Hard-core Foreign Run Bŭxíbāns
October 15th, 2005 by MarkIn Taibei there are quite a few schools of this type. There are also a few in Taoyuan; I don’t know of any in the south, though. Almost all of these schools are about the same. The first one was Mòdàwèi 莫大衛, started in the heart of Taibei, near Sogo, about 20 years ago by an Australian guy named David. He paid well, and was able to attract foreigners who could speak Chinese, could control a large class, would work hard, and would stay for a long time. As a result of having good teachers who stay from day one until graduation day 3 and a half years later, the students learned well. Studying at Mòdàwèi for one year was nearly as good as putting in three at a big chain school. Amazingly, with no marketing, Mòdàwèi grew into a large branch through word of mouth alone. However, David wasn’t interested in letting other teachers open franchises or other branches. One of the best and brightest of his teachers, a guy named Tom, eventually got tired of making a fortune for somebody else. So, Tom opened his own school, called Tomcat (湯姆貓), across the street. Nearly all of his students came with him. Naturally, being a bilingual foreigner with a great deal of teaching experience, and 200 loyal students, it wasn’t too hard to make a success of it. In fact, Tom later let his most experienced teacher, Rich, take over a branch. Around the same time, an American guy named James, a VERY good example of a black man who has made it as a teacher in Taiwan, was opening another Mòdàwèi clone called Cortland (科特蘭). As of now there are 8 Cortland branches and over a dozen Tomcat franchises. In addition, there have been at least 4 other schools started by former Mòdàwèi employees since Cortland that I know of. Mòdàwèi hasn’t grown much, but it’s still around. More importantly the HFRB (Hard-core Foreign Run ) style of teaching is here to stay.
Curriculum & Teaching Methods
These schools have a simple no non-sense curriculum structured around sentence patterns, core-vocabulary, and constant pronunciation coaching. The meat and potatoes of their classes is the Question Around the Room. In this exercise, first all of the students must stand up, then one student makes a question based on a certain grammar pattern. The student the asks another student who must answer and in turn make another question which will be answered by another student. It continues until all of the students have asked and answered a question based on whatever sentence pattern being practiced.
Unlike the big chains, these schools require correct pronunciation and have teachers who can tell the children how to correct their pronunciation. For example, if a kid is saying “How ahh you?”, the teacher will say, “Every time you see an ‘r’, you have to curl your tongue.” And he will say it in Chinese. Also unlike the big chains, KK isn’t taught at HFRBs. Instead phonics is taught the way we learned it back home: i.e. They learn about long and short vowels, basic phonics rules like “when two vowels go walking the first one does the talking”, and so forth.
One other major difference between HFRBs and other schools is that at HFRBs, the kids have to do their homework. If they don’t do it, they fail. Yes, kids actually can fail at these schools. Also, the teacher has to grade books and listen to tapes after class to ensure that the students are doing their work correctly. All of this work is unpaid.
Compensation
If you are in Taiwan to make money and you are a teacher, there is NO other place to be than bŭxíbāns of this type. At the time of this writing, Modawei, Cortland, and most of the Tomcat schools (but not all franchises) pay new teachers $600/hour during training, and $900/hour for teaching. $50 raises are given every six months up to a maximum of $1100 or $1200. After 2 years at Cortland, or 3 at Modawei, profit sharing bonuses are awarded every 6 months. Tomcat has pretty inconsistent rules about this. Bonuses can range from about $100,000 to $300,000 depending on a variety of factors.
Be warned that unlike lesser schools, these schools usually entail a significant amount of training. In the most extreme case, at Modawei some teachers have spent a full 6 months in training before opening their own classes. While training you can expect to put in a significant amount of time, and only make $65,000 to 70,000 per month. Once you have a full schedule you’ll make $100,000 per month and once you’re receiving the bonus you’ll likely make over $150,000 per month. If you become a branch manager or, better yet, open a franchise, you’ll make even more.
Requirements
It is only natural that a school that delivers superior education despite large class sizes and pays its staff well will also have high requirements. Unlike big chain schools who will basically hire any living & breathing young westerner they can get regardless of skills, HFRBs are quite a bit more selective. If you want to work at this kind of school you need some teaching experience, the confidence to control a class of up to 30 kids, and enough Chinese ability to teach them well and communicate with their parents. The most difficult requirement of all is that you must be willing to stay for at least 2 or 3 years. Not many foreigners in Taiwan want to do this, but having one stable teacher who can lead the students from ABCs to essay writing is perhaps the strongest point of all for HFRBs
A Word for the Wise
Naturally, businesses don’t tend to speak fondly of their competitors. However the level of animosity some HFRBs hold for each other is downright malevolent. Much of this is rooted in the fact that all of these schools were formed by rouge teachers who, feeling severely underpaid, left their original school and started their own schools nearby with their own kids. As a result, don’t be surprised if you see a non-compete agreement in the employment contract if you interview at one of these schools. I myself ran into a particularly egregious contract problem at a HFRB. My boss brought me into a room with 2 other managers, sat me down, and told me to sign a contract stipulating that ALL creations I make (at work AND on my own time) would belong to his school… OR ELSE! I have done a fair number of personal programming projects (Quake III mods, video editing, etc…) as well as essays, some of which relate to L2 acquisition. Signing this contract would have given them claim over any further works or, in other words, the whole creative output of my brain would have belonged to them. It would have also made it pretty much impossible to open my own school later on since they would claim that any curriculum I wrote was written during my employment there and was therefore theirs. Sometimes it doesn’t matter who is right if you don’t have money to defend a lawsuit. I didn’t sign the contract. About a week later I had an even better paying job at a school started by a former teacher of the school I’d just left.
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October 18th, 2005 at 2:29 am
Congratulations Maoman! You will be a wealthy man once you get it built up. I think that of the 3 big splinters, Tomcat has been by far the fastest grower. They were the first to make actual books for the students. Modawei students STILL rely completely on copying the whiteboard, though I hear that may change soon.
I do have some curriculum advice. If you have yet to make books, there are some big improvements to be made upon the age old curriculum. The first one is to introduce more tenses sooner. There’s no excuse for spending a year and a half just using the simple present tense. If you do that students will always tend to fall back on it when they should be using other tenses. And the second is to incorporate extensive reading as soon as possible, maybe in the 4th semester.
My current buxiban (started by a former Modawei) employee teaches all three tenses in the first semester as well as additional spelling rules and employs extensive reading and listening homework starting in the second year. The results are that his students learn grammar nearly twice as quickly as Modawei students in the first year and once that base is established, they learn vocabulary much more quickly in the second. Their overall progress is literally twice as fast.
However, from a business standpoint, there is one big advantage in teaching grammar in EXACTLY the same order you’ve been using for the last twenty years. Tomcat, Modawei, and Cortland have virtually identical curriculums. There’s a small economy of students built around that one system. If you can offer the same system with better teaching quality (which smaller schools usually can), you can take their students very easily. Unfortunately for my school, it takes a hard sell for parents to accept that after 3 semesters at Modawei, they can’t even get into our 2nd semester because they don’t know “did” or “will” yet.
-Mark
PS Thanks to the invite to Formosa
October 17th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Excellent analysis! As someone who has just taken over one of these “hard-core” buxibans, I found your comments to be interesting and accurate. My own school is a direct descendant of a “Tomcat” splinter, and has proven to be a money-spinner for the previous owner. He’s retiring at the tender age of 45, with a 150K catamaran in the British Virgin Islands, and several rental properties in his home country.
I am sticking to the programme he has been using for almost 20 years now, as I would like to duplicate his success, and improve on it if possible.
If you feel so inclined, your astute observations would be more than welcome on http://www.forumosa.com.
I’m looking forward to more of your insights in the future!
Best Regards,
Maoman
Forumosa.com Admin
October 17th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
Interesting! I’ve seen a lot of this stuff. In fact, Rich left along with Tom (and his students) to start the first Tomcat. To the best of my knowledge there are four places using that name now. I’m running a school of this type and it is the way to go. It’s interesting that it seems to take a foreigner to run one as it requires you talk straight to the parents and thus risk losing their business. What happens is you end up attracting people who like this approach and they are out there. A niche market but a very viable one.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:22 pm
Amazing, this was an incredibly good read. I did 2 stints in Taiwan, one in 1988-90 and one more short one in 1995. I started my own crappy school for about 6 month (failing only because I had no idea how to run a business) and taught for small and large buxibans here and there, both individually owned ones and large Taiwan-wide ones.
This inside look at the whole thing is very insightful. It brought back a few memories too.
Any clue what start-up capital in USD would be required to buy a franchise (are they actively franchised anyway and what does the royalty structure look like?)?
October 29th, 2005 at 10:23 pm
Ooops, last post was missing my name…
Amazing, this was an incredibly good read. I did 2 stints in Taiwan, one in 1988-90 and one more short one in 1995. I started my own crappy school for about 6 month (failing only because I had no idea how to run a business) and taught for small and large buxibans here and there, both individually owned ones and large Taiwan-wide ones.
This inside look at the whole thing is very insightful. It brought back a few memories too.
Any clue what start-up capital in USD would be required to buy a franchise (are they actively franchised anyway and what does the royalty structure look like?)?
November 4th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
I think you get get going for under 100K USD. Most of those schools won’t franchise. Try Tomcat. Also, look on tealit. Franchises come up for sale pretty often on that site.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Yup, I think that if you want to run a successful school, you must do it the same way making it a successful business which not only have to employ the best staff but also adapt the best teaching methodology into the system. Actually I have friends working for schools like those. And to be honest, they make darn lucrative money. But somehow it seems only happens to native teachers(or, say, foreigner-run schools)… I wonder if I can ever be like that, I sometimes ask myself.
March 10th, 2006 at 12:57 am
First of all, keep in mind that it’s a LOT of work. The reason I blog about teaching so much is because most of my waking hours are consumed by work. But, YES! You can make a very profitable career out of it. One school, where my old co-worker, Danny, worked has been opening a new franchise just about every year. Though that school is kind of between an HFRB and a big chain, ALL of the franchises are openned by Taiwanese teachers, not foreigners. Not only that, but from what I’ve heard from your podcasts, your English is better than theirs is. It would be a ton of work, but you already have most of the skills you’d need.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Thanks for the encouragements and suggestions. I think it really depends on how much I want to make it happen. But before that, I’ve got tons and tons of other things that I want to do. I’m a dreamer and let’s see if my dream will come true haha. Perhaps if you start a school, you may consider employing me. Seriously
March 20th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
[...] Starting a blog feels a bit daunting for me. I am not quite sure what I want to say, in what format,or how personal I want to get. Looks like many bloggers solve that problem by keeping separate blogs,which I suppose I may do in the future. But for now, I’ll just throw caution to the wind and keep my jumbled thoughts and unlearned comments here. This is the way I am in real life. Jumbled.Unlearned. Open A few weeks ago I came across a somewhat heated discussion on Scott Summer’s blog on the merits or lack thereof of HFRB (Hardcore Foreign run Buxiban). This led to 1. an idea on how to foment new thought and, God forbid, perhaps meanigful change in my current school 2. Meeting Michael T. and Mark W., two inspiring people 3. Finally taking a chance at sounding my own voice Mark’s post which piqued my interest even more, got me reading tons of other stuff, including this post on forumosa.com [...]
March 24th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Cool blog dude.
If the Rich mentioned above is the one I think it is he opened his own chain “Rich English”. Makes a motza and spends most of his time in Thailand coming back to train teachers. The original center makes heaps of money but the branches havn’t done so well.
His wife runs the show while he’s away and successfully alienates a lot of teachers and customers, not to mention contractors. The curriculum claimed to be his is just based upon a lot of standard texts and extra drills and questions styles as described above.
He recruits in the UK most heavily and teaches most of his employees just enough Chinese to issue class instructions. Class sizes up to 35. Pays well to start and even better to the long termers who can tolerate his wife.
October 6th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
[...] Teachers new to Taiwan or new to teaching may just not be able to compete in terms of how much money they can bring their schools. While I wouldn’t underestimate the power of being conscientious and focused on self-improvement in a field full of so many teachers who aren’t, the best possible course of action is to focus on skill development at the beginning. If you’re a teacher who does so, you can climb the salary ladder quite quickly… if you really want to. It’s definitely possible to improve your Chinese skills through part time study at local language schools, and improve your teaching through observation of more skilled teachers enough to get a job at one of the “hardcore” buxibans within a single year of hard work. Most of them pay new teachers $900NT per class hour, and offer profit sharing bonuses later on. Far from being a year of sacrifice devoted to career building, most people would probably find the teaching and especially the Chinese skills worthy rewards in themselves. [...]
October 16th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
[...] They did say pod#37 was a “low intermediate” pod, though. So, I gave pod#33 a try. The same gong and intro routine took about half a minute, but at least Jenny introduced her self in Chinese, sort of. I guess she doesn’t like using her real name as much as an English one. Considering that foreigners didn’t have the luxury of learning Chinese names in elementary school, that many Chinese people prefer to use English names with us, and that we have a hard time learning new Chinese names, this sucks. Still, they got into the dialogue a lot faster on this pod. The guy’s pronunciation was appalling, though. It seemed like he just freely swapped “jue”, “zhui”, and “zui” sounds for each other whenever the heck he felt like it. He reminded me of a coworker I had at an HFRB, known for barking out a constant stream of mispronounced commands to his poor students in a language nobody could quite consider “Chinese”. I couldn’t take it. I quit the pod halfway through. [...]
October 19th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
[...] The article is definitely worth a read, but there were a few factual errors in it. While reading it, I had the distinct impression that the author of it had read the piece on HFRBs my blog and made a few false assumptions, due to the imprecision of my writing. Briefly, the errors are as following: Where did the phenomenon start? And with whom? Accounts differ, and any factual errors here are my own, but here goes. Many sources point to an American by the name of Michael Roberts, who in the early 80’s started a school called Koubei (Word of Mouth) in Taipei’s trendy Dinghao district. The school was popular and sold to another American David McCall, who renamed the school after his Chinese name- Modawei… [...]
November 29th, 2006 at 10:23 am
Great read. My wife and I came to Taiwan to live in Asia and to make money. We were really disappointed by the agency that we used.
Right now, we teach at a bilingual school. It is also a disappointment. Hopefully, we will change schools ASAP.
November 29th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
[...] Anyone who is considering teaching in Taiwan should take a look at them. I am right now in the process of reading about Toshuo’s trip to mainland China last July. Toshuo has a lot of very interesting posts, and I have assembled them here. Most interesting is his opinions on hard core foreign run buxibans. [...]
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:04 am
[...] Logically,you could be making a lot more money if you were a private teacher or working for a Hard Core Foreign Run Buxiban. As a private teacher or a tutor, you can make between 600 to 1000 NTD per hour, that is between 17 to 29 USD, which is pretty cool. If I were only a private teacher, I would be making around 218000 NTD, that is at 50 work hours a week, which isn’t as much as I work right now. I make a little more than a third of that figure. Right now, I work about 60 hours a week, including tutoring. I tutor about 5 hours a week. This brings in an extra income of about 17000 NTD a month. Some buxibans will pay their teachers up to 150000 NTD a month, after bonuses and profit sharing. Other schools, like American schools and International schools, have the benefits that most foreign teachers take for granted, such as the summers off and paid vacation time during the school year for up to a month. [...]
August 7th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Hi, I am the ‘Tom’ of Tomcat English School. I’ve been in the US since Nov ‘98 and now I’m freaking out about your articles and comments. Mark, please tell me who you are. Have we met? Please contact me ASAP as I guess I have a lot more questions for you. PS Michael was from England.
August 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Tom, I’m sure it must feel odd to realize that you’ve become a minor historical figure, of note to foreign teachers in Taiwan. Haven’t met, but apparently we have a mutual friend in William. I look forward to chatting with you.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Hi, I’m interested in teaching English in Taiwan after I graduate college. However, I’m an ABC, and I was just wondering if an ABC would be a needed cadidate for the “hardcore buxibans.”
August 27th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Hi Gloria, I’ll tell you what my experience was. In short, no. Parents want ‘foreign’ looking teachers. ABCs are too Chinese and tend to be unpopular with parents. This is rediculous and unfair, but that’s what my experience was. On top of that, I’ve never seen a new teacher be able to come in and teach at these schools. You should teach at one of the bullcrap schools first for a year or three, then give it a try at the foreign run schools. I could give you much more detail (and contacts in Taipei) if you want. you can email me at tomspeaks1@mac.com.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
I’m trying to land a job, a good job, in Taipei or Taipei County. I’ve come close to saying yes to Hess. I’ve heard good and bad things about them. I really want to teach good English though, not bad English. Your entry previous to this one did not make their methods seem too effective. I have a degree already, I’ve substitute taught a few years ago in the public Los Angeles system. Any ideas or suggestions or contacts?
David
November 10th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Assuming you don’t speak Chinese, going with a big chain probably isn’t that bad of an idea. It’s a lot easier for newcomers if they have some kind of support network and Hess has a great one. The only danger is that it’s pretty easy to sink into a “Hessworld” and never see much outside of it.
Assuming you do want to learn Chinese, stay here longer and become a more independent teacher, I’d check and make sure they don’t have a “no Chinese on site if you’re white” rule. None of the big chains let foreigners speak Chinese in class, but you can usually at least chat with your co-teachers or the kids and improve a bit between classes. That’s what I did in my year and a half at Joy.
November 10th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Wow, thanks for the fast reply!!!
I’m doing so much research and yes, Hess or another chain just sounds smart because of the structure and support. And I get a TEFL cert. after I’m there too. I really want to make TW a way of life and stay and live there. So yes, maybe a year there and then near the end of my contract I can go to a private or other school. Any links to other chains would be cool too if you can. Thanks!
PS- Any ogher advice you can offer?
Like, do you usually get your first choice of contract and location?
Also, my contract emailed to me says list 3 choices for location but I only have two- Taipei city or Taipei county.
Also, define the “Hessworld” you spoke of.
Yeah, so any other advice on TW would be great too if you have time.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:17 am
“Hessworld” is a phenomenon in which Hess teachers find themselves spending all of their time working at Hess, hanging out with co-workers and going to Hess-organized events. In short, it’s a bubble that some teachers live in that results in them missing out on a lot that Taiwan has to offer. Take the job in Taipei city. You won’t be so isolated, you’ll have access to Chinese classes, and you’ll have a much better opportunity to meet people who have lived all over the island. Taipei county is okay, but I highly recommend making sure you’re at least reasonably close to the MRT (the subway).
November 12th, 2007 at 9:52 am
David, are you being hired before you go to Taiwan? This is a trap, and you will be screwed. You want to stay how long? If only a short time-less than a year-then it really doesn’t matter where you teach because it takes a few years to get your feet wet. Support? As in do what it takes to make the students happy and re-enroll; yes, you’ll have a lot of ’support’ at the big chain schools. How to tell a good school? Watch teacher turnover and student turnover. Want to stay a long time and have a great job? Make immediate contact with foreign run schools, see what they do for yourself, tell the boss what you want and ask him what he wants from you, and go back after you have 6 months experience and see if they’ll hire you. TEFL cert? It’s not required and is no indication at all of how well a person can teach. More advice? email me.
November 14th, 2007 at 3:49 am
Barring unusual circumstances, I don’t think many foreign-run schools would hire someone who just got to Taiwan. I wouldn’t.
June 24th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Hi Mark,
I lived and taught English in Taiwan for 5 years and the only conclusion I can make regarding teaching there is that the schools/cram schools etc are 90% owned and operated by Taiwanese,(mostly women) who view the employment of foreign teachers solely as an opportunity to make money.This money comes from ignorant and naive parents who have this absurd idea that if there little Sarah or Michael is in a classroom with a blond haired blue eyed foreigner, preferably one with an American accent, then they will be able to speak Englishy better. A good example of this 3rd world mentality is when a girl from Lithuania found work easily in Taiwan even though her level of English was lower than some of the kids. The most important qualification she had was that she had blond hair and blue eyes! Foreign run schools are supposedly better but as a rule I refused to work for other foreigners simply because this mentality I’m talking about applies to them also and the pay is usually lower.The best esl teachers dont go to Taiwan because they know what to expect there. It took me 5 years to finally get the hell out! Oh yes,fortunately for the black guy with the MA in TESOL, who I met the last year I was in Taiwan, found a good paying job in Europe. I wonder why he couldnt find work in Taiwan?
June 24th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I agree with you completely about the racism inherent in the EFL market here. I have met a few “fake Americans” myself. I’ve met some “fake ABCs” too, though.
I’ve worked with a couple of TESOL guys, and haven’t found those sorts certifications or degrees to be any guarantee of their teaching abilities. Much like programming skills, teaching skills seem to have only a tenuous connection with formal certifications.
That said, if two teachers’ classroom control skills and charisma were equal, I’d take the linguistics or TESOL major in a heartbeat.
June 24th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Oh yes, and as for pay… I plan to be paying my teacher 120k/month, plus profit sharing, once he’s up to a full schedule.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:07 pm
How much money do these franchise operators make? Are you planning to open up your own school?
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:14 pm
It’s not set in stone, and I already have (with partners).
http://toshuo.com/2006/what-im-doing-now/
http://toshuo.com/2006/curriculum-development/
http://toshuo.com/2007/the-churn/
http://toshuo.com/2007/the-hardest-week-at-school-yet/
http://toshuo.com/2008/buying-out-dings/
July 7th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
With all your enthusiasm, I’m sure Pagewood is going to rock. If only my Chinese was good enough (I’m maybe a level 2 in ShiDa) I would love to work for one of these HFRB. Good luck!
December 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Great blog! This was exactly the kind of information I was looking for, thanks!
December 20th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Hi,
Thanks for the great information. So is there no middle ground? It sounds like there are the big chains where the students don’t really learn (I don’t want that.) or the “hardcore” schools that require you to stay 2 to 3 years. I have a degree in education, have taught elementary students in the states, and am currently teaching english in Prague. I am a dedicated teacher, but only want to stay in Taiwan for a year (and as of right now I don’t speak any Chinese). Are there any other options as far as schools go??
December 20th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
With your background you might be able to work at one of the international schools that caters to children of expats and dual passport-holders. Those jobs are usually a lot of hours, but the benefits and pay are excellent.
February 1st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I got a job offer at Cortland and the compensation in the contract was not nearly as good as the compensation in the article. Here are the numbers.
- 500NT/hr during training which bumps to 800 after.
- 50NT raise only once a year – caps at 1100 (after 6 years!)
- must arrive 1 before class, and 1.5 hours before a 4 hour class. preparation hours are unpaid
- 500NT per class bonus, for full attendance, but this is easily reduced if you are a little late.
- student performance bonus of 1000 per class, if over 80% achieve passing grade on tests (does not say how often tests are given)
- no talk of profit sharing
- 28+ kids 1000NT/month per class bonus – 30+ 2000NT/month
- also you are not given a class at the start. So you are asked to sit in on other teachers, and you will only get get paid 500/hr. There is no guarantee as to when you get a class.
- there is no guarantee as to which school you will go to. which means, after training i could be sent to a school on the other side of Taipei!
Why is the compensation so low relative to this article? Is the article a little outdated and wages are decreased? Is this a lowball offer? It was depressing to say the least, I had been working on my chinese to get a job at one of these good school then the compensation was way lower than what I expected.
Any comments or suggestions?
February 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 am
Only getting one raise per year surprises me, but the rest sounds on the low end of, but within the range they advertise, which is almost exactly what I’ve written here.
The “profit sharing” I wrote of was essentially a bonus for high student numbers in your class. I don’t think most schools talk to teachers about that until the teacher has been there for a couple of years.
As for the rest, it might be a matter of perspective. Getting paid for training is a HUGE investment for a school. They make absolutely nothing from you sitting in on other teachers’ classes. It’s all an investment in your teaching skills and the eventual quality of the education their customers get. Unpaid prep work is normal for any teaching job, and the higher end jobs tend to have more. Paying separately for preparation time encourages the teacher to focus on “putting in the time” rather than getting what needs to be done done, so I don’t expect this will end anytime soon.
They won’t put you in a class until they’re confident you can teach it well. If you bomb the training process, it wouldn’t be very ethical or business savvy to turn the education of 30 kid over to you. You’re right that there are no guarantees. The better opportunities usually don’t come with a zero percent chance of failure.
FYI, I do know 2nd hand of multiple Cortland teachers making well over 100k/month now. I can also tell you for certain that MDW is paying 900/hr starting and that I’m paying 1000/hr starting (but I won’t need any more teachers for a while).
March 31st, 2009 at 10:17 pm
[...] entertainment industry. Income in the culture industry can be very high, as the numbers cited in this post indicate. It is possible for top teachers to make very high incomes for long periods of time. [...]
May 26th, 2009 at 2:08 am
Could I do this? I taught ESL in Taiwan from 2001-2004, including 1.5 years for Sesame Street schools. I speak a little Chinese but have the Rosetta Stone software. Since then, I have taught in the public schools in the USA, and am now a licensed teacher and have my Masters degree in Teaching. I also have a Bachelors in Anthropology/Film, and can make video training materials. Where else could I look to work when I return to Taiwan, that will pay really well? What about a professor job? What about working on a PhD in Taipei while teaching?