This is an internet based Shane Schools review. Detailed information about Shane Schools in Taiwan is needed by teachers around the world. Shane Schools is a Language Institute in Taiwan and it’s in need of ratings. Ratings and comments will help other teachers learn more about Shane Schools. If someone was interested in teaching in Taiwan, would this school be a good place to start? Is Shane Schools a great place to work or is it in need of improvement?
Name of School: Shane Schools
| City: | Country: |
| Taiwan | |
| Admin Contact: | Admin Contact Email: |
| Type: | Site Admin Notes: |
| Language Institute |
Overall Quick Rating: 
(31 votes, average: 1.87 out of 5)
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I worked at Shane for 2 years from 2008 to 2010. It was not my first teaching post, and not my first time working abroad and in Asia. Shane compares fairly badly to my other teaching experiences.
The school does try to provide a valuable learning experience for students. From a perspective of student welfare, it does a good enough job.
However, it fails to engage teachers on a genuine level, particularly riding roughshod over contractual obligations.
Before I came to Taiwan, I had taught across the world, to all ages and was fairly fluent in Chinese, so adapting to Taiwan presented little difficulty.
I signed my contract with Shane’s agency Saxoncourt. Upon arriving in Taipei, we had to sign another contract, because the company wanted to change some terms. The old contract was never returned to us!
It was like, either sign the new one, or get out.
Having said that, the training was a thorough grounding for new teachers. And the staff at the school we trained at were friendly, providing maps, and coffee.
Like many teachers who post online about Shane, my main gripe is the way they manage toward appearances.
They also expect teachers to conform to a one-dimensional teaching approach 24-7, and teach the book rather than the student.
Their study directors are strangers to remote workposting, being centrally located in Taipei, and reviewed my school’s teaching a maximum of 6 hours a year (out of over 5000 teaching hours) – that’s it for quality control, because many owners have no experience of teaching themselves.
There was no system of peer review or assessment for teachers at nearby schools. Many teachers reported feeling out on a limb.
However, it seems that in terms of teaching ethos, not even the management are on message – I was observed by 4 DOS, I gave the same lesson each time, and was graded in 4 different ways, from substandard to excellent.
The DOS also gave me completely contradictory advice on drilling and correcting students, helping with homework exercises in class, engaging student responses and using four-skills.
Of course, because there are no set standards, it is easy for a teacher to be arbritrarily criticized according to changing standards.
They didn’t fulfill on providing a ‘teacher’s pack and welfare manual’ with weblinks and printed information on the local area, because they only had one for Taipei!
Unlike other franchises, for example AEON in Japan, absolutely no staff evenings were organized with nearby Shane schools – not even one measly evening at the bowling alley.
Shane did fulfill on finding accomodation, giving help in living in a new culture, and paying wages on time.
However, a teaching colleague was pressured into accepting accomodation that she felt was unsafe and in a dangerous area.
Even though she referred to the teacher’s manual that stated she could refuse and find her own accomdation, the owner put pressure on her to accept the school’s choice.
Wages are low to middling for the industry and location, Taiwan, at 550 -650 TWD per teaching hour. The performance bonus was removed unilaterally by my manager because the school wasn’t eprforming to her expectations.
There are no guaranteed hours after the first year. Teachers are at the mercy of the school managers who employ them.
They also witheld my taxes at 20% for the whole year, not the first 6 months as stated in the procedures manual, in both of the contract terms I worked with them, and paid the rebate of 14% back after 12 months not 6.
This meant they had around 2000 US dollars of mine earning a half year’s interest (my saving were earning 5% p.a. at the time), so if they are doing that to all teachers, they are pocketing a large amount of coin.
They also underreported my wage to the tax office by 40%, meaning I would get less tax back. I had to complain 8 times, and the tax office had to threaten legal action, before I got my money back.
I was sacked the next week on the pretext of having been told about a schedule change for a one-off class and not having arrived for the class.
I had not missed a class except for 3 days when according to the Taiwanese doctor I saw I had ‘the worst case of tonsilitis ever seen’!
So having missed this supposed class would only be grounds for a ‘first serious warning’ according to the Shane procedures manual. Instead I was dismissed. I was left with 7 days to exit Taiwan at my own cost. The DOS at head office sided with the school manager without even speaking to me.
Again and again, Shane prove they manage toward appearances, that the manual is treated as holy when it benefits the company, and is dismissed or ignored in other situations.
The teaching materials used are mostly in-house, they do contain some obvious errors that 3 reprints and two edits have not debugged, but the books are basically OK.
Students are usually sensitively assigned to appropriate classes according to ability rather than school timetabling, parental requests or enrollments requirements.
However, despite the high fees (almost double some other English schools with teacher/student ratios of 15), there is no counselling scenario for existing students – on study methods, websites and online resources, or extra-curricular activities. All the marketing budget seems to be cynically focussed on recruiting rather than retaining students.
Unfortunately, resources for younger learners, such as paints and crayons, were either lacking or not povided, even after several requests. The school manager told me to let the students sing some songs for two hours rather than do the finger painting their parents had paid for.
Toddlers are expected to sit on high-school ‘desk-chairs’, and write with pencils that they cannot grip. When I requested that they be given lower seating, or to be sat on the floor, and to be given fat crayons, I was refused on the basis of cost.
Teachers rather than learning materials, home environment or school policy are largely held to be the main factor responsible for an individual student poor performance. And on occasion the school sided with parents and students against teachers in order to keep students on roll.
In summary, an organization mostly hostile to the teachers it employs.