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Capt. Carl posted:When's the latest I should apply through HESS for a TEFL job starting this summer/fall? I've been looking at Korea vs. Taiwan and Taiwan looks a lot more attractive. I should probably get started on my TEFL cert too. Have you fully decided on Taiwan? If so, rethink getting that TEFL. How much is it going to cost? Most all the cram schools in Taiwan are not going to care about you having a TEFL. Some might, but those also tend to be ones that a) require applicants to have experience and b) prefer they are certified teachers in their home countries. If you have neither a nor b I would not recommend getting a TEFL. If you work for Hess you'll get a "TEFL" by the end of a year and though the value of it is minimal at best, it's at least a piece of paper to wave around at your next teaching job. If you want to make a career out of teaching, especially if you plan on going back home, go for the TEFL. If you're going to come to Taiwan for a year or two because it's a fun place to be, don't bother. If you don't know, hold off because you can always get one later and it won't really damage your chances now.
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Mar 11, 2012 06:48
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Haraksha posted:Taiwan is great because it is lucky. Now I won't mention Taiwan again for the rest of the article. Well to be fair to him the article is clearly not about Taiwan and it's just the hook to get people's attention. As far as the op-ed itself, it reminds me of an article from The Onion about obvious correlations. It should be pretty obvious that if a country satisfies the requirements of not having many natural resources and yet having enough money to educate people well, then they quite obviously are emphasizing education correctly as there would simply be no other way to get the GDP needed for good K-12 teaching.
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Mar 13, 2012 11:02
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I'm not sure if this is what open24hours is talking about but just to clarify some things some countries do indeed have 'Working Holiday Schemes' with Taiwan which seem to allow acquisition of an ARC without already having a job. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/workingholiday/taiwanworkingholidayscheme.htm is an example for New Zealand, after a little browsing it seemed England had something similar, maybe Germany and some others. It also looks like an employer's dream as it would be super easy to pay under the table when they're not even supposed to be working at one place for too long anyway. If price is an issue, hostels are fine for short term and often include AC and wifi. Just check the reviews to see how their English is. edit-  I did find some stuff on the boca.gov.tw website that actually was related to coming to Taiwan for what it's worth.
USDA Choice fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Mar 14, 2012 |
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Mar 14, 2012 10:53
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DontAskKant posted:Do I need a US FBI CBC for Taiwan? I am somehow missing information on this. A check by your local municipal department should be fine, if it's required at all. I can't recall exactly maybe someone who applied more recently can tell but I think checks are only required by the individual school and are not for the visa. I can tell you that for Hess a year and a half ago I for sure only needed a check by the police of my suburb.
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Mar 15, 2012 20:39
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Haraksha posted:Anyone looking for lovely hours in a lovely location? Sanxia? How well is it paying and what hours?
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Mar 16, 2012 10:47
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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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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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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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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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HappyHelmet posted:Not sure anyone on here can help me with this, but I figure its worth asking. Anyone know anything about trying to start a business here in Taiwan? Maybe a good website or something. I'm trying to look on ForumOSA, but the website is horrible and hard to find anything relevant on there. Provisional answer: you need a chunk of cash to invest with which is the biggest hurdle and then other than that I think it's just documents like a business plan and how many employees you want to hire and some other stuff. I'm mildly interested in this myself so I'm now searching for a legit source to cite. edit- If you satisfy whatever their requirements, whatever they are, I'm fairly sure you can stay here on an ARC I've met a couple people who run their own show.
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Apr 5, 2012 15:42
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HappyHelmet posted:I figured it would be something like that. My brief searching into the matter basically tells me its something like: hire lawyer-> sign documents-> kiss a poo poo load of money goodbye-> pray your business doesn't immediately fold I found a few results like that too. As for the visa this boca page notes that an ARC can be given for investing so I'd guess if you've got all your ducks in a row they won't say no to giving you an ARC.
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Apr 5, 2012 18:18
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dundun posted:Yes I just graduated with a 4 year degree last year. So the overall opinion of Tefl is that its nice to have but not really necessary? In Taiwan, regarding 99% of cram schools, it doesn't even qualify as "nice to have." A baccalaureate is fine for immigration, as to being qualified I suppose that depends how enlightened the cram school manager is regarding international education standards.
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Apr 17, 2012 10:58
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GoutPatrol posted:I can get (almost) the same thing in a box for 60NT. Steak for 60NT? Is that like .5oz of steak?
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Apr 19, 2012 06:17
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Haraksha posted:Well, my guess is that 15,000 words is like 35 pages. God knows how many hours that's going to take me, but even if it was 3 hours that would still be like 2000 dollars at my hourly rate. It's entirely different work, and frankly seems more taxing than teaching kindergarten. I would suspect it'll be more than 3 hours. At 30 pages that's 5 minutes a page to do both the reading and revising. In addition you'll want to check your work either page-by-page or at the end. More pages would only increase the pace. I'd call it 5 hours in all, maybe with some stipulation for more if the writing is really crappy. If the writing is already good though I doubt it'd be more taxing than kindergarten. Totally unrelated: 15,000 words just to get into a school? Will admissions counselors even read that?
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Apr 20, 2012 15:22
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How easily can the 4s be unlocked? If it's easy enough, (cursory Google says probably?) and you plan on splitting time between Taiwan and the USA, I'd recommend buying it on contract in whichever place you'll use it more, then get it unlocked. If you can't do it yourself, a random cell phone shack should be able to. When the couple ways I saw online made my computer hang I got my 3g unlocked at a cell phone stand for a few hundred NT, I think maybe 500? You can then put in the sim card of whichever country you're in.
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Apr 25, 2012 17:14
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OrangeGuy posted:Yeah, that seems like the best option overall. Just get any fancy electronic luxuries while I am in Taiwan and make do with some duct tape and rubber bands on my current phone until then. A lot of the big US carriers make it super hard to buy SIMs since they want to lock you into a contract. When I was just recently in the US for a couple months I used the T-mobile sim card that's $50 a month pay as you go for unlimited talk/text/data, the data wasn't that fast but at $50 everything unlimited, whatever.
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Apr 25, 2012 19:28
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Ravendas posted:My new HTC One X is amazing. I can throw whatever files I want on it, wherever I want on it, without having to run some stupid program that limits me as to what I can do. What's your data/minutes/text plan and how much do you pay monthly for it?
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Apr 27, 2012 06:14
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OrangeGuy posted:Is it possible to get a job teaching English to adults or older learners compared to teaching kids right off the plane? I definitely like kids and would find it enjoyable teaching to kids, but something tells me I might enjoy teaching English to adults even more, at least given my experience teaching English to monks in their 30s and 40s. I don't know about better but it's certainly much easier to find a job with kids, there's just so many more. That would then buy you the time to leisurely find an adult job and network, knowing you're making money and your visa is secure. If you fly into Taiwan and are zeroed in only on adult jobs, it's fairly likely you'd need to make a visa run. But again maybe not, luck is a factor with vacancies and timing. As to being worth it, it depends how much you really want to work with adults vs. kids; if you're going to be miserable every day teaching snot machines of course looking for the adult job is worth it, but if you only derive 10% more 'job enjoyment' or whatever then perhaps don't waste the time and headaches. The adults will definitely feel more like real teaching at least. At Hess last year I felt like what I was doing only qualified as true teaching in a few of my 10 classes, and they were all fairly high levels where the wheat had been separated from the chaff, so to speak.
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Apr 28, 2012 08:20
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hitension posted:Hahahaha, this is amazing At least it wasn't Taiwan=Thailand. Honestly, I do believe every American I've met over here has an anecdote of friends/relatives/anyone mistaking the two. When I told my bank I was going to be in Taiwan, I got a response wishing me well on my studies in Thailand.  OrangeGuy I don't think anyone here actually cares about post volume as long as it's on topic and not repeating poo poo answered in the OP. And god knows I for one have the time to respond. edit- Not that Americans can be the only ones bad at geography, but I have to say after coming here I've been convinced of our stereotype. USDA Choice fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Apr 28, 2012 |
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Apr 28, 2012 14:40
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Sisal Two-Step posted:Hey this seems like a good point to start posting questions, seeing as you're all in the mood to help newcomers out. There are plenty of people that go Korea->Taiwan, I think Haraksha did that IIRC? Whoever did can fill you in but the short of it seems to be that Taiwan is a lot more relaxed which I can definitely understand. Foreign women are treated just fine. There isn't harassment or violence or anything like that. Unless you're into rather... feminine guys the dating scene will be quite slow. Other than that you'll get the usual My own question: Anyone have experience going to the mainland from Taiwan and the visa crap that entails? Did you guys DHL passports across the strait or go to HK first or what?
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Apr 30, 2012 18:56
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TetsuoTW posted:反共復國，人人有責，消滅共匪，捨我其誰！ 如果毛澤東是共匪，蔣中正是國匪。 No but seriously that guy was a tool. It's kind of a shame such a great place was basically founded (as we know it) by a US-backed gangster.
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May 1, 2012 18:17
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:I really hate it when the girls wear the jet black ones and the fake glasses. For some reason that bothers me more than blue "anime" eyes. It really threw me off when I was first confronted with it. It's more off putting in China because the fashion sense and clothing is worse, much worse. Be lucky you don't have to see girls with literal stuffed animals on their hands in the winter. Taiwan already has adopted Pinyin. It's not used in instruction since it doesn't really matter what the local 6-year-olds use, but signage and post office stuff etc... are in Pinyin. Admittedly the exceptions are numerous, but at least they're pretty established and famous places. Also those alarmists really are just alarmists. Sure average character retention may go down by a hundred or so for a few generations, but people are never going to be unable to write 你好. If that day were ever to come, life would be so digital that what would it matter?
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May 2, 2012 17:25
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duckfarts posted:Hey kids, don't forget it's tax month, where you apply to get a nice chunk of your last year's salary this year! If you e-File they say they'll get it to you before the end of July 
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May 4, 2012 11:53
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Recently ate at Ed's Diner in 大值Dazhi in Taipei. It was so good I feel like I have to share it. I saw it on 大學生了沒 and figured might as well give it a shot. The barbecue is excellent. And not like a lot of the western places here are "good for Taiwan," the ribs are really a lot better than many places back in America. The pulled pork sandwich had a particularly good mustard slaw on it. Definitely worth getting out there.
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May 5, 2012 09:46
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Unfortunately no pictures. Their facebook page (god I sound like a shill) has a couple and they look pretty much like what I got. And yeah, it is so nice to find truly good food when somewhere else. Diamonds in the rough, truly.
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May 7, 2012 10:31
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Looks like you're in Tokyo, so you mean the today that's already here in Asia, the 14th? If that's the case I'm busy until at least 10:00pm 
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May 14, 2012 05:11
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OrangeGuy posted:Do buxibans and the like drug test potential English teachers? I'm not sure if they would, but better to be on the safe side! They run a blood test before you can get a resident visa, however I'm pretty sure they just screen that for HIV and other super nasty diseases and nothing else. The schools themselves certainly don't bother to inquire. Obligatory disclaimer: Theoretically possession of a controlled drug can lead to the death penalty. Practically that never happens, but it does show how serious they are about it. Still, just like anywhere else it takes extreme stupidity or bad luck to get caught in the first place. edit- They=government, via hospital nurses. Come to think of it, it might be possible to get the bloodwork done prior to arriving and then not needing to do it here? USDA Choice fucked around with this message at 21:05 on May 19, 2012 |
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May 19, 2012 21:01
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I don't know why Keelung is on there, don't go there. A guy from my training class was actually posted to Keelung but he chose to live in Taipei and take the train to work every day, that's how exciting it is. I was in Hsinchu last year, and while it definitely has a lot of foreigners per capita, city proper is only a total population of 400k and even if you add Miaoli + Hsinchu counties, it's 1.5 million, and that's over a pretty big area. Hsinchu is frankly pretty boring. It has some clubs that try to imitate Luxy, though I'll admit its restaurants appear to be both increasing and improving dramatically. Hsinchu won't make you feel isolated, and I wouldn't say it's bucolic or anything, but there is definitely simply less to do. It has the highest wages anywhere on the island (so says Wiki) but it's got the same cheap prices as everywhere outside Taipei so there's more opportunity to save up a little.
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May 29, 2012 05:43
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As HappyHelmet noted, it is definitely up to you. Personally, I think split shifts absolutely suck donkey balls and I'd rather work straight through than have 3-4 hours of dead time in the middle of the day. Keep in mind it's entirely possible you'll take a 20 hour contract and they'll put you on 32 hours, or bare minimum 20, it will all depend on the situation at the branch. For what it's worth, if you take the vanilla HLS only contract, it is often possible to sub a lot of kindy, and sometimes even possibly get a kindy class of your own.
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Jun 5, 2012 06:25
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Capt. Carl posted:Had my hess interview. They told me they don't have anything right now for Taipei or Kaoshiung but something could open up. So my only other option is Greater Taipei, which is probably where I'll get placed if I get in. Anyone have any experience with this? The recruiter told me it's only 20-30 minutes from Taipei, but I'd rather not get placed in boring bumfuckville with no one around it . 'Greater Taipei' is like being in 'Greater NYC,' you could be put in the effective equivalent of Allentown, PA if that analogy helps. On the other hand it might include a bunch of branches in New Taipei City that are super close to actual Taipei City, like Yonghe for example. A friend got placed in Linkou. It took him longer to get to downtown Taipei than it took me, and I lived in Hsinchu. I think Haraksha is currently in a place that could be called 'Greater Taipei' if you want to ask more about it. Honestly it sounds like boring bumfuckville to me personally, but some people really do prefer it. Also, if they are serious about wanting you, something will definitely open up. I was told the same thing and a spot opened up literally 2 days later, and this was just a couple weeks out from the training. Turnover is so high that it's super likely another spot will open but the place might be the catch. For what it's worth, spots in Kaohsiung are hard to come by. Finally, when you say recruiter, do you just mean the Hess HR person that interviewed you? Because in no situation should you be using a traditional recruiter with them.
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Jun 9, 2012 22:43
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Just discovered that it is impossible to buy paid apps on the Android store/Google Play in Taiwan.  Does anyone have experience circumventing this?edit- Purported workaround, haven't tested it myself. USDA Choice fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jun 10, 2012 |
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Jun 10, 2012 18:05
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url posted:
The medical is super easy, there should be a list of acceptable clinics/hospitals on the local DMV webpage. You will need some pictures and then a super quick vision and hearing test. Here's my scooter test from last year. I look super retarded with my legs out to the sides all the time, but style points don't count. At least they didn't in Hsinchu, maybe check before you do the same. You need 70/100 to pass, going off the rail at any time means you get -32 so it's an automatic fail. Other serious infractions are also -32, some are -8. I actually got -8 because I didn't turn my blinker on early enough for the second turn. The failure-sounding sirens are not for me, but rather the car test close by so ignore those. There's a simulated train crossing, pedestrian crossing, and traffic light that are all on timed cycles. If they're flashing/on then it's pretty intuitive, just stop, wait, then keep going. The part at the end is a narrow strip you have to go through in 7 seconds OR MORE, i.e. it tests your balance going slowly, you can't just floor it. You get two tries on it, and it's pretty notorious. I was the 6th person to go in that time slot and the 3rd person to pass I think, and everyone who failed did so on that last strip. PS Having a crowd is totally standard and had nothing to do with me being a foreigner, people just love to watch the agony and the ecstasy.
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Jun 11, 2012 13:32
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TetsuoTW posted:Wait, Taiwanese vehicles have blinkers? Oh yeah didn't you get the memo? They're the flashing things you turn on when you double-park for three hours on main roads. Also: Is there a minimum wage for white-collar foreigners different from the minimum for locals? I've seen a post in forumosa and some other totally unreliable forum/blog that I can't remember and both said 48k/month, however I've never seen a government website saying so  but I'd settle for a newspaper article mentioning it. I'm looking for jobs right now and that'd be handy info to have.Re: lasik, in talking to locals they seemed to thing it wasn't covered but I've seen a bus ad saying it was covered. I wasn't able to read it all however so there may have been a bunch of conditions like severity or somesuch. For prices I heard closer to $2k ish. edit- Found this outlining some plans but still haven't found anything concrete USDA Choice fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jun 11, 2012 |
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Jun 11, 2012 15:06
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Yeah days off for weather really do suck. You don't have them in advance so it's impossible to plan something and going outside usually sucks. Except for those who are salaried, in which case huzzah.
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Jun 12, 2012 07:11
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Tetsuo what's your visa? APRC? Did you found a company of your own through which you 'work' and thus have a work permit and regular ARC? It always seemed to me that freelancing and self work in Taiwan would be hard to get into if only due to visa issues.
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Jun 12, 2012 08:06
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Had to share the absurdity of this. I was just asked my blood type when applying for a job here in Taiwan... 
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Jun 19, 2012 15:06
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I know it's par for the course for friends or "language exchanges" and it's an available field on facebook or whatever but that's really disheartening to see as a criterion for employment. How can I possibly take anything at that company seriously now?
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Jun 19, 2012 20:06
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According to [citation needed] Skidamarink was from a 1910 musical. I'm not sure about that, but it was also a summer camp song by the 1930s or 40s too, my grandparents know it.
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Jun 20, 2012 05:31
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Booo 7/14, hooray 7/21. I'll be in Hsinchu for a birthday party 7/14-15
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Jun 27, 2012 05:57
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Are GFs/SOs coming to this shindig or is it just going to be sweaty neckbeards?
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Jun 29, 2012 15:00
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