Blacklist of schools.

[Puppet]

Adding one since I see they are hiring. St. John's English school in Zhanghua. Just the facts here so nobody can complain about my adding opinions in. You decide if this is what you want.

Pros:
--The owner, Uncle Gary, DOES pay on time. I never felt cheated on pay. (That is a good quality that is hard to find).
--They use good books and materials for the older kids. It wasn't some stupid "Backpack" or "Smart Kids" series.

The problems I found came from how they conduct the classes. The materials were great, but the way they did it did not seem logical. I was told to make sure my kindergarten students could do "ch," "sh," and "ph" before they know what basic sound s, c, p, or h made. (??).
--The materials for the young students were full of errors. I scanned a good percentage of the pages and typed a long list of problems (more for my own amusement than anything else). My favorite: a picture of a shirt. You have to circle "shirt" or "shit."
--invasions into your class are annoying. The owner wanted the kids to have more conversational abilities at home, so he decided to teach the kids songs. (Yeah...insert your own commentary there). I had the manager (who NEVER taught before just recently accepted the job and whose degree was in Plastics Engineering) bust into the class during a reading lesson to tell me that I should stop what I was doing and start teacging, "Do Re Me" to the 11 year olds I was teaching. She did that A LOT.
--He tried to sue someone for leaving without notice. It never worked. But he DID try. Hard.
--Completely pointless field trips. Yes...I am adding this as a fact, not opinion.

The real bottom line is the constant last second change of decisions. "I have an idea at 8:50 AM. Why not have your 9:00 class be about something totally different that we have no materials for? Like...maybe...you could cook food with the kids that we didn't purchase yet?"

It's also just a feeling of incompetence. I remember when they had the outside floors repainted and covered the drain in the process. Guess how wet it was next time it rained. . .

Read the contract carefully. There is part of it that says you will give up the end of year bonus they offer. (Who puts that into a contract?)

[evertonian]

Dude its getting worse ands worse by the sounds of things. Just went for an interview at a school--it was a giraffe school, one right next to taipei 101--was expected to do 18 hours of subbing for free as a "demo" process, expected to work 30 hours a week even though I was getting paid for 17, plus many other things. Check this - they expected me to do "make-up classes", that is, if a kid misses a class for what ever reason (another teacher there told me they miss class for ridiculous things like baseball and piano) then I would have been expected to do that class again for whoever missed it for FREE. If a kid got sick and missed 2 weeks of classes, thats 2 weeks of make-up classes I would have to do for free. They had a clock in clock out system, if I was one minute late (by late that means less than half an hour before class starts), Id be fined 100 dollars a minute. Breaking the contract incurred a 50,000 dollar fee. It was a fkn joke and I almost took it cause there are so few jobs out there at the moment. I dunno if anyone else is feeling the same way as me, but im telling you, the teaching game is getting harder by the day for foreigners. Avoid this place.

[WolvesMon]

Read the subbing forum. Some right jokers advertising @ less than 300 per hour Kindie subbing

[bismarck]

Read the subbing forum. Some right jokers advertising @ less than 300 per hour Kindie subbing

No one who's been here for any measure of time would take something like that. The worry is that newbs will, and in so doing scew us all.
It'll be the end of the road if foreigners are getting 300/hour, because who knows what the poor local teachers will be getting then.

[djkonstable]

Dude its getting worse ands worse by the sounds of things. Just went for an interview at a school--it was a giraffe school, one right next to taipei 101--was expected to do 18 hours of subbing for free as a "demo" process, expected to work 30 hours a week even though I was getting paid for 17, plus many other things. Check this - they expected me to do "make-up classes", that is, if a kid misses a class for what ever reason (another teacher there told me they miss class for ridiculous things like baseball and piano) then I would have been expected to do that class again for whoever missed it for FREE. If a kid got sick and missed 2 weeks of classes, thats 2 weeks of make-up classes I would have to do for free. They had a clock in clock out system, if I was one minute late (by late that means less than half an hour before class starts), Id be fined 100 dollars a minute. Breaking the contract incurred a 50,000 dollar fee. It was a fkn joke and I almost took it cause there are so few jobs out there at the moment. I dunno if anyone else is feeling the same way as me, but im telling you, the teaching game is getting harder by the day for foreigners. Avoid this place.

The Giraffe School by Taipei 101 is horrible. On top of ridiculous demands they will take your taxes and not pay them to the government. They try to not pay your labor insurance and "forget" to register you for health insurance. They will have you work in two buildings but only one is listed on your work permit, which is illegal if you have an ARC through work with them. They will also try to get you to work for free. The boss "Teacher Tony" treats his Chinese staff like crap yelling screaming etc... They do pay on time but that was the only thing they did right. Stay away. You could lose a lot of money especially if you don't know what they are doing with your tax money and don't know how to survive in Taiwan.

[jackalope]

Giraffe English in the zhuangjing district of Kaohsiung.

Boss called me on the phone and offered to hire me, with a "internship period" of 3 months where I would make 35,000 a month, after which I'd be full time making 500/hr teaching 300/hr other hours. After I agreed and worked there for a week, I was informed my pay for the first 3 months would be 20,000, 25,000 and 30,000 accordingly.

[Shearersheed]

Happy Marian, Shulin City, Taipei County.

After you sign the contract and agree what you will do they, change there mind what they said saying that no you have to do this that and the other.


made me stay from 9am, till 8.30 every night of the week.

worked around 80 - 90 hours per week, and only got paid 60 thousand dollars which works out around 400 dollars per hour I think.

Always shouting at you. Telling you your a bad teacher, a certain co teacher wants you to do everything her way, if you don't she goes crazy. Saying my accent is not real English.

Don't give you any advice on what to do, tell you nothing about the class just expect you to know what books go with what classes. All they do is give you a schedule and expect you to get on with it, then complain when things go wrong.

They wouldn't get me any health insurance, and messed up my visa. They also tried to not pay me when I left.

I would advise anyone against working there, if anyone wants anymore details let me know and I can tell you everything.

Oh and when I demanded my money they threatened to get he police to come for me.

[jbstate]

Another school to stay away from is Maple Splendor Academy in Zhubei city, Hsinchu County.
The owner (Jennifer) pretends to be nice, when in fact talks behind your back.
I was promised an ARC when I arrived, turns out they are not a registered school and cannot sponsor a teacher, SOOOO, no ARC, I had to renew my visa a couple of times, while she kept promising that she would start my ARC paperwork anytime, all lies!!!. (The teacher before me had the same problem)
There is no C.T to help you out.
If she sees the opportunity to schedule another class and make more money, she will do so without notifying you, she will just tell you that you have a new class and that "you have to work late tonight."
Only good thing about the school is that she pays on time, that's about it.

[angelmae3995]

Sorry... I watched the 'Hulk 2' a few days ago and have been waiting for the right opportunity to use that quote...

I've worked with a very angry and frustrated Taiwanese manageress before and can sympathise with anyone who has been subject to random bouts of abuse.

1.Here was my first conversation with the said manageress:

Me: Hi Kerry, can you tell me where the text book are please?
Kerry: Oh Teacher! I told you many times before, why you don't remember? Stop asking stupid questions!

2.Before I marked the kids exam papers:

Me: Could I please use your calculator so I can work out the grades?
Kerry: No!
Me: Erm... but if I can't use a calculator then I won't have the grades ready for class. (It was 45 mins before hand)
Kerry: Last teacher stole my calculator, you wanna use it then you sit there and use it! (Right next to her ~ )

3.One more:

Kerry: Why Junior don't know the past perfect!!!??? (this was blasted at me)
Me: Because he's only 6 and it's not even on the course syllabus!

There were many more (these were just some of the shorter examples). The strange this was that whenever I complained about her to the western management, I always came out worse!? More senior teachers suggested that I just pretend that nothing happened... Actually, one Australian teacher had a really novel way of dealing with her, he just repeated the last few words of what she just said while smiling and nodding his head in contemplation ~ it seemed to work.

That reminds me of my current boss. And I would very much like to leave the school now... Just signed my second year contract 1 month ago... but now I'm regretting... So ass backwards

[angelmae3995]

What's with people still posting the buxiban.com link? I don't get it. Its been dead for years so how is it that random people join the Flob and then post that link? Anyone here know?

Because we are reading the whole thread and come across it... some decide to ask. I ignored.. hahaha