You definitely have more tolerance for buxiban shenanigans in your first year, especially if you’re single and in your 20s. I know a guy who works at a ‘Shane’ school and he says they’re decent, no funny business. Of course, quality at chain schools can be inconsistent branch by branch depending on how they’re individually managed.
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I’ve avoided HESS and Shane and had plenty of responses from other schools. The fact that recruiters direct people to those schools made me avoid them…
Do they still pay for your flight? It makes a big financial difference.
I don’t see anything on either website about paying for flight. It’s possible I’m missing it.
The only thing I see is a contract completion bonus. None of the places I applied to pay for flights either.
They must be tightening up on costs even more. The big chains used to pay your flight back after you’d worked 6 months. That was pretty much standard.
Shane English currently offers
NT$580-NT$630 starting hourly rate (with further incremental pay increases every 6 months).
NT$20,000 end of contract bonus.
20 teaching hours per week guaranteed.
Hess offers
starting pay of NT$620–660 per teaching hour
guarantee a minimum of 20 teaching hours per week
NT$10,000 in your 18th month’s pay for renewing your contract for a second year. Then an additional NT$15,000 will be given as a contract completion bonus in your 24th month
For cutting your teeth, those are not bad.
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As cutting your teeth goes, that’s about the same wage it was 20 years ago.
That’s funny, I’m only getting about 45k
whoaaaaa…things are starting to make sense now…
Not for me. This comment left me confused
Yeah, well, welcome to Taiwan. That’s the reality.
You’re a great contributor to Forumosa, albeit with various unusual personal queries, which may or may not be related to that salary
Uh thanks I guess
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How many hours a week do you work?
Obviously, I’d strongly advise you don’t sign any more contracts with this current school once your current one ends.
It seems to be the reality across the ESL field. I looked into Japan and Korea before choosing Taiwan. For the first company I applied for in Japan, the hours have apparently gotten worse with each new contract while retaining the same salary. Taiwan at least seems to have plenty of options. If location and work conditions are good, I’m willing to deal with the salary as long as it’s livable.
not to put a speed bump to your job-hunting progress, but you can always consider Taichung, Tainan, or Kaohsiung, where there are many threads about saving a lot more money on living costs. 
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I plan on checking out some jobs in Taipei and then going down to Taichung. I haven’t seen much in Kaohsiung on tealit but it could still be worth going there in person.
Well it’s 600 an hour usually 16-20 hours a week. Well, if I were doing all the hours possible it would be 53k a month, but I’m not up to that yet. With preperation and stuff it is pretty much a full time job though
that’s not good, but if you’re getting above 600 a teaching hour you should be fine. But make sure to work your way up to a better teaching spot