Man Man Zou

Foreign teachers who come to work in Taiwan are often shocked at the expectations by the boss. Tasks include anything from phoning the students at home to practice English with them, to coming in on Saturdays for special events- all unpaid of course. Coming from Canada, and having worked all hard-core union jobs in the past, I was definitely more than surprised and reluctant to do what was asked of me.

Foreign teachers here seem to fall into two groups- those who say “ah, come on, it’s just an hour or two out of my life, no problem”, and those why say “I better be paid overtime for this, and don’t forget to order me a free lunch as well!”. Obviously, having all my previous work experience in a union, I fall well into the latter group, and the former group is really starting to piss me off!

It’s time for teachers to take a stand. Don’t give in to the crap that is doled out to you. The school I work at used to be a good school. Teachers used to be generally happy there, but it just keeps going downhill steadily every year thanks to passive teachers getting taken advantage of. Wages go down every year for new teachers, and we’ve never gotten a raise in the two+ years we’ve worked there- the school seems to have a no-raise policy!

The reason I am having a triumphant day off today is because I didn’t give in to the crap at my school. I’m subbing for another teacher for this week and next at my school, and today is Tuesday, where the kids have music and gym class. My school recently made a new rule that they won’t pay substitute teachers for this time. In the past, they paid for this time. After all, the parents are the ones who actually pay for it, and they are promised a foreign teacher during these times.

Yet my school still expected me to come in today to teach one lesson to only be paid for 40 minutes. Yes that’s right, they pay by the minute here. So I said forget it- if I give in to something like that, then that means that all the other foreigners down the road are going to get the same bad deal. They acted like it was a terrible thing that I refused, so I tried to make a deal with them- I’ll come in for the kids’ snack time and that would work out to one hour of work. They said no! They wouldn’t pay for the extra 20 minutes, even though it is a good time to have a foreign teacher in the class so that the kids don’t speak Chinese, and, don’t forget that the parents are paying for this and are promised this service anyway.

Since they wouldn’t pay for the 20 minutes, I’m now at home, happy that I held out since either way it was a win-win situation for me (have the day off, or go in for one hour of work- it’s all good). I just will not give in to the pay-by-the-minutes BS.

They tried a similar thing with me last year- by not paying for my 10 minutes between elementary and evening classes. There is no other teacher around to care for the kids during this time. Taking care of two classes- making sure they have all their stuff to go home, and collecting all the incoming students’ homework and things- I think it’s safe to say that those 10 minutes were when I worked the hardest. So Mark and I went to them and gave them a choice to either let us actually have that 10 minutes as an uninterrupted break (impossible, with all the students around), find new teachers to replace us, or pay us for the 10 minutes. After a very long silent stand-off, they finally gave in and paid us for it.

Another thing is with field trips (sorry, but this could go on forever!). Field trips go all day, leaving an hour or so before work time, returning home an hour or so later. There is no extra pay for this. When they asked Mark and I to sub for a field trip, we asked to be paid a little extra for the extra time, since they only pay 3000nt for work from 7am-5pm (that’s around 300nt an hour- too low!). Since they wouldn’t budge, they found another foreigner who easily agreed, thus ruining all our efforts to make a stand. However, our efforts weren’t for nothing- we raised enough ruckus so the school now gives teachers a little extra time off to make up for all the extra time they put in for field trips.

Lots of other teachers have tried to make a stand too, some were successful, some were not. One teacher wouldn’t take an extra class at my school unless the school paid more than 600nt an hour (it was for teaching a large class of adults)- the school wouldn’t agree and finally found someone else willing to do it, thus ruining what could have been a success. It’s a risk you have to take since you might lose out on a job, but I think it’s worth it for the sake of everyone.

Some might think I’m too demanding, asking for too much. It’s true that foreigners often do ask for too much- demand extremely high pay for something we’re not even qualified to do. Well, this is just my opinion. I think my school is happy to see me go just because I don’t like being taken advantage of. Since I love Taiwan, it’s safe to say I’m not here just for the money, but it’s certain that I wouldn’t be here if the pay were as low as China, where one can only make around $500us a month.

I’m not sure how much lower the wages can go for teaching in Taiwan before it bottoms out and everyone packs up and leaves. Pretty soon there might be hardly any North Americans working here, and just South Africans- don’t want to touch on that touchy subject just yet though!

Oops! I guess I already have touched on it. Well ok, here goes, I’ve stepped onto the thin ice and there’s no turning back. This is hard for me, since I have several South African friends, and many more who I’ve met and liked. When the subject of teaching English and wages comes up, there have often been tense moments, and some of them have gotten offensive.

For most South Africans, English is their second language. You wouldn’t know it by talking to them- it sounds just like an English accent, with a bit of a Southern US accent mixed in. It’s fine. And in some ways, I think they might even make a better teacher than many North Americans since they have actually learned English and understand the rules of English. Before I came to Taiwan to teach English, I didn’t know anything about why I word things the way I do. I never knew any of the rules, and sometimes still have to ask Mark about what’s the deal with some of the grammar rules our crazy language has.

So, while I think this, many bosses in Taiwan think differently. Perhaps they just use their accent as an excuse to pay lower wages, I don’t know, but my cram school boss (my nice boss at the other school) sure has a lot to say about South Africans.

She says that the reason the pay has gone down so much over the past few years is because of all the South Africans who have come to Yuanlin to work, accepting very low pay from bosses. A few years ago in Yuanlin (before my time here), wages for teaching were minimum 600nt an hour. It was easy to find cram school work on the side for much more than that, and with private tutoring, many foreigners could easily ask for 900nt or more an hour. As more and more foreigners came to town (myself included), there was less demand and the pay decreased accordingly.

So I don’t know what us foreign English teachers in Taiwan are doing wrong, but if teachers want to stop work conditions and pay from getting worse like they currently are, they have to stop taking it up the you-know-where from bosses. I’m leaving Taiwan, so I suppose it doesn’t matter to me anymore!

Follow up: Michael gives us an informative insight on teacher pay on his blog.