Job Discussion Forums

[xpatmatt]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Matt Gibson. I'm a journalist working on an article about teaching agents in different countries around Asia.

In Taiwan (where I live) agents traditionally have had a bad reputation for being untrustworthy, greedy, dishonest, etc. However, it seems that this has been changing in recent years.

Since I have little experience with agents, I am looking for teachers' opinions about agents so that I can find out what the general attitude towards them is in different countries.

I'd like to know:

1) Do you feel that most agents are honest?

2) Do you feel that agents work in the best interest of teachers?

3) Do you feel that agents contribute to lower overall teaching wages by trying to convince teachers to accept less pay (so that they can make more money)?

Also, I'd really like to hear about anyone's personal experiences with agents, or anything else that anyone has to say on the topic. My article will be based mainly on the opinions of the teachers who respond to my post.

If you would like your opinion included in the article (although I can't guarantee it will be) please include the following information about yourself:
Name (just a first name is OK)
Home country
Country you teach in.
This is just so that I can attribute quotes to people, for example, Beth, a British English teacher living in Japan said, ....

If you would like to contact me privately about this, I can be reached at ‪xpatmatt[@]gmail.com‬.

Thanks very much for reading!

Best,
Matt

[mat chen]

Hi Matt,
We have the same surname but spelled different. I was in Taiwan many years ago. Before you negotiated directly with people and your
voyage to Taiwan was paid up front. Today it is diferent there. Once you are in the country you can work anywhere. In China you are binded to the people who you contracted to work for.
Getting the visa then and today is difficult. Medicals and drug test and your degree must be certified by a lawyer who must present it to the Taiwan business association in your country.
Basically the recruiter is a faceless person you never meet. This might be a reflection of today's world. I think most recruiters want to help you but they are caught up in the economics. It is like putting on your seatbelt in a car. If the police don't enforce the code nobody bothers to do it. So it is the same in the language teaching business. We are small potatoes in the economy so there are no people to look after our interest.
What I understand about Taiwan after working for an old Taiwanese employr here in China is that most teachers work for 5 or six different places. This is impossible in China.

[AnomanderRake]

[dog backwards]

My experience is that many (if not most) agents (aka recruiters) just aren't familiar with the schools in which they place their clients.

All agents work in their own interest first, then in the interest of the teacher. I've been lucky. My first agent admitted that she wasn't familiar with the school in which she placed me. The school turned out to be okay.

Another placement (with a different recruiter) was a mixed bag: cr@ppy accommodations, less-than desirable FT colleagues (THE WORST IMAGINABLE), an unscrupulous FAO, but an otherwise excellent school with excellent students, and an excellent and caring dean of the foreign languages department who saw what was happening but could do nothing to change things. (She quit after I left). If it weren't for the students and the dean, I'd have considered the job a waste of time.

My present employer (a public college) was recommended to me by a recruiter who knew about the school. At first, I declined the assignment, but she told me that she had heard that the accommodations were excellent and the the FAO was well-liked. I took the job on her word, and she was right.

There's one factor that prospective teachers should research: the city itself. Some of the smaller cities are quite nice: the locals are friendly and tolerant.

Others just don't like the roundeyes, and one must be careful about making certain purchases.

Some cities just don't have enough going for them to make them worth living in for an extended period of time.

Some recommend that the prospective teacher talk to FTs that are currently employed at the school. That can be good and bad. I talked to one FT at the college from hell, only to find out later that I had been lied to about accommodations, the FAO, and a few other things.

Asking about particular schools in forums is a good start. Google the school's name. Do as much of your own legwork as possible to ascertain that what is offered is representative of the actual conditions. This is especially true if you are not in-country and cannot check out the school in person.