I stopped talking and looked down. Not used to having the attention of the class diverted away from me I turned towards the source of the distraction. Standing just outside the door was my TA and what looked to be a new student. After knocking I let a few moments pass before I opened the [...]
When you have an education system such as Taiwan’s, one that is designed to train the population to be unquestioning worker drones from the moment they leave the womb, unexpected consequences are bound to occur. Back in 1999 the BBC ran a story where they cited a report claiming that ‘eighty-five percent of high-school students [...]
When teaching English in Taiwan, it doesn’t take long for people to rack up a series of ‘omg, I had the worst day ever’ stories. Usually these stories revolve around horror brats, their bosses not allowing them to discipline children, parents coming up with all sorts of outlandish complaints suggestions and so on and so [...]
There are some things you can’t do in a public swimming pool in Taiwan. The first and perhaps most annoying rule is that you have to swim with one of those annoying shower caps. The second is that you can’t wear board shorts (yes all you skinny guys are going to put up with looking [...]
When I was back in Australia doing my research on working as an English teacher in Taiwan, I read quite a few accounts of people who look Asian being discriminated against in the workplace. Upon arriving here, I’ve pretty much confirmed what I read – albeit it’s a lot less out in the open and [...]
Like it wasn’t bad enough that I come from Australia where the only people that celebrate Halloween are American wannabes or enterprising kids who think the world owes them something, but imagine my chagrin when I found that I’d have to participate in Halloween as part of my English teaching. Me, who like most of [...]
The daily life of a teaching assistant (TA) in Taiwan goes something like this; 1. wake up 2. go to work 3. wait for kids to arrive (or when the time comes go and pick them up from their respective schools) 4. try and keep some kind of order in the school till classes start [...]
Ever since the industrial revolution, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the redundancy of humans. It started off with the manufacturing industries but as technology has developed, our robotic counterparts have been able to deliver consistent results in ever increasingly demanding environments. Fortunately these robotic devices have been limited in their capacity to perform repetitive [...]
When I came to Taiwan to teach English I brought with me my assortment of office attire I’d been wearing around the office at my previous job. Nothing too top of the range, but I became quite fond of Geoffrey Beene’s slim fit shirt offerings and paired them with some fitted Taro Cash trousers. Cheap [...]
When I came to Taiwan to teach English I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s one thing to read up as much as you can and then another to actually experience it all firsthand. One thing I noticed as I interviewed for various schools was that I found myself often asking the same questions [...]