Job Discussion Forums

[forest1979]

If you are serious about writing top class papers on Taiwan then there's very few institutions in Taiwan that can hand-on-heart say they have the library resources to allow for international quality researching. If your wanting then to write in the field of Area Studies and Chinese History then places like Standford University are the place to be at, with Taida and Academica Sinica being good local options. Hong Kong too is known to have excellent library facilities on these fields. However how many overseas academics work full-time at Academica Sinica? How many people can get their hands on the works held in the library stacks at Tai Da? Very few. Moreover I competely reject the notion that localism is the key to effective and in-depth research becuase, as I have said before, Taiwan has such a small-sized research culture. Most universities in Taiwan have pathetically poor libraries, so being in New York, or San Francisco, or Seattle or Vancouver, would by no means be an hindrance to good research writing. Plus overseas institutions have far more money available to buy books, obtain research collections, etc. Since when did local private uni in Taipei think along such lines? When did former rural high scholl recently promoted to uni status have such a policy?

[forest1979]

I also want to add some comments to BJs earlier post.

It's not just about pressure on MA holders to get promotion (hence unis now have their own PhD programmes which they encourage their staff to register for). It's about Assistant Profs also getting promotion now, and those crusty old Profs who got an Associate position years and years ago because they got a PhD when Taiwan had a shortage of PhD holders, to move onto the next level. This is why academia in Taiwan at both the staff room and admin office is so obsessed with the SSCI index. Funnily though, in areas like TEFL there are no representative journals! Pity no one sat down and worked that one out before all the hullaballoo over the SSCI started.

[mandalayroad]

If your research interest is Taiwanese politics then being in Taiwan will give you greater access to all the key information and players better than even being at Stanford. If your research interest is the anthropology of Taiwan native peoples, then being in Taiwan and able to go down every weekend to study them up close and personal is better than being at Stanford. One can always make a yearly trip to the necessary library stacks in the States if one needs materials there. There are plenty of examples where being local will make one a better researcher and scholar.

[forest1979]

Can you please provide examples with regards to local library stacks?

Plus, if Taiwan is such an academic hotspot than why has more than 95% of Taiwanese academics who have PhDs in fields such as Anthropology, Sociology, Politics, History, etc., got them from non-Taiwanese universities even if their field studies have been based in Ilan, Hualian, etc?

[Miyazaki]

I disagree with the comments above stating that a Ph.D is now required to get a university teaching position in Taiwan.

There are many openings for foreign M.A. holders at Taiwanese university Language Centers / English Departments and there will continue to be many openings for foreign M.A. holders.

The whole process involved with hiring a foreign instructor at a Taiwanese university is so complicated and time consuming that many language centers and English departments are hurting for teachers and can't hire them when they need them. They are understaffed in many cases and don't have enough teachers to cover all the classes.

In fact, nearly all or most of the foreign EFL instructors teaching English at Taiwanese universities only hold Master's degrees. Very few have doctorates.

For example, nearly all of the foreign EFL teachers at schools like Ming Chuan University, Soochow University, Tam Kang University, Chinese Culture University, Fu Jen Catholic University, Shih Chien University, have Master's degrees.

Not only do many of them hold Master's degrees, but many of them hold Master's degrees in non relevant disciplines not related to SLA, Applied Linguistics, TESOL or Education.

The same goes for most of the Ph.D. holders teaching English in Taiwanese universities - many of them hold doctorates in non-related academic areas like Economics, Buinsess, and Law, etc.

Take Ming Chuan University, for example. They have what, 25 - 30 foreign EFL instructors? Only 3 or 4 have PhD degrees, the rest have Master's degrees.

Visit any of the wesbsites for these schools and check out the faculty pages for the English Departments - most foreign instructors only hold Master's degrees.

Ph.D TEFL'ers are not banging on the door of Taiwanese universities, that's for sure. They're off to more lucrative desitnations like Korea, Japan and the M.E. Taiwanese universitiy salaries, comparably speaking, are a joke. Even with the higher costs of living in places like Seoul, Tokyo and Osaka, the university salaries are a lot higher than anywhere at schools in Tawain.

Japanese University salaries range from $45,000 - $80,000 U.S. a year or more, while Taiwanese university salaries for an "Instructor" are at about $20,000 U.S. a year (NT $50,000 x 12 = NT $600,000 a year or $19,800)!

Regarding university librairies in Taiwan, the NTU main library is world class and the NTNU library is quite good also. There are also the TESOL/Applied Lingistics Resource library at NTNU and the Audio Visual Center at NTU that have plenty of TESOL journals and materials. The being said, I suppose once you get outside of Taipei things are a lot different.

[forest1979]

Miyazaki - a reply to some of your points:

"In fact, nearly all or most of the foreign EFL instructors teaching English at Taiwanese universities only hold Master's degrees. Very few have doctorates.

For example, nearly all of the foreign EFL teachers at schools like Ming Chuan University, Soochow University, Tam Kang University, Chinese Culture University, Fu Jen Catholic University, Shih Chien University, have Master's degrees."

When did these people get recruited? Many have been there 10+ years. The point about PhD holders for uni jobs is now, not 10 years back when a MA was sufficient. Some at MCU were recruited when it was a girls college!


"Take Ming Chuan University, for example. They have what, 25 - 30 foreign EFL instructors? Only 3 or 4 have PhD degrees, the rest have Master's degrees. "

I know some MCU staff and their job in the ELC is a major bone of contention with the Taiwanese in the other departments who wish to employ MA holders but cant as the ELC is so full of MAs. Consequently MCU has tried to push its staff into PhD programmes in Taiwan. Also MCU has recruited locals with MAs not as faculty but as staff. They get paid less and have lots of admin to do aside from 14 hours of lab classes per week.

Incidentally MCU's ELC has 50+ English teachers, most of whom are from North America. You're spot on about so few of them having PhDs. Also you've nailed it too about them being MA holders in fields outside of TEFL. However in the past few years MCU has been forced by the powers that be to recruite a few MAs with Education/language backgrounds as replacements for outgoing staff, and now they can only replace staff with PhD holders (in Education, etc. - in reality this means in any field, e.g. they have a botanist teaching remedial english!). Part of the reason for this PhD push is that MCU is trying to get its degrees accredited with a US examining board.

Final point, ELC...English Language Centers. These are technically not departments. So they are administered under different internal rules in the uni from the departments per se. To be blunt, they are of the same ranking as the print shop! In other words ELCs can be closed down quickly if need be. Staff can be got rid of if need be. It's a very precarious situation and must of this tension is evident at MCU. MCU's staff too teach remedial english, by and large. At places like Soochow and elsewhere it's not only general english classes but literature and drama that gets instructed. MCU's ELC size might be one thing but its bottom of the barrel language teaching to large classes of uninterested students (using ELC designed books which the teachers dont like).

[surrealia]

Miyazaki said:

[mandalayroad]

People still get their PhD at western universities primarily because it's a prestige and club thing as this is much of what academia is about. This will change over time as these PhDs return and develop better programs in their home countries. A Stanford PhD student studying Taiwanese politics still has to spend a lot of time in Taiwan doing his/her PhD for research and language study. It will make more sense in the future to do that work at NTU instead of Stanford at some point. It certainly makes more sense at NTU than at the University of Maine or somesuch. If salaries increase, I'd wager you'd find quite a few US professors making the jump to other countries that are closer to their field of area studies research.

[forest1979]

Stanford University - top 10 uni in the world. Tai da, Taiwan's top institution - outside top 100. That's one of the reasons why people do PhDs at Stanford.


"If salaries increase, I'd wager you'd find quite a few US professors making the jump to other countries that are closer to their field of area studies research."

A few? Quite possibly. Any more, an influx of more than a few? Very unlikely. Salaries in Taiwan will have to increase a great deal to attract numbers of international standard academics to Taiwan. With an Assistant Prof salary at something like US$25,000 a year basic in Taiwan it would have to double to seriously attract academics to Taiwan. As for Full Professors, they get what, less than US$40,000 a year in Taiwan. That's hell of a lot less than a Chair Prof overseas. The only way more, and I mean US scholars will come to Taiwan, is if the US unis persist with the trend to only employ staff on short-term contracts. With that instability in mind the more settled system in Taiwan will have its advantages.

[forest1979]

Miyazaki said: "There are many openings for foreign M.A. holders at Taiwanese university Language Centers / English Departments and there will continue to be many openings for foreign M.A. holders."


Surrealia said: "I agree completely."


This flies completely in the face of the MoE trend with regards to university recruitment. As BJ said in the previous post, it's a numbers game. The only way around it is to be employed as a staff member not an instructor, and that means more teaching hours, more admin, for less pay.

[BJ]

Example of PhD influx. my department alone in the last 3 years we have had 2 returning completed Phds, 2 finishing dissertations, 3 on their 2nd year in Britain or the States. 1 on their 1st year. 2 going next year. that is 60 percent of the department. The push to PhD is crazy to say the least. the pressure is on for Native Chinese to get Phds MAs are no longer the vogue.
Many places literally will not hire non PhD teachers. The pl;aces that are now available for MA's are as Forest points out staff for language centres not on normal contracts with horrendous attendance hours.
I know many foreigners with MA's teaching here but they are basically "grandfather" rights teachers. Or staff ones in language centres.

[forest1979]

BJ - Your department's situation is not unique. There is one very large ELC in Taiwan that is under strict instructions from the President of the uni to not employ anyone now without a PhD.

[BJ]

Agreed Forest, I have heard many reports of the same, personnel departments ordered only to employ PHds to ensure their percentages are over 50 per cent Phd. Some places have a policy of only Phd holders full stop. A crasy situation to be sure.

[forest1979]

The strange thing is that most of these departments dont actually want PhD holders, and much prefer MAs who are prepared to teach to the hilt given shortages of teachers. It's now the norm in many departments for staff to complusory teach above their contract hours. I know many teachers (MAs and PhDs) who are teaching 3 hours above their contract due to staffing problems.

[highbury]

Forest and BJ,

Are you two based in Taiwan now?