Teaching

I have been back in Taiwan since October 20, this time to try teaching English. Me and Beatrice are both here, with one year contracts to teach at Gloria English School, one of the many English cram schools in Taiwan.

I don't think I'm especially good at teaching English, at least at a school like Gloria with rather animated classes. I think things are mostly going ok, though, so hopefully I can do a reasonable job for the year. In any case, it's certainly been a good thing to try.

All regular classes at Gloria (the exceptions are story book and conversation classes and maybe some of the special high level classes) have both a local teacher and a foreign teacher. Each week the class has one session with the local teacher and one with both teachers together. The local teacher handles the homework and coordination things (talking to parents and so on), which makes the foreign teacher role relatively easy.

Each session is one and a half or two hours. Weekday classes are always in the late afternoon or evening, since students have regular school too. Saturday classes can be any time, although I think there is some sort of break for early afternoon. The only weekday off for Gloria teachers is Sunday, but from what I've heard it is usually easy to get time off on request.

Regular Gloria classes range from complete beginners level up to students who can actually converse a bit and read long passages, and from really little kids up to high school students. I've had most of the levels (I've been doing a lot of subbing, so I see different classes). The different levels all have advantages and disadvantages for teaching. The middle range is probably easiest to teach overall. The younger students have a lot of energy and can be fun, but get out of control easily and don't know enough English to talk much. The older students are more advanced but can be hugely busy with regular school and are often less motivated.

Location

We are living in downtown Taoyuan city, at an apartment-dormitory provided by the Gloria at one of their schools. There are currently only four people in the apartment, with quite a few more foreign teachers in a larger dormitory at another Gloria school in the city. Our location is pretty convenient, as we are a few blocks from the train station and stops for a number of local and long-distance bus lines.

Taoyuan county is the area west and south west of Taipei. It is probably most notable for containing the international airport, which is up north near the ocean. Taoyuan city is some distance south of the airport, fifteen or twenty kilometres from Taipei or a bit under an hour by train or bus. The other large city centre in Taoyuan county is Jhongli city, farther west and a little south along the train line. Gloria has a number of locations throughout Taoyuan county, with the major concentrations being the northern schools in and around Taoyuan city and the southern schools in and around Jhongli city. The head office and at least one more dormitory are also down south somewhere. I work mostly at the northern schools, but have been to a couple of the southern schools to sub classes.

Taoyuan city isn't the most interesting place to live, as it is mostly a featureless urban expanse. The Rough Guide to Taiwan notes that "it's now the fastest growing city in Taiwan and wholly unattractive". I assume from the location and growth that is largely an expansion of Taipei to hold excess population. On the other hand, it is certainly not bad. It has enough stores to easily cover common needs and wants, and is close enough to Taipei to make commuting there easy. The city is bordered in the east by a series of hills, which have some trails and are a lot quieter. Near the hills there is a creek running roughly north, and there is a largish park on the section near us and intermittent smaller parts farther along.

Life Here

Transportation has been quite convenient overall. I walk to the closest school and occasionally to some of the other nearby schools, but mostly take buses. I've also taken trains to get to the southern schools (and Taipei). Sometimes working out which bus to take is tricky without knowing more Chinese, but I can usually get instructions from the school. Bus fares seem reasonably cheep, although I'm not sure what the structure for them is. Usually when you get on the bus you pay and tell the driver where you are going, and they give you a ticket slip which you then return when you get off. The local buses also have a card system. You can buy a card and add money to it at one of the bus offices, and then just need to touch it to a sensor when getting on and off. Trains are also reasonable. An express train to Taipei is 69 TWD, or about 2.3 CAD. To get to the southern schools I've used local trains, which run on the main lines but feel more like the Taipei MRT inside. These are if anything cheaper than the buses. Most of the foreign teachers here seem to use scooters instead of taking the bus. I may look into that eventually, but so far the bus system seems to work fine. The traffic is pretty intimidating, although I suspect actually not any less safe than in Greater Vancouver.

Shopping is also reasonably convenient. Taoyuan doesn't have the huge shopping areas that Taipei does, but it's big enough to have a good variety of of stores. I haven't had problems finding anything, although I think my requirements have been fairly low. I gather Taoyuan may be cheaper than Taipei for some things (at least electronics). One difficulty is finding English books. I'm not aware of anything in Taoyuan, so the nearest good store seems to be Page One in the Taipei 101 mall. It's actually a pretty good book store, possibly preferable to Chapters for me.

Some of the stores here have what seems to me like strange combinations of goods. Down the street from the dormitory is a Kuang Nan store (I believe this is the same chain where I got my SDHC reader in Tainan back in the summer), which has CDs, DVDs, and small electronics on the first floor; household products, watches, and various other things on the second; and stationary on the third. Around the corner is another store which has cosmetics on the first floor; lingerie on the second; and household products, food, and stationary on the third. Both of these have been quite useful. There are also three large department stores in the downtown. These are mostly too upscale to be very useful, apart from the Wellcome (see below) in the basement of one.

For eating out, the cheaper food is mostly the same as what I noted on my trip, largely small noodle places, snack stalls, and bubble tea stores. Having Beatrice along has let me a try some things that I didn't know how to order on my trip before. Perhaps the major development is trying breakfast stores and stalls, which seem to usually serve sandwiches (and similar things like croissants), egg pancakes, noodles, and congee along with tea, soy milk, and rice milk. There are also more expensive restaurants, although most food is still cheaper than Vancouver prices. In the downtown a lot of the mid-range options are pasta places, with varying local interpretations of pasta. There are food courts in the department stores, but these are also a bit more expensive and for the most part I haven't found anything especially interesting there.

For eating in, vegetables can often be had from street markets and sometimes individual roadside sellers. Fruit is similar, with the addition of more fixed stores for it. Bread is easily available from bakeries and supermarkets, but is usually low quality sliced sandwich bread or in bun form. We've been buying other things (and sometimes produce too) mostly from Wellcome supermarket, although we are slowly finding better places for some things. There are some smaller supply stores which I largely haven't worked out yet, and there is a southeast Asian community south of the train station with some cheep and relatively varied stores. Unfortunately the best place for some groceries (like cheese) is Carrefour, the nearest location of which is near the other Taoyuan city Gloria dormitory; it's not inaccessible but also not very convenient. We are not entirely sure yet that our current cooking is any cheaper than eating out, so we need to work that out and adjust accordingly.

The weather hasn't been great overall, but certainly no worse than Vancouver at this time of year. When we got here it was hot, and then by some time in November it started getting relatively cold. Since then it's been mostly cold and often rainy, with occasional breaks of heat and sun. I don't think it actually gets all that cold, but enough that I wear a jacket and sweater outside most of the time.