How to make more money as an English Teacher in Taiwan
June 28th, 2006 by MarkHaving spent the last three and a half years as and EFL teacher in Taiwan, and having seen an extremely wide variety of schools, I like to consider myself to knowledgeable about the English industry here. When I first arrived, I knew nothing. At my first job, I worked at a Sesame Street branch, and earned less than a sixth of what I had previously been making at home. I was paid $500NT per class hour with no raises in sight. In other words I did three paid hours per day at about $15USD, plus another hour of unpaid preparation work. Now, I’m making $1150NT (about $36USD), with more hours and a $50 raise every six months for as long as I stay. Admittedly, my prep-time has increased, but there are no two ways about it- I’m doing a heck of a lot better than I was a couple of years ago.
So, what’s changed? Well, I have gained teaching skills and language skills, but they aren’t the crucial element. The biggest change is just that I’ve changed my way of looking at employment in Taiwan (and in general). Rather than looking at employment as a situation where I hope a boss will give me what I deserve, I now look at it as a situation in which I’ll earn what I want.
Today, I saw a post on David’s blog, in which he wrote about how his pay as an English teacher since his recent return to Taiwan compares with what he made in 1999. Basically, in terms of Australian dollars, he’s only making 9% more now than he was then, despite the vast improvements in his Chinese speaking abilities and the extensive teaching experience he’s accumulated over the past 7 years. He says that employers find him an attractive candidate, but they just don’t offer him that much money.
I am sure there are some jobs out there which do actually reward people for their qualifications and experience, but they seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Often jobs that require a B.Ed. or Master’s degree offer salaries that are little different from what an FOB gets paid for working in a kindergarten.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years, it’s that appealing to an employer’s sense of justice is a tough, tough way to go. While employers may feel, in an abstract sort of way, that somebody with a master’s degree is more deserving of a job, they won’t usually cough up much more than an extra 10% more money for it. It’s frustrating for the person who’s invested years of study and thousands of dollars to get the degree, but it is rational. How much benefit will a school, particularly a cram school or a high school, derive from having a teacher with a master’s degree?
The only effective way I’ve found of getting paid more, is to appeal to an employer’s greed. It’s only by acquiring the skills necessary to attract a large number of loyal customers that any employee can have much sway over his or her employer. In the software world, this isn’t so uncommon. Having a key skill that a company needs in order to make a certain product, is enough. As an EFL teacher, the task is more difficult, and the (monetary) rewards are usually much smaller. Still, there are customers. The students or, in the case of children, their parents are the customers. By providing something they really want, a teacher can make a lot of money for a school. In this sort of situation negotiating higher pay is very doable. Having a master’s degree in a related field isn’t a bad start, but in order to translate into a higher salary, it has to be leveraged into an educational experience that people want to pay for.
Obviously, not all employers are willing to pay more for an exceptional employee. Some may be so set in their ways that they’ll refuse to break the mold, even when they see an opportunity to make more money themselves. Many others will just be oblivious to those sorts of opportunities. Fortunately, there are many, many employers to chose from. In general, regardless of your job, the more individual accountability you have, the more opportunities you’ll have to differentiate yourself from your colleagues. A school in which each class is taught by one and only one teacher would be a good place to start looking. If there are no co-teachers, and your classes are consistently fuller than those of other teachers, your value to the school will increase. If your students acquire more fluent and more correct English than those in other classes or schools, and new students arrive specifically asking to join your classes, then your value will rise another notch.
Accountability does have a hard edge, though, as your shortcomings will be impossible to blame on others. Maybe the school I described above isn’t the best place for a teacher new in Taiwan to start. As Paul Graham said in his excellent essay titled , “How to make wealth“, you won’t get rich in a job that feels safe.
A good hint to the presence of leverage is the possibility of failure. Upside must be balanced by downside, so if there is big potential for gain there must also be a terrifying possibility of loss. CEOs, stars, fund managers, and athletes all live with the sword hanging over their heads; the moment they start to suck, they’re out. If you’re in a job that feels safe, you are not going to get rich, because if there is no danger there is almost certainly no leverage.
In short, if your school doesn’t fire non-performing teachers, you probably won’t ever make much there. Without the possibility to fail, there is no possibility to succeed, either.
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.
How to make money teaching English
- Learn how to be a be a better teacher
- Learn Chinese
- When negotiating salary, appeal to your boss’s own self-interest
- Offer genuine value to your students
- Take jobs in which you might fail
- When one path is blocked, find an alternate one
June 29th, 2006 at 6:35 am
I know a few people who make over NT$100,000 per month teaching English in Taiwan. However, their method is not very smart. It basically involves teaching as many hours per week as possible.
It doesn’t take a genius to work out that teaching for 25 hours per week at NT$1,000 per hour is infinitely preferable to teaching 40 hours per week at NT$600 per hour. I like your more thoughtful approach to this problem.
June 29th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Nice post and perfect timing for my mood :). The link to the wealth building article has 2 https (the second one is missing a “:”) in it and that messes up the link.
June 30th, 2006 at 5:20 am
David, I don’t know how those guys do it. There’s no way my vocal cords could handle forty class hours a week.
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:02 pm
basically, make sure you have all your students phone numbers. Have a relationship with not only the students but the parents. Then quit the school. Start out of your own apartment. As word of mouth gets around, you will be making over 40 dollars an hour out of your pad.
Get some business cards made. Appeal to the PARENTS. Present yourself as a valuable commodity. make sure key words such as “experienced” and “excellent” appear on the cards. Hand them out to parents you meet at the market, walking on the street, standing in line. Even if the preson you give the card to is not interested, someone they know might be. For how much it cost to make a busines s card, its worth the gamble.
Speak Chinese. This is essential. you will get nowhere and not be able to cordinate anything unless you can speak the language. You might be able to bypass the langauge barrier with a trustworthy assistant.
July 8th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
chicanohek, I sure hope you’re not an English teacher, because not only is your comment replete with English mistakes, you’re also suggesting poaching, which is unethical and makes you a bad role model.
July 17th, 2006 at 4:40 pm
hi, i just want to say to ms that ur comment about chicanohek english mistakes is not true. it is not replete wiht english mistakes. i found only one spelling mistake, ‘language’ which he spelt the second time he used it, as ‘langauge’. if u think he made english grammer mistakes u r mistaken. he may not conform to standard practise of having sentences with subject and object, but it is correct conversational(informal) english.
i dont think he is poaching, unless he has signed a contract which prohibits him to contact the students after he resigned from the school.
August 27th, 2006 at 9:40 am
[...] UPDATE: Mark of Doubting to Shuo discusses this further on his blog. He has some interesting ideas about how to realise financial rewards teaching in Taiwan. [...]
October 6th, 2006 at 10:44 am
ha ha ha….yes i am an engrish teacha and a damn good one at that….jizt becose i can’t spell does not shed light on my intelligence or ability as an educator…..your attempt at trying to cut down my comments on your blog only serve to obscure the reality….that teaching english in china or taiwan or Japan is about making money…period…..look at any language training center and you will see that they are run by people with business degrees or investors looking to make quick and sleazy profits…it you don’t fight for your share of the pie then you are complicent in the scheme and a chump…period….chicanohek….
November 29th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Most foreigners are just overwhelmed and don’t really have the time to really think things through. If we had the time when we arrived, we would have just gone directly to the schools for employment.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
[...] Toshuo on how to make more money as a teacher in Taiwan, the lowdown on teaching English in Taiwan. [...]
February 4th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Very solid approach–
Cram school is not our ordinary school. It is a business.
A successful cram school teacher can earn a lot of money in Taiwan on all subjects. This teacher needs to have a very effective teaching method with a very attractive personality. Like teachers, there is no commitment at cram school for students either. From the employer’s point of view, teacher who brings in more students will be paid higher for sure. Experience as seniority is not counted at cram school.
February 17th, 2007 at 5:25 am
I’m a native English speaking Asian American with a doctorate in TESOL, and have thought about moving to Taiwan to be a cram school English teacher. Can someone give me an idea of how much I could make?
March 10th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
This is a response to Jasmine’s post on Feb 17. I’m a Canadian Born Chinese (CBC) and I’ve been working in Taiwan for five years. It had been challenging at times for me because, like the previous posts have mentioned, cram schools are businesses. Therefore, many schools I had interviews with literally booted me out because I’m Asian. But, what’s funny is that they were shocked to find an Asian speaking ‘perfect’ English. Your TESOL will help but I think cram schools will factor in your skin. It’s sad but that’s reality because they’ll perceive you exactly how their clients will. And, that is you’re Asian and you can’t possibly know English like a ‘real’ foreigner.
June 29th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
yea, I’ve signed up for a job in japan and one in thailand, so be it I’ve been trying to teach Physiognomy for years,and numerology also. so maybe I will get lucky.,who knows what will happen now days…..Dig where I’m coming from. Signed Ron from, OCTA
June 29th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I believe if you teach some one something that they have never heard of before and you make it interesting and fun then you can draw the customers, into your nest.
July 3rd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
How to make more money as an English Teacher in Taiwan…
Though this story is specifically about teaching ESL in Taiwan, the principles Mark talks about are good all around concepts for being an ESL teacher, and are just as relevant for teachers in the People’s Republic of China….
August 25th, 2007 at 4:38 am
To those that teaches English in Taiwan:
I have taught few years in Taiwan,
and I’ve known some teachers in China, let me tell you the facts,
the pay are a lot better in Taiwan than in China,
you can still make at least around $2000 per month in Taiwan,
but in China the average pay is only about $600 per month,
so we shouldn’t complain too much once we do the comparison.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Found this article a few days back and as i read your post, i feel that this could be helpful to a lot of people who want to teach from home rather than travel because as they say, the system is free to use.
July 27th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Great post man, but I have a problem with the money I already have. I have about 3,000 USD in my Taiwanese bank account, what is the cheapest way to send it back to America?
September 4th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Hey Josh,
The cheapest way would be to find someone who needs Taiwan dollars and can transfer US$ into your account in the US. Like me.
Email me at adamhargrove with the “at yahoo” domain.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Wire transfers are the cheapest way for that amount of money. Most Taiwanese banks charge about 700NT for an outgoing international wire transfer.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Hello all, Ive been teaching for five years now, four in korea and one in thailand. currently im in japan and im thinking of going to taiwan next year, can anyone suggest the best place to make good scratch? cheers