Wacky contracts, tealit.com, and bad timing

[bigduke6]

600 an hour is not great. The irony is that you cannot complain about the low quality of many teachers and state the wage is too high.

How do you attract better teachers to Taiwan? Basic economics dictates by offering a wage that is competitive with other destinations for a teacher.

If you want to pay peanuts you will get monkeys.

And before anyone compares a foreign teachers wage to a local one, you cannot compare apples and oranges. You need to compare with other countries.

[GuyInTaiwan]

The issue is not that they're paying peanuts and attracting monkeys. The issue is that they want monkeys. Paying a hungover, sandal wearing whitey an extra 100NTD/hour to sing and dance won't change the fact that he's still a hungover, sandal wearing whitey singing and dancing. This does not equate to a better teacher. It just equates to a more highly paid monkey. Was it a case that back in the day, when wages were higher, there was a higher calibre of teacher here, or has this industry always been (mostly) full of white monkeys singing and dancing, and now those white monkeys are simply feeling the squeeze?

[bigduke6]

The issue is not that they're paying peanuts and attracting monkeys. The issue is that they want monkeys. Paying a hungover, sandal wearing whitey an extra 100NTD/hour to sing and dance won't change the fact that he's still a hungover, sandal wearing whitey singing and dancing. This does not equate to a better teacher. It just equates to a more highly paid monkey. Was it a case that back in the day, when wages were higher, there was a higher calibre of teacher here, or has this industry always been (mostly) full of white monkeys singing and dancing, and now those white monkeys are simply feeling the squeeze?

While there are plenty of dancing monkeys, I have also seen many good teachers. The same goes for the schools. There are some that want monkeys, but many that don't.

Logically speaking, when the squeeze comes, the monkeys should be the first to go.

In fact when I was first here in 2002, most of the foreigners I knew and saw were hungover, dancing monkeys. When I came back in 2009, there seemed to be a lot fewer hungover, dancing monkeys.

While a better paid teacher does not mean a better teacher, salaries competitive on an international scale should attract a better quality of foreign teachers.

Many have said on this forum, that if you are looking to make good money and save, Taiwan is not the place to do it.

[GuyInTaiwan]

bigduke6: Sure, but there are enough stupid expectations that persist in this industry that even after the dancing monkeys go, things still won't be on the right track. The new big thing is English villages. I worked in one and it was all about the dancing monkeys. I think people are just reinventing the dancing monkey. Maybe it's a dancing bear now.

You're probably right that Taiwan isn't the place anymore. There probably really isn't any place that's a great place to save money for the average person teaching EFL without qualifications now though. All the places I've heard of where the money is require fairly significant qualifications.