Co-teaching & Workplace Culture

Define the co-teaching model, because nobody else will

Most foreign teachers and their co-teachers never explicitly agree who does what. They improvise for a year, each quietly frustrated, and each assumes the other prefers it this way.

The conversation that fixes most of it takes ten minutes: “For this unit — who plans, who leads, who handles behavior, and when do we swap?” Have it once per unit, not once per year.

Face 面子, described plainly

Face is not vanity and not fragility. It is a person's standing in front of others — and in a school, standing is what lets a teacher manage a class and a director run a department. Damage it and you have not just embarrassed someone; you have made their job harder.

Two rules cover almost every case:

Never correct someone in public. Not a colleague in a meeting, not your co-teacher in front of students, not a director in front of their staff. The same point made privately is usually accepted easily — often gratefully.

Never let someone be surprised in public. If you are going to raise something at a meeting, tell the person concerned beforehand. Being blindsided in front of colleagues is the injury, more than the substance of what you said.

Hearing “no”

Direct refusal is often avoided because it puts the other person in the wrong. What you get instead is one of these — and every one of them means no:

“We'll study it and see.” 我們再研究看看 · “That might be a little difficult.” 可能有點困難 · “Maybe next semester.” · a long pause and a change of subject · enthusiastic agreement followed by nothing happening.

The mistake is not missing it once. The mistake is pushing after it, which forces someone to refuse you explicitly — and now you have made them uncomfortable to get an answer you already had. If you genuinely need to know, ask privately and give an easy exit: “Is this worth pursuing, or should I drop it? Either is completely fine.”

Meetings

Staff meetings are frequently for delivering information rather than debating it. Decisions are often reached beforehand, in conversations between the people concerned. That is not exclusion; it is where the work happens.

So: raise it before the meeting, not in it. And if a meeting runs in Chinese, ask your co-teacher for a two-minute summary afterwards rather than asking for live translation — the second is a real burden on them, the first is a small favour.

Dinners, gifts and envelopes

• Staff dinner聚餐
  Go, even briefly. Showing up is most of it. Pouring for others before yourself is a small, noticed courtesy.
• Weddings and funerals紅包 / 白包
  If invited, attending matters. Ask a colleague what amount is appropriate — this is a normal question and nobody will think less of you for asking. Guessing is how people get it wrong.
• Gifts from parents
  Public-school staff are subject to rules on receiving gifts. The safe habit: decline anything of value, accept only small shared items like fruit or snacks for the office, and tell your school when something substantial arrives. A red envelope is always declined.
• Gifts you give
  To the class or the office, not to an individual student. Souvenirs from home for the staff room are always well received.

The questions you will be asked

Age, salary, marital status, whether you have children, why you do not. In many places these are intrusive; here they are usually ordinary friendliness and an attempt to place you socially. You are not obliged to answer any of them — a light deflection and a question back works perfectly — but reading them as rudeness will make you lonely for no reason.

Disagreeing well

Never put a complaint in writing first. Not email, not LINE — a written grievance is permanent, forwardable, and reads far colder than you meant it. Go in person, privately, and open with the shared goal: “I want this class to go better for both of us — can I ask about something?” Then ask a question rather than making an accusation.

And escalate in order. Going over someone's head is the most expensive thing you can do in a Taiwanese school, and it is rarely recoverable. The exception is anything covered by Modules 4, 5 and 6 — where the duty runs regardless of hierarchy, and where the right move is to say plainly that you have no discretion.

Being included

The single strongest predictor of a foreign teacher having a good year is not language and not teaching skill — it is attendance at things that are not lessons. Sports day. The dinner. The rehearsal. The leaving party for someone you barely know. Each one is an hour, and together they are the difference between a colleague and a visitor.

One thing to do this week

Ask your co-teacher the ten-minute question: for the next unit, who plans, who leads, who handles behavior, and when do you swap. If you have worked together all year without ever asking it, that is not unusual — and it is the conversation most likely to change next year.