2005
January 2nd, 2006 by MarkAt the end of 2004, I wasn’t happy with my progress in terms of job skills, saving money, or learning Chinese. I’d been wasting my time trying to study part time at Shida, while working at a boring and unfulfilling big chain English school. It was time for a change.
Since I couldn’t manage to save up enough money to go to a better Chinese school, I decided to quit taking classes at Shida, and work full time at a better English school. After a short time at Tomcat, I was recruited by Modawei on January 1st, 2005. Tomcat and Modawei are not at all like most other bŭxíbāns. Both are hard-core programs. All the teachers are native English speakers who can speak at least a fair amount of Chinese. They make the students talk, and talk loudly enough to correct their pronunciation mistakes. Unlike other bŭxíbāns, the kids have to do their homework. Also unlike other bŭxíbāns, students who don’t pass their exams fail the semester and have to repeat it. It’s a demanding system for the students and the teachers, but the students make progress at about 2-3 times the speed of students at the big chains and end up with much better pronunciation, too. The teachers have to grade a lot of books and listen to a lot of tapes, but they get paid $900/class hour + $600/training hour starting. As soon as I started at Modawei, I was making $70,000/month. I learned a few finer points of English grammar, and I also learned a lot about dealing with parents. Also, I had some really awesome co-workers there. I hung out after work with pretty much all the guys in my office. Mike, Martin, Caskey, my trainer Adam, and especially Nathan all became decent friends. Even the managers at my branch were pretty cool to hang out with, when they had the time to go out. All in all it was pretty good… until the boss decided that to make me sign a new contract saying that all intellectual property I created at work or otherwise, was his. He also revealed that unlike the hiring manager had told me during the recruitment process, Modawei won’t let successful teachers franchise. One of my co-workers said he got yelled at for asking about the bonus system, which turned out to be different than we were told during recruitment. It was time to go.
At the end of June, I started working at First Step, a school run by a former Modawei teacher. I’m making $1100/hour, with $50/hour raises every six months. As any reader of my blog will know, I’m absolutely psyched about this school. I’ve never seen any other school get such good results in my life. There are just too many ways to describe how much better our curriculum is than any of the other hard-core schools such as Tomcat, Cortland, or Modawei. The curriculum is based more strongly on word frequency. We cover nearly the same amount of grammar in three semesters as they cover in five. My boss Ron, came up with a series of phonics and spelling rules and drills which not only help the students learn how to spell words they’ve never heard before, but also greatly improve their accents. Starting towards the end of the third semester, we make extensive use of graded readers such as the Oxford Bookworms collection. I don’t know of any other bŭxíbān in Tawian that does this. Most children are incapable of reading actual books even after studying for four years at places like Hess, Joy, or even Tomcat or Cortland. There’s far too much to write about here, so suffice to say my work is very rewarding. I feel like I’m actually changing lives for the better.
In terms of Chinese, I didn’t make too much progress. I’ve been half-heartedly trying to study on my own, but I’m usually pretty drained after work. Obviously working at Tomcat, Modawei, and First Step has greatly improved my ability to speak Chinese to large audiences, talk about English grammar, and phonics. Talking with parents has helped me learn a few thing about how laziness, frustration, motivation and other behavioral issues are spoken of. I’ve picked up a few more Chinese characters I can read. All in all, though, it’s been a wash. I’ve probably forgotten how to write enough characters and regressed enough in terms of pronunciation to make up for all of what I did acquire. Oh, well. It’s a lot better than my Chinese would be if I’d gone home for a year.
One nice thing about 2005 was that my mom came to visit me. It was really great to see her. I’m really happy she was able to spare the time from her busy schedule and find some one to fill in for her. She lives in a tiny, tiny town; and I think she’s the only doctor living there. She lived in Africa before, when she was doing some research, but she’d never been to Asia. It really was neat to take her around and show her stuff. She wasn’t too thrilled with 台北, but once we got outside the main city, she liked it a lot more. I guess it’s kind of hard to impress an American with stuff like Sogo or Warner Village. She’d been to malls that were pretty much identical, which sold the same stuff for way less money in Chicago.
All in all, 2005 was a good year. I broke out of the rut I was in in 2004 and started to make progress, albeit indirectly, towards my long-term goals. I made some friends, saved some money, started blogging, and had a chance to see my mom. I think 2006 will be even better!
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January 3rd, 2006 at 1:16 am
You say 70,000NTU, which is a little bit more then 2kUSD.. About how much does one need a month to survive? Is 2kUSD good or not so good? Like, if someone was to live in Taiwan not on a temp. basis, but long term, what would be something to think of in terms of numbers? I’m asking because Taiwan has always been my next place to live on my list.. hehe
January 3rd, 2006 at 5:47 am
Well, I remember reading that the average Taiwanese person makes something like $45,000台幣 a month. It’s about 33台幣 to 1USD. Things here are a little bit more expensive here than in the US. Services are much cheaper, though. Also, taxes are much lower here, and not nearly so many people have cars. I’ve met people raising a two kids on a total income of $40k or less. On the other hand, it’s easy to waste money here, too. One of my old co-workers made more than 100k a month and couldn’t seem to make much progress getting out of debt.
I live in a 2 room appartment and I eat out almost every day, but I’m not really a big spender by nature. I spend about $35k a month.
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:35 pm
70,000 is pretty good. More than most foreign teachers I imagine.
January 3rd, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Hmm. Sounds good..
I was debating coming back to Japan or going to Taiwan — I even applied for and got a visa. Maybe I should have gone. I was also thinking about the Chinese program at NTU as you mentioned. Ahh, the things that could have been. Maybe next time.
The eating out thing is definitely a killer. That’s where all of my money here goes to.
January 3rd, 2006 at 4:19 pm
Hey.. could you put some pictures up of your apartment? I’d like to see it anyways. If I ever clean mine up, I can do the same.
January 4th, 2006 at 2:30 am
I think it would be really easy for you here, Darin. With your level of Japanese, you’d learn Chinese really quickly and be able to adjust to things pretty quickly. Also, while you might just make 50-60k/month for the first year, you could make way more if you learn some Chinese and work at a good school. I made just over $30k this week, and I haven’t even been at this school for a year. Admittedly, I am covering for some of my boss’s classes since he got in an accident. I taught 24 normal class hours, plus 2 hours of advanced tutorials, and I got $2000 for work on the curriculum and manuals. Still though, when I’m at a full class-load (of 24 class hours a week) next year, I expect to be making over $130K ($4,000USD) a month, not counting bonuses. And I’m sure it will go a lot further here than in Japan.
As for photos of the appartment, I’m trying to decide just how much of the clutter I in which I live is fair to inflict upon the world. If I post pictures the way my appartment is now, I don’t think anyone would take me seriously again.
January 4th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Well, I have this rule about teaching English — I don’t. I tried it once, it’s not for me. Right now I work for a translation company that sends me work through email, I translate it and send it back. That’s what I was planing on doing if I went. Also, I don’t know that I would be allowed to as I haven’t graduated college. Start again next year back in the greater Tokyo area.
January 5th, 2006 at 1:25 am
Interesting. At one point, when I was a degree-less programmer and had a good stash of money saved up, I considered going abroad and learning languages. I ended up getting the degree instead, though.
May I ask how you learned so much Japanese and had the chance to live in Japan long enough to do so? Were you a student at a language school? Also, does not having a degree make it hard to work legally as a translator?
January 5th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Well I started as an Architecture student in America. Went to school for one year. Didn’t like it and was looking to transfer when I saw an opportunity to go to Japan for a year. I knew nothing about Japan, but it would get me out of my university and give me a chance to learn about something I knew nothing about.
I went and talk to the people in the office, and they said sure, since I was the only person to express interest. A few months late, I’m in Japan at a university as an exchange student. I studied for about half a year and really liked it, asked if I could stay longer, pulled some strings and boom, two years.
For whatever reasons, I just picked up Japanese really fast, and by the end of the first year, I had outgrown the language program at the school and was taking regular collage courses. Took Chinese language classes, and then Japanese history courses primarily.
After my time was up, I came back to the states and worked for a web design company. I also responded to an add in the Mainichi paper for a translation job and got it. So I was doing that too. Since I was in America, I had no visa restrictions. Translation is something that doesn’t need the education if you have the skills. If you don’t have the skills, then you need the education. It’s a 実力 based job. Again, for whatever reason, I did well with Japanese.
So after about a year, I’m back in Japan at a language school. Not for studying the language, but for the visa. I wanted to go back to university in Japan again, and I had to be in the country to take the entrance exams, so this was the easiest way to come. I’m at a language school in Okinawa and taking classes for fun at Ryuukyuu University. In March I’ll start real school again at Nihon University’s College of Art, Department of Design.
January 5th, 2006 at 10:22 pm
That sounds sweet, Darin. I wanted to study abroad in Japan while I was in school, but didn’t get the chance. I think in the long run, graduating from a non-English speaking institution will say far more for your language skills and perserverance than any degree from a US school could.
March 22nd, 2007 at 12:08 am
[...] I was doing. My first couple of years in Taiwan were difficult in several ways. That time ended when I started working at Modawei, though. More than anything else, I valued that experience for the people I met. At the time I [...]