Teaching English in Taiwan- Co-workers

I will be doing a few posts on what it is like to teach in Taiwan. In my first post I started by talking about my schedule and how the classes are organized. In future posts I will talk about locations, teaching, the students, and life in Taiwan as a teacher.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I work with 3 other foreign teachers. Two have been at that school for 10+ years: Sven and Vicky. Myself and the other teacher, Peru, started within a few weeks of each other.

Vicky is a single grandmother who has been teaching in Taiwan for 14+ years. Originally from Canada, she lives in an apartment right next to the school. She is always involved in making props for her classes, even on her time off. She lives and breathes teaching English.

Sven is married to a local Taiwanese woman and has one daughter who goes to the school. Sven is cool. He is very easy going and very helpful. He is English.

Peru is from Massachusetts. He was very quiet at first. He seems like a science nerdy type. I’m not sure how he does at teaching. Peru lives in the same building as me.

Then there is the management staff. Banu is the Principal, Sally is the director for the K classes and Mona is the director for the P classes. Banu is ok to work with. She will listen to you but is involved with a lot of stuff. Sally, well, no one likes Sally. She is very up-tight and angry about something. Mona is ok. She seems angry all the time too but Sven tells me otherwise.

Co-teachers. I have a co-teacher for each class. One of my K class teachers is really cool. We work well together. She is good at classroom management and has the class trained to listen to foreign teachers. The other K teacher is not so good. Her class does not listen very well. They have already adapted the ‘foreigner monkey syndrome’. No other P class teachers stand out as being very helpful either. When you sign up to teach you are told they will be in the class with you, that is mostly a lie. Don’t expect a lot of help from them.