Except that they hire you on the pretence that you will be teaching adults. Then when hired, they get you to teach Kinders and your teacher training involves knowing which back door to head for when the police arrive at the front door - ala my experience.[/quote]
Didn’t happen to me. I’ve never taught kinders in my entire 8 months at Kojen. And I don’t expect to be doing so in the future.
Far from it these days Dangermouse. There is no pretence at all. They aare very upfront about what group you are being hired for. Their adult business is going down the tubes and they tell you, you’ll have to teach children. That’s why I didn’t go back there 'cause I wanted to teach adults and knew there was no way I’d be doing so.
This depends on the branch. The branch I worked at also told new teachers they’d be teaching adults, and then had them teaching nothing but children for a year.
August last year was the last time I accepted a job at Kojen. I went straight to the Head Office through someone called Christine who sent me to Nashijiao to teach adults - adults that seemed to be very short, had the attention span of 7 seconds and runny noses.
what about hua language center. i went there for an interview, and they immediately asked me over for a one-week teacher training - no details provided. two days later, an email was sent over, and only after i asked did the lady inform me that the teacher training was part of the selection process: 15 hours of my time that is. does anyone know this school and the rates they provide?
I guess some of you are having experiences different from mine. That’s too bad. I spoke to someone at head office and she was very upfront about the need to teach children. I also spoke to a director at one of the branch schools that usually hires teachers for adults because I knew that a fulltime adult teacher had just left. She, too, was very upfront and said they were hiring a teacher to teach mostly children and just a few hours of adults. Even though they had just lost their adult teacher, they were not replacing him.
I’m at Kojen in Shilin (and loving it), and although our adult department is signifcantly smaller than our kids department, and although our adult enrolments have declined (I believe Wall Street is taking a lot of the current market), we still have a strong adult department, and I am offered more adult hours than I can take.
I also take one kids class (by choice), but they’re elementary school kids, not preschoolers. There’s no pressure on anyone to take kids of any age at my branch, and in fact recently a couple of the kids teachers have started to take adult classes in order to pick up the slack (we seem to have more adult clients than teachers to handle them).
I’m at Kojen in Shilin (and loving it), and although our adult department is signifcantly smaller than our kids department, and although our adult enrolments have declined (I believe Wall Street is taking a lot of the current market), we still have a strong adult department, and I am offered more adult hours than I can take.
I also take one kids class (by choice), but they’re elementary school kids, not preschoolers. There’s no pressure on anyone to take kids of any age at my branch, and in fact recently a couple of the kids teachers have started to take adult classes in order to pick up the slack (we seem to have more adult clients than teachers to handle them).[/quote]
I think your school #6 in Shilin and my school #8 in DaAn are two of the better ones. As each one is handled by different directors, I think it depends on the director you speak to as to how much truth or deception one encounters.
Dial,
If you’re interested in the MA Tesol route but don’t have much formal classroom experience, I’d recommend starting at Kojen.
I worked there for over a year, and learned a lot – they have decent resources (teacher trainers, ample teaching materials) and the right environment (structured curriculum, classes no larger than 20(?) students) where you can put the standard’ ESL/EFL theories to work.
Kojen was basically a stepping stone for me – my experience there gave more confidence in the classroom, and I felt the school’s reputation among Taiwanese made it easier for me to get better teaching jobs, both private lessons and positions at other schools.
And as is the case with many workplaces – it’s far from perfect (as you will read in this thread and other threads) – I definitely have my list of gripes – BUT I think it’s a good place to start. If you’re not interested in teaching children, let them know from the beginning, and check around at the different branches.
Good luck
David C. (no affliation with David’s English School ;>)