Math or Computer Science teaching positions?

[PapaAzucar]

Hello all, are there any Math, Computer Science, and Engineering teaching positions besides just plain English?

Are there English teaching positions for say...like math word problems, computational thinking (language of logic/proofs like inverse, contrapositive, AND/OR, NOR, etc.), or technology terms? My only guess is that the target student population would be SAT, GRE, TOEFL or those that want to go to Western universities to study technical fields.

If there are teaching positions available like these, I would not mind applying and staying to work in Taiwan for the long-term. Are there teaching opportunities like these?
Thanks.

[WaltzingMatilda]

I guess the answer to your question would depend on your level of education. I would think that if you had a Masters in any of those fields you mentioned, you *could* get a job at one of the local universities. If you have a state teacher certification, then you could find work in one of the bilingual / international schools here, teaching high school maths. I'm not really sure about teaching maths/computer science/ engineering in a buxiban though..

[richard_g3]

I'm also interested in the answer to this question. I have a masters in maths and could teach maths or physics, but have no teaching credentials other than a bit of private tutoring experience.

[ironlady]

Master's = university or college teaching position if you can find one. I don't see it as being likely, since there are more than enough qualified (Ph.D bearing) Taiwanese competing for the same jobs, but that's not to say that you might not get lucky.

For buxiban (cram school) math, usually the math teachers are "famous" high school teachers from Taiwan who have a "proprietary method" of teaching specifically to the test. Unless you're dead fluent in Chinese I don't think there would even be a chance (when I taught test prep buxiban classes for TOEFL and GRE I lectured in Chinese because it was not an English class, it was a "how to get a good score on the TOEFL" class. My experience was a long time ago now, but I haven't seen a significant change in the ads for buxibans so I'm supposing the situation hasn't changed all that much.

It would be interesting to see if you could get private students tutoring Math in English, but if I were a parent, I probably wouldn't go for it since I'd put mutual understanding of Math mechanics above the longer-range benefit of learning English at the same time. And if you aren't a skilled language teacher to begin with, it would be hard to make the English for higher math comprehensible to someone at the level of a typical not-doing-so-well-in-school Taiwanese kid.

[PapaAzucar]

Thanks for the responses.
I was just brainstorming on what might be missing from the Taiwanese education system.

I see a lot of first-rate tech workers here--in fact enough to put Taipei up there with Silicon Valley. But there is "something" missing with the Taiwan tech workers which I can't quite put my finger on it. I am guessing that this missing "something" is the result of the education system here with the emphasis on testing ("gao kao") and little emphasis on application or context. What surprises me is the number of tech workers that are Western trained, but yet it seems that they practice little of their Western training to the corporate culture here, but that is another thread.

What I am probably trying to ask is how open are the schools/colleges/buxibans to new curricula or non-traditional ways of teaching?
Or should the new teacher just keep his mouth shut and follow the program like everyone else?

[superguavaguy]

Cram school work in Asia sucks, regardless of the subject. If you have the option, you should definitely go the international school route. Having said that, teaching is probably the least lucrative way of using math or computer science skills. Recently there have been a few posts similar to this one (asking about IT/CS related work), and I'll tell you what I told them - don't come to Asia for that kind of work (unless a big company is sending you here), but go to Australia or New Zealand. If you can program, there is work all over the world, and the pay, working hours and working conditions will all be much better than here.