Within twenty-four hours after British student Gail Carpenter arrived in Taipei from a trip around Nepal and Thailand, she found her first job teaching English. She had learned from a conversation on a Thailand beach that native speakers of English could earn easy money in Taiwan. "I hardly knew where Taiwan was before that," she jokes. But Carpenter's salary is nothing to laugh at, especially since she has virtually no professional teaching experience. She is teaching thirty-five hours a week at US$13 an hour, which is about average for a native English speaker, and is planning to save about US$350 a week to help pay for her college education back in England.
Students from the U.S., Britain, and Australia crowd Taipei's youth hostels, especially during the summer months, and a large portion of them expect to supplement their savings by teaching English classes in the city's many language schools and puhsipan or "cram schools." They are often lured to Taiwan as much by the prospects of illegally earning large sums of tax-free money in a short time as they are of studying Chinese and traveling around the island. (Because they do not have work visas, part-time teachers usually do not sign contracts and are paid in cash; the schools and employees thus are able to bypass government work and tax regulations.)
The English language is a hot commodity in Taiwan. Schools and students are willing to pay top dollar to native English speakers, even though most of these part-time teachers have neither the professional qualifications nor the experience to teach English as a second language. They can, however, speak their mother tongue—plus slang, idioms, accents, and all—and these skills are in great demand. Nearly two hundred English-language schools operate legally in Taipei alone, and perhaps a far greater number of them operate illegally. Students and other expatriates form a large portion of their teaching staffs. Moreover, a substantial number of expats take on private tutorials.
The tremendous local interest in learning English is fueled by a number of economic and social factors. "Taiwan is no longer an isolated island," says Kai Chen, financial controller at Jardine Matheson. "People go abroad to travel and study much more often than in the past. They have a need to communicate face-to-face."
David Rogers, general manager of Nesheim & Rogers, a corporate development consulting firm that provides business English training, says that often the ability to speak English determines the applicant's suitability for a job. Kai Chen adds that this is true for multinational companies like Jardine as well. "Speaking English is basically a requirement," he says. "The higher the position, the more often you have to speak it. If you want to move up, you must speak English."
Rogers and Chen both agree that the general level of English ability has risen since 1985, primarily because of exposure to the language and an increased level of interest in English training. "In general, many business people can now communicate in basic English with no problem," Chen says. "I often find people in business who can already speak very good English."
In response to the growing demand for English teachers, the number of native English speakers flocking to Taiwan is increasing rapidly. Rumors of high salaries and easy, plentiful work attract European and American university students and other travelers along Asian tourist routes. But many educators fear that the guidelines for hiring and training teachers are inadequate. Money changes hands and English words are spoken in language classes, but it is questionable whether these teachers are actually qualified to teach English to their students.
"Many of these teachers don't even have the tools or qualifications necessary to design a curriculum," Rogers says. "They don't understand the needs of their students and instead focus more on free, undirected talk." In other words the people do not have a clue about how to teach.
Many English-language schools and puhsipan compound this problem by providing inexperienced teachers with nothing more than a book and a classroom. There is no set structure outlining learning objectives or how to achieve them. Teachers are often thrown into a no-win situation, much as Gail Carpenter was on her first teaching job.
Like most newly arrived English speakers, Carpenter had never taught English before. For her first job, she was told to go to a classroom on Chungshiao West Road. "I got there and they said, 'Here's your class and here's your book.' I walked in and I had twelve adults whose English abilities ranged from zero to almost fluent. It never occurred to me that there would be such a range. So the first thing I did was try to get them talking. The problem was that only the ones that already knew English answered the questions." In Carpenter's next class there were sixteen students, again of different abilities. After that brief experience, she dropped out of the school to search for a better teaching situation.
Ken Fox, an American who recently graduated from Washington University, ran into a similar problem with his first teaching job. He says that when he was hired to teach children at an English school, he was told he would be teaching a class of twenty-five students. Like Carpenter, he received no orientation except for a page number in a textbook. He then walked into a classroom filled with over forty-five children and their parents.
"At first, I felt overwhelmed and angry, and I'm sure it showed during the class. After the class, the man who hired me said, 'You should have asked more questions, should have gotten the students talking. Try to be a personal teacher.'"
In fact, many schools provide little or no training. At worst, teaching has taken second place to the allure of quick profits. The result is unhappy, frustrated teachers left to the wind and their own devices, or teachers who just don't care about student progress. "At first I gave 110 percent to my classes," Fox admits, "but now...."
But some schools, such as English Language School International (ELSI), Hess Language School, and Nesheim & Rogers, have developed training programs in an attempt to attract and retain good teachers. According to Karen Hess, founder of the island's largest English school for children, good teachers make good business sense. "If you're not making money, you're not going to have a school. From a business standpoint, if you have a good school, you'll have lots of students. And teachers are what make a good school."
David Rogers—"Many of these teachers don't even have the tools or qualifications necessary to design a curriculum."
Yet how do serious schools find dedicated teachers, and how do native English speakers with a genuine interest in teaching find good schools? For a new teacher the process is usually one of trial and error. Ken Fox, for example, simply kept trying out different schools. He is now teaching twenty hours a week at a school called Global Village because he likes its informal teaching atmosphere, abundant classroom materials, and regular paychecks.
Sabina Wen, who had been teaching English for two years prior to moving to ELSI, is upbeat about her school's facilities. She says ELSI's atmosphere is conducive to good teaching, with lots of teacher discussions, ample classroom materials, and a good social life. "They really seem to care about learning. At first, I felt a lot of pressure. I felt I wasn't a good enough teacher. At other schools it didn't matter whether you taught well."
ELSI No.4 director Brian McCloskey says that because he has a smaller school, he can afford to be picky when choosing teachers. Still, he admits to a shortage when summer vacations begin. "During the summer, things change radically. Students climb in through the window, so I'll need more teachers. Many people who wouldn't be working here [otherwise] will be hired."
The teacher's lounge is airy and well lit, with large tables for correcting papers, file cabinets along the wall containing teaching materials and instructions, and a library of over 150 books on teaching theory. "[Teachers] come here because it's more organized and all they have to do is worry about their classes," McCloskey says. "You can get better pay elsewhere, but not the support system, materials, and atmosphere. Most people work here because they prefer it."
McCloskey also employs two teacher trainers whose primary purpose is to build enthusiasm in teachers. "They approach teachers, help them prepare classes, suggest new ideas and research techniques, and introduce new books," he says. If teachers have problems with their classes, the teacher trainer works with them to improve the situation. But if teachers fail to implement any new ideas, their hours will be cut and, in some instances, they will lose their jobs.
This year, Hess Language School has developed a recruiting program to attract teachers from U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities, offering incentives such as a legal working visa, health insurance, and living assistance in return for a one-year teaching commitment of twenty hours per week. Founder Karen Hess says the school devised the program because Hess was growing bigger and needed more teachers. "You're going to invest time training them, why waste your time if they're going to leave?"
Nationally, Hess employs a total of six hundred teachers and has an average enrollment of 18,000 students. Four teachers recruited from the U.S. will begin their one-year contract in the 1990 summer session. In September, thirteen others are expected to arrive.
Hess's training system is designed for teachers with no prior teaching experience. Alan Dolan, the foreign teacher manager at the school's Ho Ping branch, says that new teachers review beginning English textbooks and study the class syllabus, training notes, and a video of a beginning children's class. After that, they train for the specific level of student they will teach, observe two classes, and then role play as both student and teacher. After a few weeks, Dolan says, a manager will evaluate their progress and suggest improvements. "We try to be positive but constructive," he says. "To have people committed to the school, you have to be committed to them. Teachers need managers who will help them out with anything—landlords, finding a Chinese school, anything."
At Nesheim & Rogers, general manager David Rogers carries the idea of commitment a step further, explaining that the goal of all his programs is to get students to take responsibility for their own progress. "Most classrooms place that responsibility on the teacher," he explains. "The problem comes because teachers don't know how to help students accomplish their goals. And they don't care, as long as they are collecting their money."
Initial teacher training at Nesheim & Rogers includes reviewing a teacher's guide written by Rogers, watching video presentations, and taking part in consultation sessions. After 120 hours of actual teaching experience, the teacher's performance is evaluated through a follow-up with the class and discussions with the teacher. Twelve to fifteen teaching and communication skills workshops are held per year, but teachers are not required to attend them if their schedules cannot allow it. Rogers says he prefers a "management by consulting" approach. "You get people together, voice ideas and opinions, and come up with ideas. Teachers interact and learn from each other. Then they carry this process into the classroom."
Nesheim & Rogers recruits most of its teachers through advertising in the China Post, one of Taipei's English language newspapers. The school prefers career-oriented business people and requires all teachers to be college graduates. Two or three of every ten people interviewed are chosen (most schools turn down fewer job applicants). The qualities Rogers searches for are "a professional image and pride in themselves and the work they do; these are people who are not just passing through, they're looking for career opportunities." Unlike most English schools and puhsipan, Nesheim & Rogers is able to hold on to its teachers. Almost one-third of the current thirty-two teachers have remained with the school since it was founded in 1988.
This ability to hold on to good teachers is a sign of greater professionalism emerging in the English school scene. In the final analysis of language school effectiveness, student progress in learning how to communicate is what counts. If schools are committed to students and teachers are enthusiastic and dedicated to their job, there are good prospects for success in teaching people English as a second language. And just as public demand has made English teaching a lucrative business in Taiwan, the competition for qualified teachers is now making higher standards of teacher training a necessity.