Taiwan Ministry
opportunities to share God’s truth
Ministry Overview—Teaching English in Taiwan
Hosting Organization
The situation in Taiwan is very unique. Although all the teachers are ATI students, they have been recruited by an organization in Taiwan called the King Car Education Foundation. The director of King Car is Morgan Sun. He was introduced to IBLP students 5 years ago and since then has asked for them to help teach English in his country.
In the winter semester of 2003, ATI students began working with the education departments for the counties of Nantou and Chaiyi. (Nantou County is in the very center of Taiwan. Chaiyi County is about one hour south of Nantou.) The education departments for these two counties picked a number of schools in which they would like the ATI students to teach. While King Car recruits the teachers, the education department and the individual school that they work with employ them.
Teaching Situation
Those working in the schools of Taiwan will serve as assistant English teachers to the head Taiwanese English teacher. Each assistant teacher will work with classes ranging from 3rd grade to 6th grade. On average they will teach 15–20 periods, Monday through Thursday. This has the potential of teaching around 500 children per week.
The school provides transportation for the assistant teachers, is responsible for lunch, and will normally have them back to their dorms by 5:00 PM.
The method by which the assistant teachers work with the Taiwanese English teachers varies at each school. Some head teachers have their assistants teach the class alone. Others split the teaching time in half, 20 minutes for them, 20 minutes for the assistant, and yet others work side-by-side with the assistant during the whole class. Sometimes the assistant teacher may just observe the class.
What is taught in the classroom will also vary from school to school. Some head teachers may allow the use of simple Character First!® ideas in the class. Others desire that only the school’s English curriculum be taught. Generally there is a lot of room for creativity.
Housing Situation
The government provides school dorms as the housing for the assistant teachers. They have provided washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, microwaves, toaster ovens, air conditioners, furniture, computers, etc. Although the setup is simple, it is satisfactory.
Breakfast and dinner are spent as a team, and most often prepared by the team at the dorms. Other times you may go to inexpensive restaurants. Invitations to go out dinner are not uncommon from teacher friends and other families.
Income
Assistant teachers receive a stipend of approximately $7.50 a teaching period. Depending on the county, assistants will have from 12–20 periods a week, which will bring the stipend to $90–$150 weekly. Payment is in Taiwan cash and based on a two week pay period.
Free Time
Other than team meetings or any lesson planning that needs to be done, evenings are pretty much free. There are many children who come by the dorms wanting to play. There are also many opportunities to minister to families and other school teachers in the community.
Most weekends you will have free time to use at your own discretion; shopping, cleaning, meeting up with Taiwanese friends, and Chinese lesson on Fridays. They are good times of rest and ministry. Occasionally on the weekends, the governments or King Car will set up teaching or touring activities for you to participate in.
Church
Depending on the county, there are a few churches that assistant teachers can attend, some of them only Chinese-speaking.