Job Discussion Forums

[DHAPhotography]

and what is a reasonable wage? Yes, yes, yes...I know....do my research. I'm just looking for some up todate information. Also, if there are some large universities that I should be contacting, then any advice would be much appreciated.

[forest1979]

Generally unis hire through the summer but come August the vast majority of vacancies will already have been filled. However some places might be filled by people at the last moment saying they don't want to return to the island.

Wages are fixed and depends on whether you hold a PhD or not. Research is only of any use if it has been put into publishable form within journals listed on the SSCI. Are wages reasonable? An instructor earns the same as someone in a buxiban, but teaches less so has 'top-up' opportunities through part-time work. PhD salaries begin at something like NT$68,000. Not much!

There is though basically no one website where Taiwanese unis advert. When they do they tend to do it locally, occassionally it might be on the Chronicle of Higher Ed website but not for TEFL. Rather it will be for other subjects. Common advice is to contact unis yourself after checking their websites. However this is an arduous task. Taiwan has 100+ universities.

[romanworld]

[123Loto]

If money was your goal = PhD holders would do a lot better in the middle east - just researched a little in UAE and you could be getting 140+ a month, for 13 months in the year, with 3 paid months off, free flights each year, free accomodation... and did I mention the income is tax free?

Those are a lot of "frees."

Compared to 63k a month with a PhDin Taiwan? That's a travesty!

PhD positions in Taiwan are definitely not for the money! Other reasons would be (I'm guessing)... a wife, learning Chinese or taking your career in a specific direction?

[romanworld]

[Solar Strength]

Chinese Culture University doesn't require foreign teachers to publish and if you visit the Chinese Culture University English Department website, most of the English teachers only have Master's degrees.

Master's Degree - 10 foreign instructors
PhD - 2 foreign instructors

(I counted the number of white faces I saw on the website, but that doesn't mean that there are foreign born Chinese instructors on there who have come to Taiwan to teach - so I suppose that the numbers could be higher for those only holding Master's degrees / PhD degrees)

The same deal with Ming Chuan University where most of the foreign English instructors only hold Master's degrees and few actually publish. there are only a couple of foreign PhD holders at Ming Chuan University and in 2007 I was told that their was only 1.

The reality is that there are very few foreign PhD holding EFL teachers at Taiwanese universities. Also, I would guess that a high percentage of foreign EFL teachers working in Taiwanese universities only hold Master's degrees and do not publish.

I could list a few other universities that mainly hire foreign EFL teachers with Master's degrees but my view is that there are not a lot of PhD holders running around Taiwan looking for English teaching positions.

So they hire mainly people with Master's degrees and degrees, both PhD and Master's degrees, that are unrelated to English language teaching, TESOL, Applied Linguistics or Education like MBA, Economics, Law, German, French Literature, Business Administration, etc.

[romanworld]

[forest1979]

There's been a push to professionalize TEFL in Taiwan's higher ed sector for a good few years. As has been pointed out this has many expressions: a desire to employ PhD holders; encouraging publishing, and in particular, publishing in SSCI journals. However as has also been pointed out this professionalization has not been met with finance in making salaries increase nor has there been a betterment in library facilities which by and large and not good enough for international quality publishing. To get around this, and to get around I mean to do it as cheaply as possible, many Taiwanese unis now encourage their MA staff to register for PhD courses, to use e-libraries, and to take up courses with sister universities (also in SE Asia). However if you are at Ming Chuan University and you are encouraged to do a PhD in-house then you can't do it in language studies but rather management. Hence 'professionalization' in the case of many unis is very selective.

I know a number of websites regularly say that having a MA means you can work in Taiwan's unis but while I can't say this is false there are far less work available to MAs now then even 5 years ago. Plus, more and more PhD holders are working in Taiwan's TEFL centers, not because more foreigners are coming to the island but now because more locals hold PhD, and to me this is where the future of TEFL lies in Taiwan: locals doing the teaching and researching, not foreigners.

To cite Ming Chuan again I don't think it is an archetypal example of what is going off in TEFL in Taiwan. One reason is that it had, up to a year or so ago, a foreigner overseasing EFL policy in the uni. Also, the Language Center is very big. What 70 teachers? But true, very few PhD holder. What, less than 5? And also many instructors are not faculty, they are staff. In other words 15 hours of teaching per week for NT$ forty-something-thousand. As for paycuts at MCU I didn't know about this but I do know there is a power struggle at the top of the uni management there and the 'safety' of the Language Center is coming under threat. Whereas once this uni taught all non-language majors English for four years this is now under serious threat, and with it people's jobs. But in the climate of PhD to MA ratios this is understandable. Any Center - not department - with 70 staff and a handful of PhDs will impact on the overall uni teachers to profs ratio.

Just as a final point, mention has been said in this thread of the need to publish. No one at MCU or any other large-sized language center publishes in decent level journals be they PhD or MA holders. MCU must be having a laugh if it thinks its instructors will publish because they have neither the motivation, resources or skills to do so. What next it will be asking them to obtain external research grants? Bottom line is that MCU is a teaching college, has been and always will. If it sticks to that in the climate of shrinking birth rates it will survive. If it has delusions of grandeur, i.e. it is a bona fide quality university, it will fail.

Publish or perish? I can't see that. No one is 99% of Taiwan's TEFL uni staff is publishing!

[forest1979]

Last comment: NT$63,000.

Use to be a lot of money.

Presently isn't. Why? The NT$ has considerably weakened against the world's major currencies. No one in the their right mind with a PhD in hand would travel to the island for such a low salary in comparison to an international norm.

That's before we get to matters of quality of life and job security!!!!!

[romanworld]

[forest1979]

Whilst the administrators of unis have their heads in the clouds when I did a quick sweep of an aforementioned unis ELC staff I noticed one had as his teaching specialisms:

Asian History and Cultures, Economics, Geography, Social Studies, Political Science.

Seems this instructor is a genius or is so away with himself that he feels the need to inflate his self-importance. I know from an online site another member of staff there who talks up himself.

[romanworld]

According to an inside source at Ming Chuan University, there is no longer a power struggle going on at the top MOD EDIT who is the current president of MCU. The reason is because MOD EDIT recently passed away. MOD EDIT was an idealist who believed in English and saw its future importance as the international business language. However, now that MOD EDIT has passed away, the way is open for the new economic rationalists, MOD EDIT, to enforce their agenda upon the school. Part of their new agenda is to destroy the ELC, hire more Ph.ds at lousy salaries, and force these Ph.ds to publish in prestigious journals. As my friend notes: there are numerous flaws and contradictions with this plan, and it's doomed to failure. It's just a matter of time . . .

[Solar Strength]

MOD EDIT took over, is he no longer heading the ELC

MOD EDIT still there - he has a blog he keeps, which I havenot read for many months...doesn`t he have a degree in Sociology (another example of universities hiring people with non TESOL or Applied Linguistics or other relevant degrees).

do their teachers still have to go out to Taoyuan once a week or so

[forest1979]

I used to read MOD EDIT weblog. I don't anymore. I got fed up of him always being in the right, and everyone else being in the wrong - according to him. However I've yet to see his opinions and research in peer reviewed journals so consequently I see his attempts to put everyone down as part of his arrogant character.

I don't see the demises of ELCs as part of economic rationalisation. I would say it's part of a new process of pragmatism to reduce bloated centers full of MAs that publishing nothing, pull in no grant money and essentially produce poor quality language students, i.e. they do everything a university is supposed to! I mean for all the money that is thrown at english teaching in Taiwan it is appalling how low English standards are there. So pulling up the belts is something that has been on the cards for a low time. Maybe its economic moralism - it's immoral how much money has been wasted!

Solar - as for your friend's observation isn't what he/she's seeing typical of Taiwanese management - little managing but plenty of reactive administrative, contradictions and flaws included. From what I saw during my time in Taiwan contradictions and flaws typified all language policies. Maybe it's more 'dangerous' now as it is starting to have real effects, as changes at Taiwan's largest ELC at Ming Chuan shows. As for intentions to publish in major journals who the hell is doing that? Take the ELC, 60+ staff not one mention of a peer reviewed journal on the center's website.

[forest1979]

Sorry - an error.

The following sentence should be:

don't see the demises of ELCs as part of economic rationalisation. I would say it's part of a new process of pragmatism to reduce bloated centers full of MAs that publishing nothing, pull in no grant money and essentially produce poor quality language students, i.e. they do everything a university ISNT supposed to!