A couple other people have already mentioned it, but I will give another vote to blacklist Alexander Academy in Taipei (both locations, Xinyi & Daan). The owner is has the emotional maturity of a toddler and constantly throws temper tantrums. They draw people in with a strong philosophy around education, but they don’t deliver at all. You will be belittled and talked down to. You work over 40 hours per week for around 60K NTD per month. They make no effort to make you feel welcome. Everything is about the owner, and if you don’t kiss her feet, then you risk the wrath of all of management. I wrote a much more detailed review on Glassdoor, which I will also post in a separate thread here with the hopes that it will come up in Google search results.
I have one to add: Happy English in Taipei. They have two branches.
I will say an experienced teacher might be able to handle working here better than I, but ultimately, the teachers who worked there all had the same impression that s*** is a mess in regards to lesson plans and having enough time to effectively teach the full lessons per class.
I still think it’s important to warn against them, especially for newer teachers who might find their system difficult. They will train you in the classroom before you have your work permit. They had me “training” and working for three weeks.
The mistake I made was giving them my health check to process a work permit as I had been thinking of leaving for a few weeks before. I said f*** it and told them I was going to leave anyways mid permit-processing.
After some back and forth conversation and deciding that maybe I would stick it out, the owner never responded me to try to make it so we could make this a better relationship and easier teaching experience. I also told her I wouldn’t work before I got my work permit and that the training they had me doing was not legal. The owner straight denied that the way they were training me (and having me work) was illegal. Mhmm…okay. So anyways, they decided to ignore me into the next week and put in a request to cancel the work permit – I found this out when I went to the Work Force Development Agency as they were not responding to me about what to do next.
Thank goodness the work permit was cancelled so I can now move on and use my better judgement I’ve obtained from this experience.
From what I heard from the teachers, many teachers like me had came and went in the past few months. If you come upon them and decide to work there, take a week to decide if their system is for you, otherwise, don’t continue waste your time or theirs and just leave.
Hi OutHere,
Thanks for sharing.
I’ve recently been offered a job at HESS which starts in February however, after doing some post-research I am coming across too many negative reviews. I am 90% certain that I will withdraw my application and find work some other way (handing out resumes and online).
Are you able to share some insights into the process of getting a health check?
Thanks!
I was just about to apply there. Thanks!
Hey there! If you Google Health Check Taiwan you should get a result from tealit.com that has a list of hospitals. Any city hospital should do.
If you’re in Taipei, Taipei City Hospital Renai Branch is a good place. They have a lot of foreigners coming in so all the staff can tell you where to go and what to do.
Michael’s English School
michaelenglish
No. 261, Dongnan Street, East District, Hsinchu City, Taiwan 300
300新竹市東區東南街261號
Here’s the gist of what you will experience:
-Lies about everything.
-Forced to work extra hours for no extra pay. “It doesn’t matter what the contract says.”
-Micromanagement down to the ridiculous.
-He purposely has his time-punch clock set ahead so that he can tell you you’re late, when you’re not.
-You are required to live in his apartment, so he can deduct rent from your check. (significantly overpriced, you have to share the apartment, and it borders a junior high school so you will not be able to sleep past 7 am. And keep in mind he’ll say you’re “required” to stay at work until 10 or 11 pm every night.)
-Again, lies about absolutely everything. Even things that really don’t matter at all. Clear sign of a sociopath.
-He will go on and on about how he will train you to be successful at his school. But when you get there, he’ll say something like, “oh well the best training is for you to just go do it yourself”.
-If you ask any innocent questions about something he just lied to you about, he will respond aggressively and accuse you of being “difficult” or “petty”.
-He pretty much exclusively hires newbies (for obvious reasons).
-If I recall correctly, I heard from another teacher there, that he told them running a business in Taiwan is the “closest thing to being god”. That’s how he sees himself.
It is in the contract that you are required to live in his apartment or he just says that?
He has to pay you for extra hours. It’s illegal not to. Also the apartment thing is not kosher either. Did you talk to the labor dept?
When I said hours, I meant office hours. Not teaching hours.
How long did you stay there?
Omg I interviewed at this school. That Michael guy seemed alright at the time, guess you never know.
Hello,
I’m American and thinking about teaching English in Taiwan. I meet the education requirements from what I’m reading. Are there any reputable or legitimate schools or recruitment agencies in Taiwan? From what I’m reading online, teaching in Taiwan seems to be all bad-bad communication, abusive work environments, holding ARC against teachers, bad contracts, being overworked, and much more.
That’s the sum of it.
But you can find a good place to work you just have work hard to get it. If I’m honest I regret working in English teaching in Taiwan but the country is nice to explore for a few years. If you come here with some sense of adventure and are willing to work hard at finding the good jobs you can have a positive time.
My advice is try work for a large chain school first. American Eagle and HESS are two big chain schools I know. The chain schools give you a diverse range of colleagues so you will be able to find someone to help you with any issues.
@Liberty I haven’t heard anything positive about HESS or American Eagle. So the only thing good about it is that you’ll find good coworkers to help you? Anything else positive?
I’m trying to find a good school or recruitment agency. I previously taught English in Thailand and have a sense of teaching English in Asia.
That’s the only positive I found. But my experience will be different than others.basically what you find on the internet about cram schools in Taiwan is very truthful. It’s very unfortunate, the children suffer the most.
Teaching is Thailand is different than teaching in Taiwan. How was your experience teaching is Thailand.
Are you currently teaching at American Eagle or HESS? or different Taiwanese School? What is that experience like so far?
Teaching in Thailand overall was good. But there are pros and cons. I list a few for both.
Pros:
-Exploring the thai culture-the food, people, religion, traveling, etc…
-Most schools aren’t strict on the English curriculum. You can teach whatever English you want.
Cons:
-If you get a bad school or bad work contract, you are screwed. Same as Taiwan.
-The work permit situation sucks. They take a long time to process it. By that time, you have to do a border run because your visa expired.
Yes I teach at a large franchise school in a small town. I get treated well because I’m the only white blonde hair blue eye face that had walked into the school. I stand up to the boss and my features give me the ability to do that. I also get paid more and get all my bonuses because the boss is scared I’ll leave.
If I had brown eyes or dark skin it would be a different story. My colleagues suffer extreme bullying. And unless you fit that narrow definition of Americans I won’t bother. I call it the captain America suit.
I enjoyed working for the British Council. 5 weeks paid annual leave.
I know this question wasn’t directed at me, but I’ll give you my review of working at American Eagle. I don’t work there anymore though. One thing you need to understand is that your experience will be different from franchise to franchise.
I worked at 3 different American Eagle’s. They were all franchises and my experience has been different each time. I did like their curriculum a lot more than other schools though. The first one was very business focused. Just cared about making as much money as possible. Teachers were treated fine though and there were no mandatory office hours. Second school started off as extremely education focused. Changed during my 2nd year there to be more business focused. The school also tried to take advantage of all the teachers and kept playing the I’m your friend/family card. I hated that place after my 2nd year there and left during my 3rd year. The third school is very foreigner friendly. The foreigners could pretty much do whatever they wanted there. They had the best balance between business and education focus.
With all the American Eagle schools you will be expected to complete a communication book either every other week or about once a month depending on the class. You will also have to grade a lot of books. Most schools will probably say they won’t pay you for this. So do it during your class time or do it for free after work. Class sizes are usually capped at no more than 20 in a class. I never had a co-teacher in any of my classes, but they were there if I needed them.