on your definition of kids. There are lots of university jobs, and also lots of jobs teaching middle school students. When I was in China I taught at a university, teaching both undergraduates and graduate students, and I had three kinds of part-time jobs on the side: groups of small children who came to my home with their parents, junior high students whom I taught in their schools, and, jobs in institutes where the students were mostly adults.

I also think that for me and, probably, for you as well, satisfaction comes more from what we teach than from whom we teach. That is, I would more greatly enjoy teaching literature to advanced high school students than teaching simple grammar to adult beginners.

Twelve years have passed since I was in Korea, but there I seem to remember lots of businessmen wanting English lessons. It is true that these lessons are not so stable as those that involve children (businessmen invariably end up being too busy) but they definitely exist.

Hope this helps!