Hey all! I recently got a interview with Chiba Language School and everything went really well.
The only problem is that I can’t find anyone else that has worked for them.
Has anyone heard of it, or is able to give a review?
I don’t want to walk into some slave labour situation.
[quote=“Screntz”]Hey all! I recently got a interview with Chiba Language School and everything went really well.
The only problem is that I can’t find anyone else that has worked for them.
Has anyone heard of it, or is able to give a review?
I don’t want to walk into some slave labour situation.[/quote]
Oh boy,
Way back when I was fresh off the boat I went there for an interview. I took the train down to Pingtung and was met by the boss’s son in his little red car. He drove me down to the school while we listened to ICRT and chatted casually. As soon as I got through the door the boss threw a contract in my face and asked me to sign it. I wanted to learn more about the school so I asked for a tour of the premises first. It was a pretty standard kindy with all of the usual facilities. That’s when I discovered their foreign monkey in the back slaving away on some kind of props for a show. I can’t quite remember the full details. As he was a fellow Brit we got chatting and he gave the school a pretty good review (while the boss’s son was stood over his shoulder), however I couldn’t help but notice how tired he looked for such a young lad.
In the end I said I would need some time to think about it and left. I never got back to them regarding their 6 days a week schedule for a high 50’s salary.
Please bear in mind that this was over five years ago now. A lot could have changed.
Good luck.
So this school is advertising again. I thought I’d get in touch. They only want fresh slaves off the boat so I don’t like their chances of finding anyone. They also appear overly religious. Has anyone else got any experience with this? YGExpert is another quasi religious organisation parading as an education institute. Same with Treehouse academy which is in the news every few years for the things they do.
I thought I’d respond to this as I feel it seems unfair and Chiba has been really good to me. I hope my honest impression and experience working at the school for the past year helps inform anyone else deciding to make the jump to Taiwan. If you do pursue a job with Chiba, we actually might end up meeting as I’m signing on for a second year :).
As far as teaching jobs in Taiwan go, I think it’s pretty fantastic. The pay is good, cost of living is low and I, personally, really enjoy the job. The classes are quite small and you have a Taiwanese co-teacher there the vast majority of the time. Thinking back on the 30 kids in a classroom with one teacher system that I grew up in, I shudder to think what we put those poor people through :). I’ve spoken with friends who have worked in Taiwan at other schools and their experiences were less than great. I didn’t realize how much better it was at Chiba compared to other schools for a number of reasons. One is the hours. The shifts are Monday to Friday, about 7.5-8 hours a day with a close to 2 hour break in the middle of the day. Every other school, unless you have a teaching degree on top of a bachelor’s, it’s really hard to find a job that has weekends off. The second thing I found beneficial was the pay. I don’t recall off the top of my head what the exact number my friend told me he was making at a different Taiwanese school but it was significantly less. I’ve also heard from a friend who has taught at another school in Taiwan, describe the other school as “soulless”. Kind of a punch your card, get in and out sort of deal. He actually ended up coming back to Chiba later.
Now, I’m not saying that’s all other schools. I’m sure there are some other great one’s out there. I just haven’t heard those reviews from others teaching English in Taiwan.
I’ve never had any issues with pay and I’ve saved a great portion of my income. My colleague has done the same and he’s planning on traveling for a year after he finishes his contract which he’ll be able to comfortably afford.
The kids are really great. They’re mostly from well-to-do families and have both parents at home and/or grandparents as well. I guess it depends on what your attitude towards kids in general is but I genuinely adore the kids. A lot of them are incredibly sweet and look after their siblings. The school does a good job of teaching the kids to be good to one another. They can be high energy and harder to deal with at some times than others but that’s the nature of teaching. The assistant teachers are of great help in this regard.
I have never gotten any religious impression whatsoever. Not that I would have any problem with that even if there was but never has any element of religion come up in any way, shape or form.
When I read the review above I literally laughed out loud at the “fresh slaves” part. I’m not saying that to be condescending, it just seemed like a comment from someone who hadn’t actually worked here. The religious comment struck me as particularly odd as well.
One aspect I want to mention is that the school has a chef and lunches are free and they’re great. You can get seconds too and the portions are great. The apartment location is also a 5 minute bike ride from the school.
Pingtung is a smaller city, about a 45 minute train ride from downtown Kaohsiung. Not much of a nightlife as far as I’m aware of in Pingtung but there is an area which is pretty lively at night. Taiwan has a pretty big “foodie” culture. I wouldn’t describe it as a “party town” in any way.
Anyways, I’ve really enjoyed my time in Chiba and I’m genuinely, really looking forward to another year. I’ve had jobs I’ve really liked and one’s I haven’t and this is definitely in the former category. If anyone want’s to reach out to contact me personally, please do. My email is: sam.c.efford@gmail.com.
There’s also another review on reddit that I saw previous to coming to Chiba and I felt that was a fair and accurate depiction of the school. I’ll link it here:
Anyways, best of luck for anyone deciding to come to Chiba and I wish you luck!
Well, the post before the most recent one said tree house academy was religious, which is not the impression I got from people who work there (unless there’s more than one tree house academy), but I’m wary of any new account created to defend a school that otherwise has virtually no comments on it. Especially when the few that are there being pretty much “meh. Doesn’t seem to be a good school, but who knows”. If lunch is served, that makes me think it’s a day school. In that case, what qualifications do the fresh meat need? Everyone needs to start somewhere, but it’s pretty telling when a school just needs “a positive, ready to work attitude” and a passport from an English speaking country. You can’t legally teach kindy at all and you sure as heck shouldn’t be teaching in a day school if you’ve never even set foot in a classroom as a teacher before! I don’t know anything about the school in question, nor teaching in Pingtung, but I do know that I spend too much time reading about school horror stories on the internet to not feel like I should call out someone posting (such a long post!) for the first time with a defense of a school.
this one?
You were most certainly told that you would be teaching kindergarten in the interview since that was going to make up half of your day. The school is not on any sort of probation. All kindergartens in Taiwan are subject to government checks. Many kindergartens employ foreign teachers illegally and some end up paying a fine for not following the commonly disregarded law. You were informed of this matter prior to accepting the job.
Which religions or cults are they ? Tree House is a pretty famous one, or maybe it’s just a popular name.
To the OP why not just stick with the main brands if it’s your first time. You said they are offering into the 50s well why not go to Hess?
I was actually referring to this one: https://www.reddit.com/r/TEFL/comments/dmczqu/chiba_language_school_pingtung_city_taiwan/
I can understand that apprehension. I feel like taking any job abroad takes a big leap of faith at some point and it’s hard to just take someone’s word on an online post. I’ve enjoyed working at Chiba and thought this might be able to help the school out as well as anyone considering coming over. As for the prior work experience, I’d worked with kids teaching martial arts and some private English classes in Toronto before and the other English teacher had taught English in Nepal. I wanted to post the comment because I genuinely do like being at the school and I figured it’d be helpful. I thought the comment was unfair and being that I may well end up working with a new hire, might be good to give my take on the working environment etc.
8 hours a day x 5 days a week x $650/hr(on the low end of the pay scale)? You must be making bank in Pingtung. That’s around 100k a month! Or, are you getting less than that?
No, I wish it was that much. A good bit less than that but enough that I can save a fair bit month to month. Coming from Toronto, Canada, it’s a whole lot easier to save off my salary here than substantially more back home. That being said, I guess it depends on where you’re coming from.