How can you continue to teach English in Taiwan?

[Jialin]

I'm coming to teach in Taiwan this year because I want to become a teacher one day teaching Chinese in the US..maybe. So I'm dipping my toes in teaching to see how I like it and what ages I prefer all for experience. I'm really interested in education, how to teach FL, and pedagogy. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems like I'm a rare breed (at least in Taiwan...)

[steelersman]

I'm coming to teach in Taiwan this year because I want to become a teacher one day teaching Chinese in the US..maybe. So I'm dipping my toes in teaching to see how I like it and what ages I prefer all for experience. I'm really interested in education, how to teach FL, and pedagogy. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems like I'm a rare breed (at least in Taiwan...)

Most likely you will learn how not to teach English in Taiwan. Very few schools in Taiwan provide a good English educational experience or something that one would want to emulate when teaching a foreign language.

[Jialin]

I'm coming to teach in Taiwan this year because I want to become a teacher one day teaching Chinese in the US..maybe. So I'm dipping my toes in teaching to see how I like it and what ages I prefer all for experience. I'm really interested in education, how to teach FL, and pedagogy. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems like I'm a rare breed (at least in Taiwan...)

Most likely you will learn how not to teach English in Taiwan. Very few schools in Taiwan provide a good English educational experience or something that one would want to emulate when teaching a foreign language.

Yes, that's what I've heard. But I think a lot of it comes down to the attitude of the teacher and his or her willingness to teach how they want to teach. Maybe I'm naive and don't know what I'm getting into, but I'm going to try!

[steelersman]

I'm coming to teach in Taiwan this year because I want to become a teacher one day teaching Chinese in the US..maybe. So I'm dipping my toes in teaching to see how I like it and what ages I prefer all for experience. I'm really interested in education, how to teach FL, and pedagogy. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems like I'm a rare breed (at least in Taiwan...)

Most likely you will learn how not to teach English in Taiwan. Very few schools in Taiwan provide a good English educational experience or something that one would want to emulate when teaching a foreign language.

Yes, that's what I've heard. But I think a lot of it comes down to the attitude of the teacher and his or her willingness to teach how they want to teach. Maybe I'm naive and don't know what I'm getting into, but I'm going to try!

I am not discouraging you from coming. However I can't say that teaching in Taiwan is a pleasant experience.

[superguavaguy]

I'm coming to teach in Taiwan this year because I want to become a teacher one day teaching Chinese in the US..maybe. So I'm dipping my toes in teaching to see how I like it and what ages I prefer all for experience. I'm really interested in education, how to teach FL, and pedagogy. But from what I've read on this forum, it seems like I'm a rare breed (at least in Taiwan...)

Most likely you will learn how not to teach English in Taiwan. Very few schools in Taiwan provide a good English educational experience or something that one would want to emulate when teaching a foreign language.

Yes, that's what I've heard. But I think a lot of it comes down to the attitude of the teacher and his or her willingness to teach how they want to teach. Maybe I'm naive and don't know what I'm getting into, but I'm going to try!

You won't learn good teaching skills, but you will learn what it's like to be locked up with a room full of screaming brats, or pimply, self-conscious "I'm-too-cool-for-this" teenagers for hours on end, which would be a good experience for someone thinking about being a teacher. If you become a real teacher in your home country, you could teach abroad in the international schools, which is a good job with a future. Cram school teaching is neither.

[GuyInTaiwan]

I have to admit that after all those years in Asia, I now tend to agree with the Asian attitude regarding education - meaning that it's pretty pointless to study anything outside of law, medicine, accounting, engineering, certain sciences or business. Frankly, those are the only degrees that will probably guarantee a student a good paying job and a career after graduation. I don't know about the rest of you, but my parents certainly didn't emphasize this enough to me.

I agree to an extent. However, it hasn't always been this way. I think the humanities only suck now because they pretty much let anyone into university these days. It used to be in the past that people who studied humanities could, and did, get good jobs. People didn't vilify the humanities because they realised that it was to society's advantage to have people who had studied things such as history and 1) had an understanding of bigger issues, 2) had developed critical thinking abilities. I think that while Asians are busy trying to all get degrees that will lead to high paying jobs, they end up missing the bigger picture, which is why their societies still have all sorts of structural issues. It's easy enough to go from a per capita GDP of a few thousand dollars to say, ten thousand dollars, but let's see them really end up like a Finland, for instance. Also, those Asians who end up becoming accountants in the West are doing so within a broader system that allows them to flourish. There's still a reason rich Chinese can't get out of China fast enough (or at least get some sort of residency privileges elsewhere) but Westerners aren't flocking to Asia. I really don't buy the idea that we all need to become more like Asians. That would entail becoming workaholics who never see their families (if they have any! -- look at the atrocious fertility rates here in east Asia), gross social injustice, and terrible environmental degradation. The West is failing not because it isn't embracing the Asian way. It's failing because it has abandoned its own way.