I guess the question now is how did I get here? After realising I loved traveling and researching it as much as I could on the internet especially at English Teacher X I realised that it was possible to live overseas and sell the one thing I have been doing for nearly 25 years, which is speaking English. All you need is a three year bachelors degree in anything and 1 month teaching ESL certificate.
While in Vietnam and then later India I met quite a lot of English teachers who were working in various countries teaching who all seemed to love it. They all said it was like travelling but you can get paid at the same time. What's more when you get holidays you are a cheap flight away from your next destination rather than $1500 worth of return flights.
Interest heavily piqued I researched it a lot on the internet and came down to three countries where I could possibly live and work Korea, China and Taiwan. From what I could work out Korea was the highest paying but many people didn't especially like working there. The Korean workplace culture is heavily confucian infuenced, your bosses can be arseholes and there is a general dislike towards foreigners amongst some.Koreans. So good money but an unhappy experience and Korea was off the list. China was meant to be cool but because it is still a poor country the pay is low. Although you could survive quite easily off of what you make (as everything is extremely cheap) you can't save the money to travel to other places or anything to bring home. A man I met in India was also a teacher here in Taipei and couldn't reccomend the place enough. Attractive women, a good job, good food and pleasant locals. So I decided Taiwan was where I would go.
After returning from India and with no job in hand I had enough money left over to enroll in a CELTA course. The world standard in English teaching and the worst month of your life. An excellent addition to any CV. The course was informative and helpful but pretty stressful. One month solid of studying in which you are in class 40 hours a week as well as needing to complete 4 assignments and write 6 well planned lessons. I was the only young person on the course. The other 4 being 3 experienced teachers looking for a career change and a former IT guy. All much more qualified and capable than I yet all of the women were reduced to tears and throw it all in moments and the man was hospitalised from the stress. The course was stressful for a number of reasons. Firstly the workload was high and the trainers expected us to be instant grammar experts. Our lessons were expected to be throughly planned at which point we were observed by our classmates and our instructors as we practiced on migrants and everything we did was analysed and critiqued by the humourless controlling instructors. It was enough pressure for someone who doesn't like speaking in public to have to endure let alone being scrutinised the whole time. Anyway the course content was great but after completing it I was completely moneyless and had to work for four months in various shitkicker jobs (factory line worker, office secretary) to save up the money needed for start up plus plane tickets. So what I did manage to absorb was almost completely forgotten by the time I landed here. Not that it matters much as CELTA techniques aren't really applicable to a group of screaming 8-12 year olds.
Before coming I had to save enough money to prove that I was 'coming to Taiwan for travel,' apply for a travel visa as well as having my degree certified by my university and then by the department of Taiwansese foreign affairs in Australia. Apparently you can't come to the country looking for work but if you find it here on holiday that's okay. I applied through a recruitment agency on the internet who soon hooked me up with a job. I was originally offered one in Taipei which fell through but was offered a replacement in HsinChu. The recruiter sold it as only being half an hour away from Taipei but without any of the costs or hassle. I couldn't find a lot out about it but it seemed like my only option, so HsinChu it was.
While in Vietnam and then later India I met quite a lot of English teachers who were working in various countries teaching who all seemed to love it. They all said it was like travelling but you can get paid at the same time. What's more when you get holidays you are a cheap flight away from your next destination rather than $1500 worth of return flights.
Interest heavily piqued I researched it a lot on the internet and came down to three countries where I could possibly live and work Korea, China and Taiwan. From what I could work out Korea was the highest paying but many people didn't especially like working there. The Korean workplace culture is heavily confucian infuenced, your bosses can be arseholes and there is a general dislike towards foreigners amongst some.Koreans. So good money but an unhappy experience and Korea was off the list. China was meant to be cool but because it is still a poor country the pay is low. Although you could survive quite easily off of what you make (as everything is extremely cheap) you can't save the money to travel to other places or anything to bring home. A man I met in India was also a teacher here in Taipei and couldn't reccomend the place enough. Attractive women, a good job, good food and pleasant locals. So I decided Taiwan was where I would go.
After returning from India and with no job in hand I had enough money left over to enroll in a CELTA course. The world standard in English teaching and the worst month of your life. An excellent addition to any CV. The course was informative and helpful but pretty stressful. One month solid of studying in which you are in class 40 hours a week as well as needing to complete 4 assignments and write 6 well planned lessons. I was the only young person on the course. The other 4 being 3 experienced teachers looking for a career change and a former IT guy. All much more qualified and capable than I yet all of the women were reduced to tears and throw it all in moments and the man was hospitalised from the stress. The course was stressful for a number of reasons. Firstly the workload was high and the trainers expected us to be instant grammar experts. Our lessons were expected to be throughly planned at which point we were observed by our classmates and our instructors as we practiced on migrants and everything we did was analysed and critiqued by the humourless controlling instructors. It was enough pressure for someone who doesn't like speaking in public to have to endure let alone being scrutinised the whole time. Anyway the course content was great but after completing it I was completely moneyless and had to work for four months in various shitkicker jobs (factory line worker, office secretary) to save up the money needed for start up plus plane tickets. So what I did manage to absorb was almost completely forgotten by the time I landed here. Not that it matters much as CELTA techniques aren't really applicable to a group of screaming 8-12 year olds.
Before coming I had to save enough money to prove that I was 'coming to Taiwan for travel,' apply for a travel visa as well as having my degree certified by my university and then by the department of Taiwansese foreign affairs in Australia. Apparently you can't come to the country looking for work but if you find it here on holiday that's okay. I applied through a recruitment agency on the internet who soon hooked me up with a job. I was originally offered one in Taipei which fell through but was offered a replacement in HsinChu. The recruiter sold it as only being half an hour away from Taipei but without any of the costs or hassle. I couldn't find a lot out about it but it seemed like my only option, so HsinChu it was.
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