![\"taiwans-penghu-572238_690x350\"](\"\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/taiwans-penghu-572238_690x350.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
When the Covid-19 pandemic took hold in early 2020, I was living and teaching on a small island off the I began teaching English while I was still in university. A friend I\u2019d met while participating in the Canadian Having only just started university, neither of us would be eligible for a Korean work permit, so we Over the ensuing years, I was able to teach and travel in Poland<\/a>, Taiwan<\/a>, Panama<\/a> and Mexico<\/a>. I also I returned to Taiwan<\/a> in 2011, this time to stay and teach. I ended up working at an English summer camp After nearly ten years teaching in Oaxaca, Mexico<\/a>, I returned in 2020 to teach in Penghu for the second The buxiban I taught at in Magong favoured energetic, enthusiastic teachers who were able to make the About midway through my year, COVID-19 happened. Taiwan<\/a> did an amazing job of slowing and nearly
\ncoast of Taiwan<\/a>. We were on holiday for the Chinese New Year when the news of a terrifying new virus
\nbroke. Of course, nobody knew at that point how seriously to take the news. Being on an island gave us
\nsome sense of remoteness, removed as we were by a short flight from the major urban centres of Taipei
\nand Kaoshiung. I was also working for a small school with a local student base, so our initial concerns of
\npotential outbreaks in our immediate area were, admittedly, minimal. That being said, the government
\nof Taiwan<\/a> took the measure of extending the holiday period for an extra two weeks, giving the school
\nsystem an extra measure of protection before regular classes began again. That decision proved to be
\njust one in a series of very smart moves by Taiwan<\/a>. Following these first steps, Taiwan<\/a> did an incredible
\njob of curbing the spread of the virus within its borders and was one of the Asian countries most lauded
\nfor successfully handling the pandemic. Before getting to the details of teaching English during Covid
\ntimes, I would like to provide a little background on how I got into the field of teaching English overseas
\nand where this incredible career has taken me over the years.<\/p>\n
\nyouth travel program, Katimavik, called me towards the end of my first year of university and asked
\nwhat my plans were for the summer. I told him I was thinking of going out to the beautiful west coast of
\nCanada, maybe to Vancouver. He asked if I was interested in going a little further West than that.
\n\u201cWhat, do you mean like Vancouver Island?\u201d I responded. \u201cNo, I was thinking more like South Korea<\/a>!\u201d At
\nthe time, I didn’t know much about South Korea<\/a>. I doubt whether I would have been able to locate the
\ncountry on a map at that point, let alone tell you about the food, language or culture of the country.
\nI told my friend I\u2019d have to think about it, and then – just to sweeten the deal – he added that his
\nbrother\u2019s girlfriend worked for Air Canada and could get us open-ended, round-trip tickets for just a
\ncouple hundred dollars. With unlimited stopovers, we could stop in Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver to
\nvisit some of our other \u2018Katima-friends\u2019 en route. Well that pretty much sealed the deal and when I
\ncalled him back, I told him I was on board for the adventure.<\/p>\n
\nregarded this trip as more of a fact-finding mission. If we were able to do a little teaching or volunteer
\nwork while there, so much the better. We did end up doing a bit of teaching by working under the table
\nfor some schools in Seoul. In between jobs, we travelled to Jeju Island and some other charming,
\nhistorical cities on the east coast. After that, I went and worked as a volunteer at a Buddhist organic
\nfarm in the south for a month. I also managed to make a two-week trip to Thailand before cashing in my
\nreturn ticket and heading back for my second year of university. Ultimately, I think that trip really
\nstarted me off in my career as an English teacher as I fell in love with the culture, the food and the
\nbeauty of South Korea<\/a>. I now had all these fantastic stories to regale my friends and family with \u2013 I was
\nhooked!<\/p>\n![\"thomas-tucker-au3CYbd7vCU-unsplash\"](\"\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/thomas-tucker-au3CYbd7vCU-unsplash.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nvisited loads of other countries along the way and somehow also managed to finish university
\nsomewhere in all of that. I first visited Taiwan<\/a> on a 14-day stopover that my friend and I, itinerant
\nbackpackers at the time, had on our way to Jakarta to kick off a 6-month tour of southeast Asia. We
\nwere both surprised at the rugged, mountainous beauty and subtropical vibrancy of colours that Taiwan<\/a>
\noffered. I mentally bookmarked it as a hidden gem, well worthy of a return trip and further
\ninvestigation!<\/p>\n
\nfor 6 weeks before landing a job on the island of Penghu, off the southwest coast. At the summer camp
\nwe taught kids aged 6 to 16, and provided them with formal classroom instruction each morning before
\nleading an exciting array of afternoon activities like swimming, indoor wall climbing, scavenger hunts
\nand a lot of dancing! Following that I taught at a private school attached to a kindergarten, where we
\ntaught mostly small groups of young children how to behave well with one another and how to properly
\nhold pencils and form their first letters in English!<\/p>\n![\"jaycee-mariano-PNUxS6kiycM-unsplash\"](\"\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/jaycee-mariano-PNUxS6kiycM-unsplash.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\ntime. Penghu is an archipelago of small islands, some of them not much more than sand bars, with the
\nbiggest city \u2013 Magong \u2013 being a hotspot for both domestic and international tourism, boasting nice
\nbeaches, good windsurfing and a thriving fishing industry. The school I taught at occupied the sixth floor
\nof an office building in downtown Magong. Schools that focus on providing after-school education are
\ngenerally known in Taiwan<\/a> as buxiban. This buxiban catered to children aged 5 to 15, with afternoon
\nclasses mostly geared towards younger learners, and evening classes for some of the older students. I
\nentered Taiwan<\/a> on a tourist visa and the school then applied for a work permit on my behalf. Once that
\ncame through, I took a 40-minute flight over the ocean from Magong to Kaoshiung and submitted my
\nvisa application at the Southern Immigration Office. The visa process for English teachers in Taiwan<\/a>
\nculminates in receiving your Alien Resident Card (ARC), which allows you multiple entries and access to
\nthe national health care program. After several consecutive years of ARC renewals, foreign teachers can
\nthen apply for permanent residency, which is sort of a mark of distinction among seasoned foreign
\nteachers in many countries.<\/p>\n
\nchildren laugh as they learned. A lot of creativity was required for lesson planning as the curriculum was
\nmostly delivered through games, songs, reading passages and then lots more games. Teachers needed
\nto be trained both in how to organize and run the games, as well as to recognize which games were best
\nsuited to which pages of the course books. The training period was challenging but very rewarding, and
\nmy confidence increased steadily as my toolkit of games and activities grew. By the end of training I felt
\nlike I could not only survive several hours with a large group of young learners, but actually enjoy the
\ntime with them and feel like we were working well towards achieving our learning goals as we lobbed
\nsticky balls at the board and raced through hoops and around chairs.<\/p>\n
\nhalting the pandemic within its borders, and as a result we had no recorded cases in Magong during the
\ntime I was there, and comparatively very few cases in the rest of Taiwan<\/a> during that time. Consequently,
\nthe public and private schools in Taiwan<\/a> were able to stay open and our regular classes were not
\ninterrupted at all by the pandemic. We were instructed by the local authorities to wear masks while at
\nwork and in the classrooms, which we did for about a month, and then even that rule was lifted and it
\nwas basically up to teachers and students whether they wanted to continue wearing masks. Mostly we
\ndid, though trying to teach English pronunciation through a mask or evaluate students\u2019 reading and
\nspeaking abilities through masks can prove pretty challenging.<\/p>\n
![\"lisanto-TpwpxP5imPs-unsplash\"](\"\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/lisanto-TpwpxP5imPs-unsplash-300x225.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"alexblogphoto\"](\"\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/alexblogphoto.jpg\")
ex Yealland has taught English to students of all ages in Poland, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan and Mexico. Alex earned\u00a0his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from the University of Guelph, Canada, where he\u00a0also completed graduate coursework in the Latin America and Caribbean Studies M.A. program. He has been teaching overseas for over 10 years, is a fluent Spanish speaker and has taught English at the university level in Mexico for 7 years. Alex is now putting his overseas work experience to good use,\u00a0helping Oxford Seminars graduates find great teaching jobs as a member of the Job Placement Service.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"