My wife and I have phone interviews with two different Giraffe School branches in Taichung. We are currently in the US and would like to know more about this school before we get too far along in the process. Also any advice on questions to ask. Thank you
Where in Taichung are these places? Now that Taichung County has become Greater Taichung it’s possibly more confusing to a newcomer. There is a Giraffe School around the corner from my workplace and I live around an hour away from the city.
Giraffe are an enormous chain school, and as such conditions vary a lot from branch to branch. You’ll need to provide more details about branch location for a chance of a reply. Even then it’s unlikely that anyone will have worked at that particular branch and even if they did they might just be a disgruntled teacher.
Chain schools are the entry level job people take in Taiwan before finding something better. The bigger chains tend to be more likely to provide a decent experience because they have a support system of sorts. It’s still a bit of a lottery, though. A large proportion of Giraffe’s business is teaching very young learners, which isn’t allowed in Taiwan, so run a search on “teaching kindy” and make sure you are happy to do that before making a decision.
That they’re trying to hire from abroad in the current job climate ring alarm bells.
Taiwan is absolutely awash with teachers looking for work, they could easily find someone already here if they tried. It could be that they have an extremely bad reputation, or they want some fresh off the boat newbie sucker who they can take advantage of.
[quote=“tomthorne”]Giraffe are an enormous chain school, and as such conditions vary a lot from branch to branch. You’ll need to provide more details about branch location for a chance of a reply. Even then it’s unlikely that anyone will have worked at that particular branch and even if they did they might just be a disgruntled teacher.
Chain schools are the entry level job people take in Taiwan before finding something better. The bigger chains tend to be more likely to provide a decent experience because they have a support system of sorts. It’s still a bit of a lottery, though. A large proportion of Giraffe’s business is teaching very young learners, which isn’t allowed in Taiwan, so run a search on “teaching kindy” and make sure you are happy to do that before making a decision.[/quote]
Yeah, it can be an alright experience if you only stay for a year. It almost for sure won’t be great but there are some dreadfully awful independent schools that newbies get hired into that are much worse. I tell newbies that you are probably going to end up at a chain the first year. If you are too picky then you might not get a job for a long time since you don’t have any experience.
It should be noted that large chains like this probably have someone that monitors popular expat forums and if you post critical comments (even if honest) about the hiring process then you might lose the job before you even start.
It would be interesting to know if the big chains really have stopped hiring from abroad. They’ve always been an entrance level stop for many who have been hired from abroad. I can’t imagine them stopping as so many of them have branches in middle of nowhere places that not many long-termers would live.
A quick look at Davesesl cafe reveals Kojen, Hess, Gloria and a couple of long-time recruiters are still doing this.
[quote=“Matchstick_man”]It would be interesting to know if the big chains really have stopped hiring from abroad. They’ve always been an entrance level stop for many who have been hired from abroad. I can’t imagine them stopping as so many of them have branches in middle of nowhere places that not many long-termers would live.
A quick look at Davesesl cafe reveals Kojen, Hess, Gloria and a couple of long-time recruiters are still doing this.[/quote]
These chains still have massive turnover and they have setup a system where newbies are preferred. They want the low pay rate. Hiring from abroad is a good way to trap a teacher for the first year since the teacher will have to reimburse the school for several expenses when they are brought over. They have local co-teachers usually teaching half of the class so things can’t be screwed up too much by a newbie. They also typically have a lot of prep/grading and most newbies won’t question it. The good thing is that teachers almost always get paid and there is some sort of curriculum in place (usually). I learned a lot during my first year at Kojen but there was the typical crap (prep/HW, Saturdays, awful scheduling, etc…) to deal with.
If I was running a buxiban I would be happy to pay someone 650-700NT/hr if they were doing a good job but chains are more likely going to push someone out so they can hire a <600NT/hr newbie. Those savings are gone if just a handful of students leave though.
One is just west of the dowtown area, and the other is on the north side of the city in Tanzi.