Try
talking to others in the community or on our forum and you’ll
realize why agents & recruiters are hurting ESL teachers by
lowering salaries, and souring potential students towards learning
English. Sure they are a quick and easy way to find a job, but once
you are here you will quickly realize you have the upper hand in
the job search as far as English teaching goes.
Do
your own job search from your home country using our site or search
the neighborhoods yourself when you arrive. The jobs are plentiful
and you’ll get the opportunity to evaluate them and see where
you’d like to work before getting roped into something that
you don't know anything about plus you'll get a higher wage and
be happier! Remember this basic fact: it’s a teacher’s
market!
Basically, we think you can do better on your own so that’s
one reason why we formed this website. However, if after talking
to others and reading everything we have to offer here you still
want to talk to an agent, go ahead. Just remember, we told you so.
Letter
from an agency/recruiter (just to be fair, we thought we'd include
this...)
BASIC FACTS ABOUT AGENTS & RECRUITERS
1)
AGENTS
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Basically, an agent is just a middle-man (or woman) who usually
finds foreign English teachers and local students (individuals or
small group of individuals wishing to learn/study English) in return
for a cut of the teaching fee/wages per hour. They pass themselves
off as a professional business but really they are just living off
your hard work and reaping the profits.
Since
the agent collects the money directly from the student and then
pays you, you may never actually know what the hourly rate is. Thus,
you may be undercutting yourself by giving up a portion of the wages
to the agent, whereas you would keep the entire amount if you found
the student on your own. (It's not as hard as it sounds...)
The
agents are very shrewd and often set up fake examinations of their
students who respond to ads posted at local clubs, establishments
or newspapers, conning them into paying up front for months of private
lessons with a teacher they've never even met! You'd think the students
could find the teachers on their own, but they are often busy with
work and/or are too shy and uncomfortable with their lack of English
language skills to approach one on their own.
PAY:
Percentage of your wages every hour, usually no more than NT$400-600
per hour
(They offer classes at NT$600-1200 per hour to students who sign
a contract for as long as A YEAR!)
THEY DON'T PROVIDE:
Curriculum/ESL teaching materials
Work visa/ARC = the legal protection of a licensed school
No location (usually you have to travel to the student's home, office
or a nearby Starbucks...)
RESTRICTIONS:
You can’t discuss pay rates with students
You can’t tell students how long you’ll be living in
Taiwan or even how long you’ll be teaching them!
It is not uncommon for agents to secure students by having you,
the foreigner, teach a few classes to get the student hooked, then
they'll bring in their Taiwanese 'girlfriend' or some other local
"English teacher" to take over the classes who they can
pay less and still charge the student the same high rate. Then,
they'll push you onto the next new recruit they find to teach, and
they’ll usually make some excuse saying the other student
left on a trip or is no longer interested in lessons, “see
that’s why I can’t pay you so much, because it’s
hard to keep students.”
They also use the law (which is in Chinese and thus totally unintelligible
to you) against you, the foreigner, to prevent you from leaving,
frequently withholding pay with little or no recourse for you while
teaching illegal “private” lessons and classes without
a legal work permit/visa to begin with.
2) RECRUITERS
The recruiters
approach first-time foreign English teachers usually while they are
still in their home countries (US, Canada, England, etc..) and offer
to place them in “legal” schools upon arrival. BEWARE!
Often the large chain schools have their own recruiters but the independent
cram schools and kindergardens (or a guy with an apartment who calls
himself a 'school') don't have the resources or simply want to make
a fast buck so they'd rather find an agent or recruitment agency to
bring the teachers in.
Actually,
the schools they deal with usually have license problems (ie. no
license...), aren't a real school, are clinically insane bosses
that can't keep their teachers or have a host of other problems
which prevent them from obtaining legal foreign English teachers.
Next, when you are hired, you'll give up a deposit or guarantee
percentage which is deducted from your first month's salary, reducing
your starting salary for the first few months of $45,000 - $55,000
per month to around NT$20-25,000. In fact, usually
you are probably teaching several 25-35 hour weeks BEFORE seeing
any pay.
This doesn’t include the time waiting for your ARC, maybe
even taking another “visa run” to Bangkok…and
the agent has already walked away with a nice fee of up to $40,000
just for giving bringing you in. Why should he be paid when it’s
you who’s doing the work?
The schools, if they can even offer an ARC/work visa, do so by using
a 'fake' language school where you sign the attendance sheets each
month on your trip to the foreign affairs police station for your
monthly visa stamp, a 'shell' school, or a friend's school to acquire
a visa for you which won't protect you when the police raid your
school (yes, raids do happen, especially at 'troublesome' schools)
you will be up sh.. creek because you are working illegally and
quickly deported...minus your pay, deposit, or anything else you
might have been due...
The
school is actually paying $70,000 - $75,000 every month. They pay
the agent. He/she keeps as much as NT$20,000 - 25,000 and pays you
your salary, minus the recruiter's cut (unbenownst to you), each
and every month. Then, when you quit early because you realized
you signed up with a school that would never be able to find a normal
teacher on their own because they are clinically insane, the recruiter
collects the deposit which you forfeited upon signing up at the
school day 1 as a 'guarantee' against your leaving...
Recruiters are paid fees just for delivering a foreign teacher to
a school:
*Fees can be as much as NT$60,000!
*60% UPON DELIVERY
*The rest after a couple months probation period
The agents/schools will NEVER TELL YOU ANY OF THIS (and will obviously
deny it if you ask them). Therefore, if your school is “raided”
you run the risk of a fine, deportation, (and loss of your upcoming
paycheck) or all of the above.
Listen,
you're better off on your own even if you don't have friends already
working here to help you out, with just a few hundred bucks and
a plane ticket you can get a cheap apartment, scooter, cell phone
and a well-paying job in no time flat. It helps if you have a college
degree of any kind, and look halfway decent when you apply for the
job, but even those aren't necessities nowadays. We have heard of
more than one person hooking up a good job within 8 hours of landing
in Taiwan by lining up a few schools to visit through our ads before
they arrived! Good luck and remember:
it’s a teacher’s market!
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