My experience at Yuteh has been the exact opposite of @Starlite and @Expat123
I have been there a while and have seen the school grow tremendously. As with all private schools, yes it is a business and partly run as such. You need to keep that in mind when working at any private school in Taiwan.
Although it is a business, it is most certainly a school. I have had the pleasure of working along side many talented, hard working professional teachers and admin there. Most teachers there take their job seriously and are there to actually teach and educate the students. The workload is exactly what a teacher is expected to do. Teach, administer tests, assign work and grade your assignments. Nothing out of the ordinary with that.
The school has an established curriculum and tests, worksheets, quizzes, etc are available for teachers to use or you have the freedom to make your own. When new texts are introduced, then everyone chips in to make tests and worksheets for the new curriculum.
The school also pays for online subscriptions to professional teaching sites like education.com and others. Teachers can use that for free to supplement their teaching.
The facilities are newer and kept clean as best as possible. The teachers and students are expected to clean their own classrooms, as with most every school in Taiwan. It really depends on the diligence of the teachers as to how clean their room is. There are cleaning aunties and uncles who clean the halls, bathrooms and common areas. There are roaches in the school, but they spray every quarter to keep them in check. Show me any building in Taiwan that is roach free. Doubt it exists. My classroom has been roach free all year because I work hard with the Chinese teacher to keep the room clean and teach the kids to do the same.
Pay has not been a problem for me. Ever. If you make it through your probationary first year, your salary steadily goes up. I have been fortunate to have been able to buy a house and live a very comfortable life with the generous salary + bonuses from the school. But that is money I earned by doing my job well. I have never been cheated out of any money or paid incorrectly. The accounting staff are quite friendly and helpful if you approach them professionally and not combative.
There are penalties (consequences) for clocking in late or not showing up to work. It is a school! Teacher punctuality is important! So if you are late, you need to take leave and it does effect your monthly attendance bonus. Certainly not unreasonable.
Yuteh has been growing quickly and the highschool has an international program linked to Australia. The staff is diverse too. There are teachers hired to teach Spanish, German, English, Math, Science, Geography, Art, PE, etc. The Spanish teachers are from Spanish speaking countries, which I think is really cool in Taiwan. The foreign teaching staff hail from all over the world. There is no racial discrimination at all. Diversity is encouraged and celebrated at Yuteh.
For me, my time there has been largely positive. I have grown a lot as a teacher there and plan on retiring from there.
I’m sorry your experience has been the opposite. If you need help, we are all there to assist. If you feel the workload is too much, all of us there can help you out. It can be tough the first year there getting the feel for how things work. But once you get the hang of it, establish solid classroom management and routines, then it becomes much easier.
The kids are good. They do come from wealthy families and some are obviously spoilt, but as a teacher we are expected to teach them all…that includes teaching behavior. Any school in the world faces the same challenges with students. If you have a few troublesome students, let admin know and they can help out.
Grades are not doctored as stated previously. I submit the actual scores my students earn, be it a 0 or 100. I have never been told to doctor a score.
At Yuteh, you are hired to be a professional teacher. The duties of a teacher go along with that. If you teach, do your duties and work hard, then you get back what you put in.
I wish you all the best and hope things can improve for you. If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask. Many teachers’ doors are always open.
I wish I can say they actually have standards but that’s clearly non-existence. The foreign teachers are just seen as easily replaceable. If you’re not strong mentality to deal with the students and admin, you can easily just screw up your mental health and have a bad look at the Taiwanese educational culture which is not fair. I hope you find something better. Thanks for confirming that I’m not crazy.