None of the jobs I’ve ever done have had a penalty. Only one provided me my ARC though.
Brian
I was hired at Grace buxiban in Kaiyuan road (actually just off Chang Rung road), Tainan, after two demo’s. They were happy with me and said I could start in two weeks. So I came to work on the Monday (bear in mind that they now had to start applying for my new work permit as my old school was only holding my work permit for one more week). I taught four classes that day ranging from 5 year olds to 16 year olds. In all the classes I was lively, the kids learnt what was required of them and they seemed to be having a great time. The next afternoon at 1:30pm the manager of the school (not the owner, as he can’t speak a word of English) called me to say they had decided to hire another teacher instead. I could come by at 3pm to pick up my pay for the previous day’s work.
Sure, we hadn’t signed a contract yet, but they were aware of the expiry date of my work permit (and therefore the expiry of my ARC) and I feel we had a verbal committment. As it was I had turned down four other schools the previous week because I had already pledged to work for them.
Anyway, as it turns out I got another school the very same day and it all turned out ok for me. I was just appalled that they could treat a person in such a way, fully realising the repurcussions involved with work permits and ARC’s. I should have known something was up though when they started bad mouthing the previous teacher behind his back. So, be warned…
I’ve worked at a number of different schools here. I got an ARC through one of them, but the cost was taken from my salary. I left early mainly due to management issues (out of the 10 jobs I’ve had in my life, this ranked as the worst) and they wanted to take between 3 and 5 wan from my salary. They wouldn’t pay me my last salary until I’d negotiated with them about paying what they’d determined I owed them, so I got the Taipei Dept of Labor involved, an arbitration meeting was kicked off and they were informed they would have to pay me.
All of the schools that my friends and I have been working for here give little if any respect to the foreign employee, hold salary back and on occasion try and cheat, typically claiming that tax has been paid that they just pocketed. These are the conditions that most of us work under, and relatively, we’re paid fairly well. From my native friends, I hear roughly the same stories - cheated out of the last month of pay, cheating on tax, etc.
I worked for non-native employers before, and to be honest, that company also treated teachers pretty badly. I found it worse taking the bad treatment from a compatriot.
Some of you guys were pushing for a more positive working experience - positive incentives rather than disincentives, like end-of-contract bonuses instead of deposits - plus respect for all staff. To those of you who are non-native and have managed schools here, I’m interested in knowing did you try to run a school that way, and if so, was it viable? - did you end up with happy staff, mutual respect and reliability, or did people take advantage of the greater trust and behave in a way that damaged the business?
[quote=“Battery9”]I have heard of a lot of people complaining about schools. Thier deposits being taken, deposits being ASKED in the first place.
I have been lucky. My schools have been great.
Do you guys have stories to share? I would love to hear if anyone else worked at Julia American School in Szwei Road. Teachers having to put out fires, NT$ 10 000 deposits…being fired for having an opinion…
So far I have 3 people whose lives were almost ruined by that school![/quote]
Yes, I got a hard deal at Julia. Lost NT$5,000 of my deposit. They wanted waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too much work done, both in the class and as preparation and write-up/marking. I felt sorry for the kids, as they never got a chance to really absorb what they were learning; it was all about getting through as many books as possible.
Don’t even let me get started on their ‘science’ book!
I should have known better, but I needed an ARC with a minimum number of hours, and that’s what they offered. If a school requires a deposit, they must have been losing a lot of teachers mid-term, and you need to ask yourself why. Deposits are illegal, unfair, and unnecessary: it’s my job to teach the kids well and its the school’s job to not make me want to leave mid-term; if your only way of trying to prevent that is in imposing a fine, then you will have many unhappy teachers teaching many unhappy kids.
To be fair, though, I couldn’t get there 15 mins before class to do proper prep, but that’s never been a problem for me before, and I could do it the day before if it really needed it.
Anyway, it was my decision to sign that stupid contract, so I have no one else to blame but myself, but I’ve learned my lesson and won’t be doing that again in a hurry.
Shakespeare Language School, Nantou
Shakespeare Language School is a very small school. It is run by a Taiwanese woman (Sung) and her American husband (Joe). There were no other foreign teachers there. Joe, I was told, had been doing the teaching, but he wanted to focus more on the business side and the school’s growth. That’s why they were hiring. The interview had been arranged through a recruiter, and everything seemed on the up-and-up until it came to signing the contract.
They asked me to help them screw the recruiter by pretending I wasn’t hired. Having been unemployed for a few weeks, my back was against the wall financially, so I went along with it; don’t think for a moment the ramifications were lost on me.
Sung turned out to be a neurotic. According to what Joe told me, she was too nervous to speak with me, although she could speak English very well, which was why everything was relayed through him; and she worried incessantly about having a stranger teach at her school. In the time I was there Sung sat in on almost every class, for the entire duration of the class.
No work permit was issued, let alone a resident visa or ARC, which confirms my belief no application was made. After two months, I came into work to have Joe hand over my final pay and tell me to leave.
They could no longer entrust the safety of the children to someone like me, Joe said. When asked to explain, his reply was, “We don’t like your demeanor.” When asked what it was about my demeanor they didn’t like, his reply was, “You act like you have something to hide.” Then for good measure he tossed in a long-winded rant about me being an alcoholic and coming into work stinking drunk. All of which is pure nonsense, but it is typical of the type of laoban who will lie to your face knowing full well that: He is lying, you know he’s lying, he knows you know, and you know he knows it.
The timing of my hiring and firing, however, is suspicious to say the least. At the time of my interview, it was obvious that Joe’s head was shaved, and he wore a hat to cover it. It soon became apparent he suffered from a medical condition that needed attention. Shortly after I started work, Joe was admitted to hospital. Shorty after Joe was released from hospital, I was fired.
At the school I work at they want a 60,000nt deposit. And I worked at one before which held back 100,000nt taken from each month’s pay and returned at the end of the year. It never really bothered me…I knew that if I left the job I’d have some money for a vacation or to live off of while looking for another school.
In the case of the second school you mention, the boss there has witheld the deposit from an employee he chose to dismiss (ie the employee didn’t break contract). The employee had to threaten to sue in order to get an out of court settlement of 85% of the illegally witheld salary. This happened to at least one person I’ve met. If a school is so good to work at, they don’t need to resort to illegal extortion to keep you there.
Ben Franklin, definitely the first, and most likely the last great American statesman said, “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” More power to you for starting a teachers’ union. Not every school is hell on earth, but there are enough of them that we as a community would benefit from what a union can bring us. On the flipside, there have been and are some shitty people posing as teachers that have made the credibilty of decent teachers difficult to defend. Hopefully the standards you mention will help weed out those bad apples.
But I do have a school to add to your blacklist…Little Noble English. I was handing out flyers for the school I work for. The school guard told everyone to stand behind a certain point. The Little Noble bastard didn’t think his people had to. I went up to him and told him I’ve been handing out flyers at the school for 5 years, and it would be better for all of us if he would take his crew to the designated point, instead of pouncing on the poor, frightened 6 year olds coming in for first grade registration. The owner of the school was not impressed and told me to go away. The guard walked past and I raised a “Ge ma?!” He made the Little Noble people move back. 10 minutes later the cops showed up, made a bee line for me and asked for my ID. They said they got a call that I was working illegally. I produced my ARC and went over to the Little Noble dickhead who told me “Watch your back!” So for anyone thinking of going there, don’t. If he called the cops on me, what will prevent him from fucking you around somehow? Just a heads up for you all.
Hi
I went for an interview at Joy head office ( I have 3 years experience at Joy school) and they placed me with a school in Shida. Had 17 hours a week for 40 000, which I thought was fine…I get there…They expect me to work from 1pm-8pm every day for 40 000!!!
Hahahahaaa…that was a fun interview. I thanked them for making me laugh. I needed it at the time!
Mod’s, I’d suggest the follow post should be the basis for a new thread. It would be a shame to see this buried in here…
Just my 2 cents anyway.
[quote=“christopherveal”]The Foreign Teacher’s Association of Taiwan’s First Annual Conference will be held in Taipei on AUGUST 26, 2006. Attendance should include upwards of 85% of the Foreign teachers of Taiwan. (7,000+ attendees). For more information on our association, email me at christopherveal@hotmail.com. Board member position available. Membership is free for teachers. We set the standard of good school/teacher relationships and ENFORCE that standard (special thanks to our legal council team, you guys are great).
Finally, there is someone to fight for you.
write me for new membership, the board member positions, the event…[/quote]
I don’t think buxiban.com qualifies as a primary source either. It has a scant list of obscure blacklisted schools and I suspect that schools, particularly the big ones, can influence that list with a little donation. I would trust my roomate’s girlfriend’s sister before I would trust buxiban.com.
My experience with buxiban.com is that most of the posts are from teachers who were either extremely pissed about their experiences at their school’s (a lot of time it was partly or mostly their fault anyway) or teachers who had great expereiences (or schools talking up their own school.) The "blacklist on buxiban.com has a school I worked atl Little forest in Kaohsiung,l that wasn’t that bad at all. I know some of the teachers there who had problems though. To each there own I guess. These are interesting stories here, can’t believe the hell some teachers have to go through here. I’m deffinitely looking into the FTAT to see what it’s all about.
Maybe you would like to point us all to a site that contains more information about schools specific to Taiwan. I am involved with buxiban.com and therefore I don’t agree with your comment above, but I do welcome you to post an alternative as I am not aware of any.
And the problem with that is…?
As stated on our site, our aim is not to place schools on a blacklist just because a single teacher or couple of teachers want that to occur. There are sites that will blacklist a school just because one teacher makes a simple complaint about anything - but buxiban.com is not that type of site. Only schools with consistently bad records or schools with a significant complaint about them (e.g. ripping off teachers) get added to the blacklist. Our aim is to promote schools with good employment records as we believe that this information is far more valuable than any blacklist. Knowing where to work is likely more useful than being made aware of schools that others did not like.
Well your suspicions are incorrect and unfounded.
Schools and recruiters cannot and do not pay to influence their listings. Please do the responsible thing and provide proof for such an accusation if you are going to make it.
The fact is that we refuse membership payment and payment for advertising from schools that are on our sites blacklist or that we don’t believe act in the best interests of teachers. If you want proof of this fact then just do a search here on this forum for a thread about a recruiter Robert Phillips. He had a bad reputation based upon a claim that he did not pay a teacher what was owed and we therefore refused his offer of paid membership. I know of no other sites for teachers that do this but maybe you can point us to them.
Oftenmisled I welcome you to bring to this forum any evidence that you may have that disputes what I have posted above and that may reinforce your opinions. In the absence of such evidence it would seem that the proper thing for you to do would be to retract your claims above.
It is human nature that people will post complaints more readily than they post compliments. This is why we working so hard at trying to build a greenlist of schools as well as recommended schools. Rather than complaining about this sort of thing why not take a moment to add comments on that site about positive experiences you have had. If everyone took the time to do that then what you claim above would no longer true would it. Have you posted positive comments on that site?
One of the main reasons that people probably don’t bother to make positive posts about schools is that they inevitably get accused of having a vested interest in doing so, just as our site often gets accused of having vested interests even though in three years of operation no one has ever come forward with any evidence that schools have paid for favorable listings. Teachers probably think ‘What’s the point’ and I can’t blame them for that. I think that it is a great shame, but at the end of the day we teachers only have ourselves to blame as rather than discussing these types of posts some people just jump to conclusions regardless of whether or not these are true. It’s counter productive if you ask me but then I don’t speak for everyone.
As stated on our site, our lists are just a guide as individual experiences will vary. The big decider from where I sit is how schools and recruiters deal with problems. You could work for the worst school in Taiwan and have a good experience if you never ran into a problem. It is when you run into problems that a good school will come to the fore as they actually help you out. Quite often the schools that end up on our blacklist just don’t support their teachers.
If you want to see a better buxiban.com then I encourage you to post about your experiences there as this is a sure fire way to make sure that the comments about schools you have worked at are accurate. If everyone here does this then you won’t need to complain about it and the resource will improve.
Anyone who wants the E mail address of any of three teachers who have lost wages, deposits, and or cash from Frobel Elementary School, and or Supreme, Jureen Su is welcome to contact me.
To add another story to the Julia Language Institute’s bad record. I started working there last fall and didn’t like the idea of them taking a deposit but I liked the kids and the hours so I took the job. I had no problem with anything other than they make you do too much work, but I loved the kids so it was fine. Until yesterday. I gave notice three weeks ago that I would leave at the end of October because my father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I have to go home this fall (no lie). But yesterday when I asked if I could get my deposit back they said no. I lose 20,000NT because I want to go home and see my dad before he dies and they refuse to give me my money just because I won’t be able to fulfill their lame contract to the T. Stay away from this school, the owner only cares about putting money in her pocket.
I am going to file a claim against them for my money. If anyone else has lost money to this school contact me, I want to get a list of people who have had bad experiences with them.
If you want to find schools that don’t take deposits contact reachtoteachrecruiting.com/. They recruit teachers (at no charge) for schools around Taiwan and they refuse to deal with schools that keep deposits.
I recommend avoiding Carleton International School (near Taipower Bldg. Station),and Jordan’s Language School in Da-Zhi.
[quote=“sjpeerless”]To add another story to the Julia Language Institute’s bad record. I started working there last fall and didn’t like the idea of them taking a deposit but I liked the kids and the hours so I took the job. I had no problem with anything other than they make you do too much work, but I loved the kids so it was fine. Until yesterday. I gave notice three weeks ago that I would leave at the end of October because my father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and I have to go home this fall (no lie). But yesterday when I asked if I could get my deposit back they said no. I lose 20,000NT because I want to go home and see my dad before he dies and they refuse to give me my money just because I won’t be able to fulfill their lame contract to the T. Stay away from this school, the owner only cares about putting money in her pocket.
I am going to file a claim against them for my money. If anyone else has lost money to this school contact me, I want to get a list of people who have had bad experiences with them.
If you want to find schools that don’t take deposits contact reachtoteachrecruiting.com/. They recruit teachers (at no charge) for schools around Taiwan and they refuse to deal with schools that keep deposits.[/quote]
I know this one is from a while back, but come on folks…common sense here please. Never pay a deposit or allow holdings from your paycheck from your employer for deposit purposes. #1 this is illegal, and #2…why on earth would you pay someone to give you a job??? They need to be paying you!
[quote=“Quarters”]
I know this one is from a while back, but come on folks…common sense here please. Never pay a deposit or allow holdings from your paycheck from your employer for deposit purposes. #1 this is illegal, and #2…why on earth would you pay someone to give you a job??? They need to be paying you![/quote]
Easier said than done. I like my job right now. I like it a lot. They still withhold 2 weeks pay. I have a one month holiday…all of February almost…and when I get paid on the 10th for January they will only give me two weeks pay and then hold two weeks. So even though I worked a full month in January…they will only pay me for two weeks of it in February since otherwise they wouldn’t be holding onto anything.
If I complain too much…I get fired…simple as that. You tell people to not accept it…but if it’s the only job in their area that pays well…then what choice do they have?
Do NOT work at either of these places. I did. They are shonky, two bob, money grabbing low life laobans of note.
Both in Ilan county, no particular order of dismerit, but they are both run by idiots who prefer a pretty face and North American accent to real teachers. They prefer to listen to liars who want to save face and not even ask the foreign teacher what is going on.
First hand, email me on teacherethical@yahoo.com if you want further details on their utter crassness.
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U.N.L.C. United Nation Language Centre (what a joke of a name) Ilan, run by Emma and her gangster husband.
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Happy Marion. (Happy? Child abuse centre more like) run by Coco and her psychotic mother.
Only these two, I have worked at a lot of places in my years here and left all except them on good terms, the nature of the beast here. These two schools stand out though as places I would only wish my worst enemy to work at.
Emma, Coco, if you read this, sue me. I don’t care. You both lied through your teeth to me and you know it.
Go on, tell us how you really feel!