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Haraksha posted:I'm not really sure about the pay. My guess is 500NT if you are an actual native speaker and less if they can get away with it. It's 5-6:30 MWF and 5-8 TR. I'm not 100% on that though. Add lovely pay to lovely location and hours. 500nt? Wow.
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Mar 16, 2012 15:05
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Yeah, that's real low.
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Mar 16, 2012 19:21
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Yeah, it really would be for someone who just wants a bit of fun money. It's not a particularly stressful position, but it only makes sense to take it if you are somewhere close by.
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Mar 17, 2012 13:00
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Oh man I have an interview with Hess on Friday. I'm expecting questions about teaching experience (have none), classroom control (dunno), preferred hours (any time, work me to the bone) and poo poo, am I missing anything important? So nervous. I had one of these before with KOJEN and it didn't go too well.
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Mar 22, 2012 01:56
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I had my Hess interview last week and that's pretty much it. A lot of questions on classroom scenarios and what your expectations are for living in Taiwan. Plus typical interview questions like your strengths/weaknesses.
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Mar 22, 2012 03:02
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quadrophrenic posted:Oh man I have an interview with Hess on Friday. I'm expecting questions about teaching experience (have none), classroom control (dunno), preferred hours (any time, work me to the bone) and poo poo, am I missing anything important? It's entirely possible to bullshit your way through the teaching experience question. Remember, anything can be teaching experience. Group project in university where you were the senior member? Bam! Teaching experience. Did some babysitting and helped kids with their homework? Bam! Teaching experience. Younger siblings? You were literally teaching every day! Make sure to frame it appropriately. "Well, I don't have any teaching experience in an actual classroom, but I got to experience similar dynamics in the following situations." Don't just say, "None." As for classroom management, say, "Well, I bet keeping things fun and interesting would work. If the kids don't have time to misbehave, they won't, so I'll need to make sure that the lesson has a fast pace and very little downtime." I mean, these aren't exactly tough answers to come up with.
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Mar 22, 2012 03:16
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I was a tour guide for two years and I studied linguistics in college, so yeah I'm not too worried about the teaching experience. Classroom control is really the area I'm most worried about, because while I like kids I don't have any actual experience working with them or even dealing with them aside from seeing my 2-year-old nephew every couple of weeks. I'm still nervous. I guess I've always heard the talking point that the interview is basically just checking if you have a clear American accent, and I was wondering if that's actually true.
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Mar 22, 2012 03:24
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It obviously isn't, but precisely what they're looking for isn't that hard to figure out. Enough people have posted here about not getting into Hess that it's clear they're filtering for something and based on responses like, "I told them I had no idea how to manage a classroom or what teaching was like," I'm guessing those are actually more important than people give them credit for. They must get a ton of flaky people applying for these jobs. They're probably good at noticing poo poo by now. Even if you don't have experience with kids, make sure you sound really eager to get into a classroom because you want to be in a high energy position. So, the question you should think about then is, "If you have no real teaching experience or experience working with kids, why do you want to dedicate the majority of your week to being around them?"
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Mar 22, 2012 03:48
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quadrophrenic posted:I was a tour guide for two years and I studied linguistics in college, so yeah I'm not too worried about the teaching experience. Classroom control is really the area I'm most worried about, because while I like kids I don't have any actual experience working with them or even dealing with them aside from seeing my 2-year-old nephew every couple of weeks. A lot of it is common sense. In my interview I was asked point-blank what I'd do if a kid started crying in my class. My escalating 3-step answer was 1) see if the CT can comfort them without interrupting the lesson, 2) give the other kids an activity and come by myself to double-team with the CT and 3) let the kid speak Chinese (which they're drilled to never do) and if necessary have the CT take them out of class. They aren't looking for some teaching whiz, but someone who just answers "help the kid" probably won't land the job. Another thing: My personal inference is that the thing Hess looks for most after someone with energy is someone that's not a flight risk. Financially speaking having teachers running out on you kind of sucks as a company and is super destabilizing. The old head of the EHRD Melissa apparently had a really good knack for finding candidates who stayed. They can teach you their factory-style teaching method easily but if someone packs up and is gone, that can be devastating for a smaller branch and still a drain for a bigger one. They'll ask you about living overseas but also subtly play up anything you saw through to completion, like if you live in Seattle and had some internship or something in New York. Finally, Haraksha's last line is the key. If you can coherently answer that you should be good.
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Mar 22, 2012 05:23
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quadrophrenic posted:Oh man I have an interview with Hess on Friday. I'm expecting questions about teaching experience (have none), classroom control (dunno), preferred hours (any time, work me to the bone) and poo poo, am I missing anything important? If you want any extra prep, someone posted a bunch of questions that HESS asks you during the phone interview in the old thread. I used them for my interview six months ago, and I doubt they've changed it.
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Mar 22, 2012 06:21
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quadrophrenic posted:I was a tour guide for two years and I studied linguistics in college, so yeah I'm not too worried about the teaching experience. Classroom control is really the area I'm most worried about, because while I like kids I don't have any actual experience working with them or even dealing with them aside from seeing my 2-year-old nephew every couple of weeks. The First Days of School by Harry Wong is a really good book for basic teacher stuff. You might even be able to download the PDF.
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Mar 22, 2012 06:22
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I liked when they asked me what I'd do if I needed to buy toilet paper and couldn't find any. There's basically no safer answers than, "I'm willing to be a clown for free on the weekends."
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Mar 22, 2012 08:09
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Haraksha posted:I liked when they asked me what I'd do if I needed to buy toilet paper and couldn't find any. There's basically no safer answers than, "I'm willing to be a clown for free on the weekends."
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Mar 22, 2012 08:14
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Haraksha posted:I liked when they asked me what I'd do if I needed to buy toilet paper and couldn't find any. There's basically no safer answers than, "I'm willing to be a clown for free on the weekends." The answer is "This is Taiwan, I get handed like 20 packets of tissue with ads on them hourly."
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Mar 22, 2012 08:40
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duckfarts posted:Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo you're an assclown? Those were unrelated thoughts, but in retrospect I should have specified. I remember being asked like a hundred times if I had issues with weekends or unpaid hours. Hess likes both of those things.
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Mar 22, 2012 08:48
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Posting for bookmark, I'll be posting more regularly in the next few days, hope all is well with you all. 
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Mar 22, 2012 23:43
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To those of you who have worked for Hess, on the whole would you recommend the experience? I accept that there is always a bit of risk in paying out airfare and the first months accomodation etc without a guaranteed job once you get there, but there are some true horror stories floating around on the web. Is it really that bad? Are there any locations in particular you would recommend asking to teach in?
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Mar 23, 2012 13:16
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Aromatic Stretch posted:To those of you who have worked for Hess, on the whole would you recommend the experience? I accept that there is always a bit of risk in paying out airfare and the first months accomodation etc without a guaranteed job once you get there, but there are some true horror stories floating around on the web. Is it really that bad? Could you give an example of these horror stories? I'm curious if they are more than just culture shock and people going "they wanted me to work on Saturday!"
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Mar 23, 2012 13:33
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Moon Slayer posted:Could you give an example of these horror stories? I'm curious if they are more than just culture shock and people going "they wanted me to work on Saturday!" There are a few here - http://www.teflschoolreviews.com/hess-educational-organization-taiwan-200674.html. Like you say, a lot of these could probably be down to silly things like people who are not expecting to have to do actual work!
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Mar 23, 2012 14:08
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Aromatic Stretch posted:There are a few here - http://www.teflschoolreviews.com/hess-educational-organization-taiwan-200674.html. I think I mentioned this some point earlier in the thread but Hess is also by far the largest cram school in terms of number of teachers so it will also get a corresponding amount of flak. Very few people will go online to rant about some crappy mom and pop cram school way out in Linkou or something. They'll switch jobs and move on. Some of the things on that site aren't very surprising: That Hess only cares about 'making money' (no poo poo?) or that it's sort of teaching but also sort of day care. Both come with the territory at any cram school here. I think since Hess seems so monolithic and has the big scary Main Office foreign teachers feel more intimated into going along with crap like unpaid weekends and coupled with the admittedly low pay there's a lot of sour grapes. Can Hess suck? Absolutely. Can it be awesome? Well financially no not really but there's something to be said for how well they ease you into teaching and a pre-existing social group. Hess is devil you know whereas other schools might be seen as more of a roll of the dice.
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Mar 23, 2012 16:48
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One of the biggest things I have noticed from people complaining about HESS is the "They don't pay me for lesson prep/grading homework" posts. That's when you can tell they don't have a background in education.
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Mar 24, 2012 13:28
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I think showing up with several months worth of money and finding a job that suits you is the best way to do it. I also think that Hess is great because you are able to land and have a job. Sometimes you get lucky and end up with a great job, great hours etc. etc.
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Mar 24, 2012 16:38
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I know of another spot open in Sanxia, this one less terrible than the last. M-F 3:30-8:30. It's 62000NT a month. It's a chain school, but a franchised one where a very good friend of mine basically runs the show. You should be afforded a decent amount of freedom. Email me if you're interested, same as my user name at gmail.
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Mar 28, 2012 14:18
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In Taiwan, do they do the thing where you work a weekend to "make up" for a three day holiday?
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Mar 30, 2012 03:23
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:In Taiwan, do they do the thing where you work a weekend to "make up" for a three day holiday?
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Mar 30, 2012 04:56
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It also depends on what the cause of the original holiday is. A few months ago, we had a four day weekend because Tuesday was a national holiday. Because Tuesday was a national holiday and Monday was off just to round out the weekend, we had to work only the following Saturday to make up Monday. The Tuesday was a freebie, but Monday had to be recovered. Theoretically, if Monday had been the national holiday, we wouldn't have had any makeup days.
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Mar 30, 2012 05:26
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Do you accrue PTO at a cram school job? Like is there ever a situation where you can take a week off to go travel or visit home or anything? I'm sure it depends on the school, but none of them I've seen have mentioned vacation time.
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Mar 30, 2012 07:10
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quadrophrenic posted:Do you accrue PTO at a cram school job? Like is there ever a situation where you can take a week off to go travel or visit home or anything? I've never heard of anyone accruing time off at cram schools. However, many of the schools here give a month off for Chinese New Year, and another for summer vacation. With a few extra holidays in between. So there is a good chance you may not need it anyway. You may even still get paid for that time off if your lucky. Outside of that, schools usually treat time off like a part-time job would by letting you take the time off (provided you notified them ahead of time), but not paying you for it. Some schools may also require you to find a substitute teacher as well to fill in during your absence.
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Mar 30, 2012 08:14
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quadrophrenic posted:Do you accrue PTO at a cram school job? Like is there ever a situation where you can take a week off to go travel or visit home or anything? HappyHelmet is completely right though I would add that if you have a salaried job you may be able to swing a day off every once in a while by being on your boss's good side and asking nicely. They still might dock your pay by a day though, like you mentioned it always depends. Asking for a significant amount of time off would almost certainly get you docked pay. From my purely anecdotal experience of friends here paid time off comes only a) if you are salaried and b) if you have a few years of experience with that specific school as a sort of retention/reward method. Even still it's not that common.
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Mar 30, 2012 10:57
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Wait people actually get paid time off here?
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Mar 30, 2012 11:34
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TetsuoTW posted:Wait people actually get paid time off here? 
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Mar 30, 2012 11:52
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 lookat that smug fukken duck
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Mar 30, 2012 11:53
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TetsuoTW posted:Wait people actually get paid time off here? A friend's branch of Kid Castle (near Linsen N Rd) I think offers something pitiful like 2 paid days off every year for employees that have been there for 3+ years or something. Yay.
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Mar 30, 2012 12:43
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My friend is salaried and doesn't get a reduced salary for time off.
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Mar 30, 2012 12:59
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Haraksha posted:My friend is salaried and doesn't get a reduced salary for time off. That's almost the same, I'd be willing to wager that he doesn't get reduced workload for time off either.
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Mar 30, 2012 13:36
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I'm salaried (mainland style) for an American company but as a local hire and I get a whole 5 days paid holidays per year. Granted it's more than most, but in all reality it's pitiful at best.
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Mar 30, 2012 14:11
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Spanish Matlock posted:That's almost the same, I'd be willing to wager that he doesn't get reduced workload for time off either. I'm really having a hard time figuring out what this means. He has a monthly salary. If he wants time off, he takes it. His salary for the month remains the same regardless of hours worked. He doesn't get extra classes to make up for the hours lost. He just continues on as if the vacation didn't happen.
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Mar 30, 2012 18:37
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Haraksha posted:I'm really having a hard time figuring out what this means. Ah he's a teacher. A lot of jobs here will just make you do twice as much work in the lead up to or just after time off.
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Mar 31, 2012 04:44
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Yeah, at the very same school that has a full time job opening. You too could get paid leave maybe!
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Mar 31, 2012 08:27
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Haraksha posted:Yeah, at the very same school that has a full time job opening. You too could get paid leave maybe! I would never leave my job teaching adults to go back to those snot-nosed germ factories.
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Mar 31, 2012 09:23
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