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No. At least that is the overwhelming opinion on the popular Taiwanese English forum: forumosa.com
They simply do not commit enough to hiring foreign English Teachers...they do seem to be making an effort to improve on this front, but it's still far from 2030 success.
They simply do not commit enough to hiring foreign English Teachers...they do seem to be making an effort to improve on this front, but it's still far from 2030 success.
That's definitely true! I've been in Asia since 1996, and Taiwan is largely known as a low-paid country to teach English. I know some guys teaching at universities in Taiwan with PhD's and their salaries barely break $20,000/year USD.
Outside of university teachers, it's mostly been known as a place to teach 'kids', as the market to teach in language institutes is quite small, to nearly non-existant.
That being said, I've never lived in Taiwan; but 25 years in Asia, and that's the reputation it has, and whenever I've looked at jobs there, it seems to consistently confirm that.
I lived at least half of my years in Asia in South Korea; which was absolutely obsessed with learning English (significantly more than Taiwan), and they are nowhere near being bilingual. Also, if people come across 'English Teachers' in Asia, a large majority of them taught in S.Korea for awhile at some point during their teaching lives. I've met some that taught in Taiwan, but nowhere near the level of those who've taught in S.Korea.
In short, yeah, they definitely don't put the money towards attracting or bringing in teachers. Just my own 'outside of Taiwan/Inside Asia' perspective though!
They don’t know how to teach languages here in Taiwan. It’s all book learning and test fetishism and very little practical usage so students can spend years studying English and be barely able to speak it. Same goes for teaching Mandarin Chinese. I tried several language programs over the years but finally gave up and just hired my own tutors, whom I taught how to teach me Mandarin. The main thing I taught them was to just let me use Mandarin during our training sessions rather than doing all the talking themselves. They all had the maddening habit of talking over me as I was trying to repeat what they had said because they had been taught that students are to be seen and not heard. I also had a big advantage in that I had no choice but to learn Mandarin in order to survive and function here on a daily basis.
They don’t know how to teach languages here in Taiwan. It’s all book learning and test fetishism and very little practical usage so students can spend years studying English and be barely able to speak it. Same goes for teaching Mandarin Chinese. I tried several language programs over the years but finally gave up and just hired my own tutors, whom I taught how to teach me Mandarin. The main thing I taught them was to just let me use Mandarin during our training sessions rather than doing all the talking themselves. They all had the maddening habit of talking over me as I was trying to repeat what they had said because they had been taught that students are to be seen and not heard. I also had a big advantage in that I had no choice but to learn Mandarin in order to survive and function here on a daily basis.
That seems to be the pattern throughout much of Northeast Asia
Just to be fair, I think "educated Taiwanese" speak much better English than educated Japanese, Korean and mainland Chinese on average.
They are just behind Singapore and Hong Kong.
The grammatical structure of Japanese/Korean is so different from English/Chinese....that they have a hard time conveying themselves. The good thing about Chinese/English is that we can think of a sentence and more or less translate word by word, and it'll make sense. That never happens when translating Japanese or Korean into English.
Ok it will mean greater competition for singapore on the international market...
Greater competition for all Asian countries. English is the language of international business, that's not going away. Mainland China is likewise teaching English to it's young and are actually getting extremely proficient at it.
Taiwan is smaller than S Korea and countries in Asia, so less jobs than others.
Singapore doesn't need to worry about Taiwan, it has very free economic policies, the location is better for intercontinental travellers and international finance is well developed in addition to fluent English. Both pro and con of Singapore is it is not so connected to big Asian economies, and doesn't have a large and very active stock exchange.
Vietnam is hiring more and more native English teachers. How's Vietnam compared with 'low paid' Taiwan?
Taiwan is smaller than S Korea and countries in Asia, so less jobs than others.
Singapore doesn't need to worry about Taiwan, the location of Singapore is better for intercontinental travellers and international finance is well developed in addition to fluent English. Both pro and con of Singapore is it is not so connected to big Asian economies, and doesn't have a large and very active stock exchange.
Vietnam is hiring more and more native English teachers. How's Vietnam compared with 'low paid' Taiwan?
I lived at least half of my years in Asia in South Korea; which was absolutely obsessed with learning English (significantly more than Taiwan), and they are nowhere near being bilingual. Also, if people come across 'English Teachers' in Asia, a large majority of them taught in S.Korea for awhile at some point during their teaching lives. I've met some that taught in Taiwan, but nowhere near the level of those who've taught in S.Korea.
In short, yeah, they definitely don't put the money towards attracting or bringing in teachers. Just my own 'outside of Taiwan/Inside Asia' perspective though!
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Learning a language is hard, unless you are Dutch.
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