Schools to avoid in Ilan County

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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Since there seems to be a large influx of teachers coming to Ilan County, I have decided to post a list of schools to avoid. This list was compiled after talking with many teachers in the Ilan/Lotung area:

Percharter (Ilan): This school has had a bad reputation in Ilan for years. It has been rumoured, for example that they once cancelled two foreign teachers ARC’s without telling them, causing them to work illegally and overstay. Also lots of telephone teaching without pay, and general American School crap to deal with. *tries to take a deposit

Alice Lin English Class (Ilan): Ask any teacher in Ilan who has been here for more than two days. They have been open for about 4-5 years and have only had 2 teachers actually complete a full year contract. Warnings about this school are too numerous to list.

Maple Bridge (Lotung): This school may be under another name by now; they frequently change both the name of the school and phone numbers, but remain under the same management (?). The complaints about this school include withholding teachers’ passports (hint: never give the school your passport, they can make due with a copy) and telling lies. Although I don’t the name at this time, it is across from Edison American School in Lotung.

Edison American School (Ilan and Lotung): Edison has two branches and the Ilan school is complained about more often. They seem to be firing their teachers every two weeks or so and hiring the first teacher that comes along willing to work for less. Combine this with a really bitchy principle and (some) crazy Chinese co-teachers, and you can guess whether or not it’s a good idea to work for Edison.

[color=red]Name of school deleted /color: This school only opened in the past year, and already they have a reputation! It is owned by a foreign husband/Taiwanese wife team. Some teachers who have met the hubby say he’s intimidating and comes off as a bully (well, they used slightly more descriptive words than that…).

Ivy League Bushiban (Ilan): Ivy League is owned by a very friendly and fake guy who generally isn’t too bad, but has done some shitty things to foreigners in the past. Some however is said to be difficult to work with and is especially bitchy towards male foreign teachers (at least 3 in the past two years complained of being treated differently than female co-workers and quit because of it). Another problem is lots of expected unpaid work, like meetings, photo shoots (!), and holiday activities without pay, even though teachers are paid hourly and not by salary. They have recently been trying to get teachers on “retainer” (I.E. if you leave before a year is up, you have to pay them $xxxxx).

If you are moving to Ilan, your best bet is to go with the small bushibans, they seem to be run by nicer people and pay more (though some of the bigger schools are good too).

Some good schools: Happy House, Leader, Happy Marion, Global Village, Green Garden, Berkeley, Julia Kindergarten

If anyone else knows of good or bad schools in this area, please add your comments!! Hope you find this helpful if you are moving to Ilan!

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It is something that I don’t like to do but I have edited OP post.

There were several aspects of it that didn’t seem fair to the schools and so I offed those comments. I did not flame the thread entirely because it has value.

[color=red]I highly recommend that any schools finding themselves getting harshed on here to respond to the thread directly. If the accusations have no merit then it will probably be brought to light by direct responses from the schools themselves.[/color]

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Wait a minute, how many times did I read the words “rumour”. Rumours aren’t facts and as such don’t belong anywhere as a warning. Facts are much more useful.

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I have been told by someone much smarter that I that it is not rumor but rather opinion. One of the schools mentioned has already contacted me and I have taken steps.

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Rumoured

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DB, why edit one name out, if the school concerned, presumably the one that contacted you disagrees with their name on the list then let them publicly outline why, then anyone can take a fair view and either avoid or not based on itsmerits, but to remove just one could quite easily be seen as favouritism or bias, not that i am suggesting this is the case, just that it could easily be seen as such.

Either the whole post should have been floundered, or the schools concerned can respond in the same way that pubs etc have done when they have been mentioned here.

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[quote]Name of school deleted (Ilan (Yilan)): This school only opened in the past year, and already they have a reputation! It is owned by a foreign husband/Taiwanese wife team. Some teachers who have met the hubby say he

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Just so everyone knows, you can obviously work where ever you like, I only psoted the original message after talking to many, many teachers about the shcools in this area and these are the ones that seem to pop up with compliants over and over again. Although “rumours” may not actually be true all the time, sometimes they do have truth to them. This message was posted as a WARNING about the schools so newcomers know what they are dealing with. I have been warned about schools in the past and chose to ignore the warnings and had no problems, where other people have. You have to make your own desicions in life, but that doesn’t mean that you should disregard advice/cautions just because you can’t prove they are true.

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Agreed. However. if one of those schools wants to make an ass of themselves hunting you down, don’t think that it is impossible, it’s been done before.

Where’s that thread about the guy that had to print an apology in the newspaper?

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You realise that some of those places may find out who you are. I know you’re right about some of those schools though…

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Why have you deleted the name of the school? Do Foreign-owned schools get special treatment?[/quote]

No Sir. Everybody gets treated the same. Watch those accusations as I don’t particularly appreciate them.

The owner of the school provided me with enough “evidence” (for lack of a better word) showing that what was written about the school was not entirely correct. I left what I thought was relevant.

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That’s why your post is still here. I was a little worried about letting it stay (because it wasn’t a first hand experience) but smart people will read it and make their own decisions. And that’s where the value of posts like this lay.

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So, because the owner is an expat he has a higher chance of finding this information that may be damaging to his school. The others, run by locals, have little or no chance of ever finding this thread and therefore will never have the chance to defend themselves. Is this not correct?

I find sites that blacklist people or schools don’t sit well with me for the most part. It doesn’t matter if it is about foreigners or locals.

Unless there is hard proof I don’t feel that comfortable with it. Or perhaps someone is going to contact these schools and give them a fair chance to respond, somehow I don’t think so.

I agree, in part, with the spirit of the thread. It is good to protect those looking for work, but I know that not all who post will have the right motives for their posts. However, I do trust DB to be able to make a judgement call on this sort of thing.

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What I find funny about this is that when a bunch of teachers get together and decide to post something like this, which can obviously only be done under one user name, it is said to be inappropriate. However, in a great deal of posts that I have read about teachers who are treated badly, schools that have bad management, etc, etc, the person is always urged to TELL THE NAME OF THE SCHOOL. Durins Bane, you yourself has recommended this more than once. Just because this information is written in the second person does not mean it isn’t a teachers personal experience, this is not just my post, it is a compiliation of information from many teachers first hand accounts where possible, and a list of cautions called “rumours” so it is clear when it is not a first hand account.

Bassman, does your school have the intials M.L. by chance? You seem to be taking this post very personally. Are you going to track me down? I do not think I have to apolgize for saying that a school has been rumoured to do something, or repeating what another teacher has told me of thier personal experience. Some teachers in Ilan asked me to do this just because they didn’t want to be directly linked in case some shitty bushiban owners found out who they were. The posts were written in Ilan but I am not from there, nor have I taught at any schools in Ilan County. It is funny as well, Bassman, that you ask for facts because rumours are unhelpful, and then say that you do not like this kind of post at all. If that is true, why did you read it and become involved in the first place? “Schools to avoid” is a pretty clear title to what the post will be about.

Based on what I read recommended to other posters, I thought it was okay to post the names of the schools and the reasons why people thought they were bad places to work. If people were not encouraged to post the names of the schools in past threads, I would not have done so here.

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This is a tough one. Durin’s Bane, do you think it would work if you put up a great big message in red at the start of the thread saying words to the effect of:

[color=red]“The following are a list of rumours and complaints made by individuals about various schools. The information expressed is in no way to be construed as either true or false but only as the individuals’ personal feelings. There are many, many reasons for teachers to become embittered about their employment conditions here and these posts are a reflection of that.
It should become fairly obvious if one particular school is singled out numerous times that prospective applicants should exercise caution when applying to work there.
It should be equally obvious that where complaints number only one or two that there is very high possibility that the poster is just an embittered former employee with an axe to grind.”[/color]

You would also need to do pretty careful IP checking to make sure the same person isn’t posting his complaint under multiple handles.

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Glenn,

I believe you’ve posted with the best of attentions. But some of us are trying to consider this from the wider persective of what is best for forumosa and what is best for our combined readership.

If lots of teachers have complaints about a school, and post them here, then that will indicate that the school is probably doing something wrong.

If one person posts that ‘lots of teachers’ say something then we have no way of quantifying that. Nobody here knows who you are, and you don’t have a track record at forumosa so we have no way of even guessing whether what you say is reliable.

If the next person comes along and starts posting in the same vein about a school, because he feels bitter about having to comply with the terms of the contract he signed and then couldn’t adhere to, then this site may be unwittingly damaging the reputation of a school that has done no wrong. The teacher can support his claim by saying ‘many teachers had similar problems’, but that may be a lie or just his interpretation.

We want forumosa to be a reliable source of information, so we need to set some ground rules for complaints about schools. Nobody is accusing you of being a liar, which is why your post was not deleted, but we are trying to figure out how we can remain impartial.

Impartiality is important because a lot of teachers are wankers with unreasonable attitudes and expectations. Obviously you aren’t, but the next guy may be and we have to safeguard against smearing some school unfairly.

DB has often encouraged people to name and shame schools where they have PERSONALLY had bad exeriences. That is different from reporting on situations where you haven’t been personally involved.

And finally, Bassman’s has talked openly about his school and its name on these boards. He doesn’t have any connection to the places you’re talking about. If you go back and reread his comments knowing that he has no involvement then you should see that he’s just trying to discuss the best policy for everyone. School owners are not automatically the enemy, they don’t like to be labelled as such, and it’s not fair to start out with the assumption that they are.

In fact, if you indicate hostility to Bassman just because he owns a school and has a different opinion to you, then that illustrates the central problem. School owners and managers have just as much right to post here and use the resources of this site as anyone else. This is not simply a resource for teachers, and a place to warn each other about ‘them’. It’s also a place for teachers to try and understand the issues facing schools, so that they can see their own behaviour through the eyes of the people who employ them.

Oh, and Some teachers in Ilan (Yilan) asked me to do this just because they didn’t want to be directly linked in case some shitty buxiban owners found out who they were. WTF?

If you don’t have the balls to stand up and say what you personally believe then don’t ask others to do it for you. If you’re in a shit job then leave, or shut up and deal with it, or discuss with your boss how it could be improved. Third party bitching is not the way forward, and not appropriate for this site.

I’ve bitched about previous employers here, I’m not saying it’s wrong. But doing it anonymously without being prepared to be accountable, and without taking any action to improve your own situation, is just sour grapes and could easily be construed as malicious - libel, which we don’t have the resources to deal with in court.

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[quote=“glennsm99”]
Bassman, does your school have the intials M.L. by chance?[/quote]

It most certainly doesn’t and I don’t fit any part of the description. And, NO, I am not in Ilan.

I am not taking it personally. I just don’t agree and I think that this sort of thing is not good for Forumosa.

I don’t know who you are. You could be very nice. NO, I don’t want to track you down, this, in a hunting down people to sue sense, has nothing to do with me. However, most of this has nothing to do with you either and is not directly any of your business. That is what concerns me.

So, you think it is ok to go around hurting a business just because of something you heard? This is not the girls locker room.

Their personal experience and not yours. You “know” this only because they told you. Why don’t “they” tell the story. They can type, right?

If it is true, what are they afraid of?

Then you have no business posting this at all. Do you also go by the name Aristotle?

If it were facts that were being written, I’d support the thread all the way. When I say I don’t like this kind of post I mean YOUR kind of post. Which is getting more and more flakey the more you add. You have never even taught there and now you can give a warning to potential teachers.

I think you’ll find that people were posting from personal experience when asked to post the name of schools. You are not. You don’t have any facts. You never taught there. You only base accusations on things you have heard.

This thread is about as useful as tits on a bull.[/quote]

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Thank you for the post. Next time, for your own sake learn how to use a random proxy abroad to mask your IP. It would be far harder to track.

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[quote=“glennsm99”]What I find funny about this is that when a bunch of teachers get together and decide to post something like this, which can obviously only be done under one user name, it is said to be inappropriate. However, in a great deal of posts that I have read about teachers who are treated badly, schools that have bad management, etc, etc, the person is always urged to TELL THE NAME OF THE SCHOOL. Durins Bane, you yourself has recommended this more than once. Just because this information is written in the second person does not mean it isn’t a teachers personal experience, this is not just my post, it is a compiliation of information from many teachers first hand accounts where possible, and a list of cautions called “rumours” so it is clear when it is not a first hand account.

Based on what I read recommended to other posters, I thought it was okay to post the names of the schools and the reasons why people thought they were bad places to work. If people were not encouraged to post the names of the schools in past threads, I would not have done so here.[/quote]

Glenn you have done nothing wrong in posting the names of the schools. Yes, I have always encouraged people to post the names of the schools because if it can help people to make a better informed decision about where to work. And this is what this website is all about.

I want to state again that I was contacted by the school that had its name deleted and they presented a valid case as to why their name should not be included. I accepted that argument and acted accordingly. This moderating stuff isn’t an exact science.

I started this thread, and one more, in the hope that forumosa can formulate some sort of policy onhow to deal with this in a fair manner to all parties involved. There have been some very good ideas presented and I hope to submit a proposal to Maoman, Gus, and all the moderators for their review.

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If the school that had their name removed presented a fair enough case to have their name removed then why not delete that part of the thread entirely? Seems to me that there is enough information there for anyone in Ilan to know who the psot refers to. How many owners would fit the description given there, in Ilan I’d say not many.

Why not have a sticky to refer people to the buxiban site, what’s it called? Buxiban.com or something like that, and have people post over there, after all, that is what the site was set up for and any problems will be “their” problem. Forumosa shouldn’t need to get into this when it is someone elses bag baby. :slight_smile: