Practical Audio Visual Chinese

I used to have a Taiwanese obsessed Chinese teacher who would swear by these books. To be honest, out of all the Chinese materials that I've ever studied I think these book have been the easiest to understand. Mandarin is a pretty difficult language, but these books have pretty adequete English explinations. I've heard that Shida has put a lot of time and effort into researching how foriegners learn Chinese, and the best way to teach it. I think the only downside is that they're all in Traditional Chinese,
http://www.youtube.com/user/leosaran#p/c/57FE818F7E881FE1

You can also find the videos here on Youtube for self study, but they're a bit old and the actors can be painful to look at.
I found the ones about book three hilarirous because they're supposed to be in America, but it's the most Taiwanese America that I've ever seen and you can see Shida in the backgroud.

http://www.youtube.com/user/leosaran#p/c/57FE818F7E881FE1

 You can also buy them online at Amazon if you're located overseas

Learn Chinese online

 So you've decided to try and save money by tying to learn Chinese online. I hate to break it to you but learning online still comes at a cost. Sure there are a lot of website out there which will provide you with free learning materials and some flashcards, but  a lot of them will make you pay a month or a yearly subscription in order to utilise all their tools.

Because most website focus on mainland Chinese and simplified characters. I've decided to tell you about the ones I've found so far that can be useful for when you live in Taiwan.

www.chinese-course.com
You can also upgrade for sound which I do believe is worth the money. This site is good for learning vocab words, but it's not very good for grammar. You can set it to auto load the page every few seconds, so you can sit back and watch the words whiz past.

http://quizlet.com/
A great flashcard system. It allows you to create your own flashcards, or use ones already made by other people. It also comes with a few word learning games. The great thing about this one is that is also comes with sounds if you're more of an audio learner like me. You can also print out your flashcards for self study.

MP3 learning.

http://www.chineselearnonline.com
I used this one for a while, and it was good because it explains each grammar point and a lot of vocab in English, so mandarin did begin to make more sense. But I didn't really learn much just by listening, it only helped to re-enforce the grammar I already knew. Maybe you have to buy a subscription and utilise the other materials to really take it all in.

http://chinesepod.com/
This is quite a popular one, but I'm not a big fan. I found that it spent more time analysing and talking about the grammar in English than the actual Chinese spoken. And the speaker's English speaking accents irritated me a little.

http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php
Good online Chinese Dictionary

www.nciku.com/
My favourite Online Chinese dictionary, unfortunately it's only simplified.

Of course there are still a few other options, such as illegally download Chinese learning software such as Rosetta stone. Some of my co-workers are really into this one, but as popular as it is I find repeatably clicking on pictures a little dull. I think I played around with this program too much as a child, so now I'm over it. Most of the accents are also from Mainland china, and can differ from what you hear in Taiwan. I remember that when I first came to Taiwan I was accustomed to mainland accents, so it took me a while to understand what anyone was saying to me.

Difficult Children

I would like to take the time to explain about a difficult child in my class. If you ever pursue a career in teaching you too will eventually encounter children who are hard to deal with. This child is the only kid in my class who's Chinese name I actually know, because every time he shows up late for class the other children say in Chinese 'He's here he's here.' Or when I have to give him to the CT's because he's being impossible to deal with, they'll sigh in frustration, say his name, and go not you again.

When I first arrived the CT had him pretty well trained, and although he was a bit crazy he would follow classroom instructions. She went away on her honeymoon for a week, and during that time he's become out of control. I think he was also ostracised by the other kids in the class as the naughty kid, so he's given up trying to behave. He jumps up and down during class, annoys the other children, hits the other children, and even hits me now too. I've tried ignoring him to a certain extent, but because he's distracting the other children every five minutes someone is telling me "Eddie hit me teacher, Eddie is stomping, Eddie scratched me." It's impossible to teach when he's being like that.

To be honest I feel a bit angry at my CT and the school for this situation. Apparently the CT is supposed to remain in the room during class (because they're only 4 for crying out loud). But my CT is absent for most of the lesson. I'm not going to lie to myself, I'm not a real teacher, I've never studied teaching before and my experience accounts for a total of three weeks. To be honest I like to think of myself as an English instructor, because all I'm doing is following the guide written by HESS. How can they possibly expect me to be able to deal with this kid. I have zero qualifications.

Yesterday I had enough and removed him from the classroom and gave him to some of the other CT's during a meeting. I really need to discuss this with my CT, if she's not going to be there the kid also can't be there.  It's difficult because most CT's don't speak very good English. So communication can be difficult.

To be honest I do understand that it's not all this kid's fault. Apparently his parents are quite young, work all the time, and he lives with his grandmother. He's late for class almost everyday, so I don't think this grandmother cares too much about raising him properly, or maybe she doesn't even try. It seems that a lot of children in Taiwan live with their grandparents, and most of them are misbehaving brats with attention issues.

Illegal Kindergartens

One thing you should know before arriving in Taiwan is that teaching at Kindergartens is actually illegal.

My schools also runs a cram school, so technicly I'm signed under a contract to work at the cram school, not the kindergarten.

There are actually inspections to rat out any foreigners teaching children English at kindergarten. If you school is cheap and dodgy you may find yourself in a lot of trouble.

From what I've heard so far they won't take you away and lock you up if they catch you teaching kindergarten. I think the school is just fined.

I haven't been inspected yet, but in the last few weeks two of my friends have. One of them told me that she was teaching, when

The advantage of working at Hess is that the reputation is good, and most inspecters are willing to over look an English teacher or two. I myself often have moments when I hope that my branch will get inspected because it will give me an excuse not to work.

Also just because you legally work at a cram school doesn't always mean you're safe. Many schools run classes that they may not be registered for, so you may find yourself being quickly ushured out, or asked to run, when the inspector comes knocking.

Simplified and Traditional Characters

One thing which I wish I had been told before I began wasting my life on Chinese, was that there are currently two different Chinese writing systems. I remember showing up for Chinese class on my first day of university, thinking that I could use the Japanese Kanji that I had crammed into my head, only to discover that I had to learn a completely different writing system.

Tradition characters are currently used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and simplified is used on the mainland, Malaysia, and Singapore. It all began with Mao and his communist party a few years after they had won against the Nationalists, and took control of mainland China. They now had millions of illiterate peasants to try and educate, so they decide the best ways to make learning characters easier would be to simplify them, and make them faster and easier to write. This was the birth of simplified characters.

I won't go into too much detail about simplified characters. True they are a lot easier and faster to write, but sometime they look a bit empty. Here is a quick example bellow. With the words "I like studying Chinese."

Taiwan of course became the hide out of the Nationalist party. Of course they hated the communists, so they're stuck with the old systems of Characters until now. Hong Kong was also a British colony until 1997, and was cut off from the mainland. It has not re-joined China, but they currently have a system which is something along the lines of one country, two systems.

Obviously if you wish to pursue some Chinese study you're going to have to choose between the two. Most overseas universities will teach in simplified, because China has become the destination of choice for most businessmen. Obviously if you're living in Taiwan simplified characters are pretty useless and traditional is the way to go. Also if you're like me and studied mainland Chinese, but then came to Taiwan, traditional characters are quite an effort for a while. Most universities will place you in classes based of a test in traditional Chinese, so most of my friends have been placed in lower classes because of their inability to read traditional.

I've asked a few die hard Taiwan fans whether or not they would consider learning simplified characters, and the answer has generally been "No, because its not real Chinese," or "I don't want to learn communist Chinese."

To be honest I really don't think that it hurts to know a little of both. If you really hope to use Chinese in your future career you will inevitable come into contact with the mainland. I've also heard things such as if you learn traditional you can automatically read simplified. I have to break it to you, but that is a lie. Of course there are character which aren't hard to recognise, but once most of them have had the strokes knocked out of them they can be unrecognisable. I was once helping a friend with her Chinese essay and I had to constantly ask "What's this character? What's this character?" It goes the other way around as well, with even mainland Chinese people having a difficult time trying to demystify traditional characters.

Make an Apartment Look bigger

When living in Taipei you may find yourself living in an apartment far smaller than you are accustomed to in the west. I myself was almost over come with a fit of claustrophobia when I first entered my room. If your coming here for study, or on a budget, your apartment might only consist of one room. So I thought that it might be best to give you some advise on what to do with your tiny living space.

Advice 1: Keep is clean. Clutter can make a space look smaller than it actually does

Advice 2: Invest in storage. Draws and boxes can be used to store away all your cheap night market trinkets

Advice 3: Use light colours. Light colours can help make a space look bigger.

Advice 3: Divide your room into different living sections. Create a space which can be called your living room, a space for study, and a space for your bedroom.

Advice 4: Dividers. Curtains, closets, or bookshelves can be placed in the middle of a room to divide it into two separate rooms. I read somewhere that opened back bookshelves are good because they allow light to filer through.

A trip to Ikea can also be quite inspirational. The Taiwanese are already accustomed to living in small spaces. So Ikea has many examples of how a space can be utilised

Here are also a few website that I was looking at to help me redecorate my room.

http://interiordec.about.com/od/articlesonbasics/a/smallroomtricks.htm
http://www.ehow.com/how_4705498_make-apartment-look-bigger.html
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Apartment-Bathroom-Look-and-Feel-Larger

Coffee

So far I've been talking about many essentials of living in Taipei, now I'd like to share with you one mine, Coffee. To me Coffee is the only thing which gives me the energy to face the children everyday. (That and the tasty blueberry bagels they have in 7/11 and Family mart) Those little children have minds that go at 100 miles and hour, and the only method to keep up with that is Caffeine

So far I've been drinking the 7/11 café lattes since they're a lot cheaper than buying real coffee from a Coffee shop (for 25NT it's not a bad deal). The Coffee in Asia is also notoriously bad, and it seems normal to burn the milk.

The downside to the coffee drinking is I don't sleep well at night, and have 'What is there in your living room' and other kindergarten Hess songs, stuck in my head until three in the morning. To combat this I've been listening to Taiwanese TV shows. I also had what can be describe as a brilliant mind moment late one night when I suddenly that all the furniture in my apartment was wrong, and that it had to be statistically placed based on it's function.

So thanks to Coffee I can now face the Children, my Chinese listening has improved, and my apartment looks a lot better, but unfortunately I'm so exhausted by Friday that it takes every inch of will power not to strangle the children.

I discussed this with a fellow member of my training group the other day, who said that instead of Coffee he had been trying the Red Bull method with a local Taiwanese knock off. So anything that works for you and contains caffeine is probably the way to go.

One Month Training

So after working for Hess for one month, you will be forced to attend another all day one month training, or in my case two week training. Because I came as part of the peak training season, where they trained about three groups in the course of a month and a half, it was one month training for group 1, three week training for group 2, and a two week training for the rest of us.

To be honest I was quite glad that I didn't have to wait an entire month before training, because they finally told us about classroom management. I don't think I could have waiting an entire month of wanting to strangle children before they taught us. Of course I realised from my first day of class, that I needed classroom management, so I sought help from the CTs at once, and it's been going ok so far. Classroom management is really something that needs to be implemented from day one, you can't really wait an entire month.

At the one month training you also have to remember to do your one month assignment, and get your NST to sign it as well. Hess has a series of compulsory trainings at different intervals which are necessary for getting you HESS teaching English certification. The next one is in two months. Hess also has little training things for different classes, on Saturday I have to attend a training session for Tree House.

As far as classes are going, it been going a bit better recently, as I slowly become more accustomed to the material and how to teach it. I had to give my kindergarten class a test yesterday (yes kindergarten children have tests) and either I'm no good at asking them the questions, (I have no idea how the frick to give four year olds a test) or they're bombing it, because they don't know the answers.

My kindergarten CT recently went on her honeymoon and her replacement doesn't really speak English. If I need to tell her something I have to say it in Chinese, so I have to nervously glance around the classroom to see if any of the children are watching, because if they discover I know Chinese the balance could be broken. I have a feeling that they already know that I understand because I react when they speak Chinese to me. Yesterday I said 'Konnichiwa' to children in the other class, and they all went 'woooo' and started pointing their fingers at me in accusation (Children are not allowed to speak other languages in English class).

Over all I feel a lot better about this job now than I did a few weeks ago.

Learning Chinese in Taipei

If you intended to live in Taiwan for a while it might be a good investment to learn some Chinese. It really does make life a 100x times easier when you can read a menu and order food. Learning food words opened up a whole new world for me. :)

The equation is

Effort X Chinese learning = Easier time in Taiwan

There are a lot of schools out there, but I've decided only to write about the ones that I, or my friends, have personal experience with. I'll try and go into more detail about some of these later on.

National Taiwan Normal University www.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnu-eng.html

a.k.a NTNU, a.k.a Shida a.k.a Sida (If you're saying it with a Taiwanese accent)

This was the first school that I ever went to on my arrival in Taipei. It is probably one of the best schools in Taiwan (and one of the most expensive), and a lot of language school use the materials produced here. Most of the teachers are fairly good, and will teach the same material in a similar way. I did the normal course which consisted on two hours a day, five days a week, for three months. Class wasn't too difficult, and I definitely felt that my Chinese improved. If you chose to take the two hour course you will also have to take five hours a week of complimentary classes. These are either big group lectures, culture courses, or studying in the audio lab.

They also have an intensive course, which believe it or not is pretty intensive. It consists of three hours a day, plus a tone of tests, and homework. I was advised not to take this one if I wanted to have a social life.

Shida also offers many extra Chinese Culture classes, language exchange, and even some class trips. It has the most number of classes, suited to many difference language abilities, so it's probably the easiest school to find a class suited to your time and level.

Chinese Culture Univeristy http://mlc.sce.pccu.edu.tw/

The next school I went to on my quest to learn Chinese, and probably my favourite. The tuition here is significantly cheaper that Shida, with one semester costing 19,000 for three hours of class a day. It also has the flexibility of being able to chose how long you want to study. So if you only want to study for two or three weeks, you just pay that amount, instead paying for an entire semester. Recently they have also begun offering night classes on Tuesday and Thursday.

I liked this one a lot. We did a lot more conversation practice and extra things, instead of every lesson following the textbook like Shida. (I wish I could go back) A Taiwanese friend once told me that CCU students could talk a lot better than Shida students. It also has a lot less students than Shida, so I felt like I got to know a lot more people. The building is also newer and the library a lot prettier.

The downside is that what you learn really depends on your teacher. If you get a good teacher you can learn a lot, but if you end up with a not so good one you're screwed. You are allowed to change classes. It also has less classes on offer than Shida, and there are less class times to chose from.

National Taiwan University www.ntu.edu.tw/

Not to be confused with National Normal Taiwan University.

National Taiwan University, or NTU boasts the reputation of being the number one university in Taiwan, and it also has the most expensive Mandarin learning program. I have friends who study here, and the classes seem quite good. It seems like their Chinese is improving. Class is three hours a day, and the classes are smaller than most other universities. It does seem like quite a good program, but for that price, you could go to any other university like Shida or the Culture University, and probably learn about the same level of stuff. It uses textbooks produced by Shida, so none of the learning materials are original or new. But if you have the money, why not?

Taiwan Language Institute www.tli.com.tw/

I knew a guy who once went here. If possible, I would advise you to go to one of the universities listed above instead of this one. The Mandarin program isn't too great, and most of the materials seem a bit outdated. But it does have schools in places other than Taipei.

Other Schools

Just to let you know, my quest to learn Mandarin isn't over yet. I may have a job which virtually rules my life, but from here on out I will be investigating other Mandarin schools, most probably night classes as well. So once I've checked them out I'll try and write about it.

Finding a Place to Live in Taiwan

Sometime during your stay in Taiwan you will inevitably have to find somewhere to live. Staying in a hotel or hostel when you first arrive isn't a bad idea, but eventually you'll become tired of the lack of space, privacy, and drunk people wondering in at two in the morning.

It's highly advisable that you get someone who speaks Chinese to help you out, since most landlords will not speak English. If you've come here seeking work, your job will most likely help you out to some extent.

Most foreigners tend to use tealit, (http://www.tealit.com) but there aren't that many houses there, and most of the good ones get snatched up pretty quickly, so if you find a good one don't hesitate to take it.

These are also many Chinese websites, but I must warn you that the picture often lie. I went to to see a house once, which looked lovely in the picture, because the picture was most likely taken when it was first built, 10 or so years ago. I found my current room on 591.com, but the pictures that I looked at, and the room itself, were completely different.

Here are a few Taiwanese sites. I think they're good for gauging the average price of a room in certain areas.

http://591.com.tw

http://www.sinyi.com.tw

The room that I currently live in is 9ping (I'm not sure if this is true or not) and is 9000 a month with internet, water, and cable included (The power is paid separately). It was also furnished. It doesn't have a kitchen, and the washing machine is located outside the room. The bathroom is also a bit tragic looking. The advantage to where I live is that it's located close to the MRT, work, and a few shopping centres. Once you've decided on a house it usually doesn't take long to move in. You just sign, give them the money, and it's suddenly all yours.

Generally in the West you will have to clean your house before you leave, but in Taiwan it's the opposite. You can pretty much leave the house a mess and the next people will clean it, which means you have the clean upon moving in. I think if you move into a giant expensive building they will mostly likely clean for you, but in my case I had to clean my current room. It wasn't so bad looking at first glance. But once I got into it everything was covered in dust, dirt, and I didn’t know the meaning of dust bunnies before I moved the bed. The air-conditioner was also quite disgusting, and I think the occupant before me was a smoker.

To be honest I'm not very thrilled with my current room, but I didn't really have much choice because I had nowhere else to live. I'm broke, and my Chinese skills are very minimal. Looking back on it now, I really wished that I had just booked into a hostel and spent a bit longer house hunting, instead of being stuck in a one year contract with a $18000 deposit.

I also discovered that if my building catches fire I will most likely die because there is no fire escape, and that windows are bared. So if I suddenly stop blogging you'll know the reason why. Luckily there's a fire station located a block away so hopefully they can save me in time. (But knowing how efficient the Taiwanese are I wouldn't bet on it.)

Here are a few pictures of my bachelorette pad.

One Week down, 51 to go.

So after one week working at my branch I definitely feel less terrified now than I did on Monday. One of the advantages to my schedule is that I currently don't work Saturdays, (I have a feeling that this could change any time) but many of my fellow co-workers do. I remember when they first took us to look at our branch, it was a Saturday, children were running up and down the corridor, running, screaming, and fighting. I then turned to my fellow newbie and said.

“That's going to be your class.”

The observations were worthwhile because now I definitely have a better idea of what I should be teaching and how I should be teaching it. Yesterday the teacher pulled out a set of flashcards in front of the class, which I didn't even know existed. The most useful thing about the observations is that I now know what I should have, but don't have. If I hadn't used up my free time to go watch other teachers I would have been so screwed. As much as I complain about the slackness of my branch, the upside is that they haven't been strict, or told me off at all.

Thank god that it's now Saturday. I'm so exhausted from being at school every single day and having to constantly keep my eyes on the the kids and tell them.

“Why aren't you sitting down?”

“Why are you looking at that book, you should be writing in this one.”

“Why are you standing on the table?”

I think that I'm probably still too lenient on these kids, I have to slowly get stricter and stricter. Today's lesson was a lot better than the first, but I think I still have a long way to go if I want to be a teacher.

Classroom Management

For my first Treehouse lesson I attempted to be the nice cool teacher who would let them do cool things, and not tell them off. I somehow believed that as long as I was really entertaining the children would sit there fixated and listen to every word I say.

Boy was I wrong

There was jumping on the tables, throwing of books, fighting, and a general disregard for anything that I had to say. Naturally I sought help from by co-teacher who advised me to divide them into two teams and play them off against each other. Rewards them with stars for good behaviour, and take them away if the children are behaving badly. She also told me that I had to be stricter with them as well.

Naturally they had told us all about this so called star reward system during training, but one of my assessors had advised me not to use it during training because they wouldn't understand. The teacher who I had observed before me also didn't use it, so I hadn't given it ago until now.

So yesterday I gave it a go during class.

And it worked like magic.

I was actually quite shocked. Even the terrible child who had been throwing his book across the classroom (Who I had thought of as my nemesis) was sitting there wrapped. Waiting in anticipation to answer a question so that he could gain a point for his team. Even I began to have fun. Every time a child would misbehave I would threaten to take a star away.

“Oh is Aaron being silly, looks like bye bye star.”

The children would then scream. “No no, no bye bye star.”

While the other team would yell. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

I even made sure to erase the stars slowly for a dramatic effect. It was even quite fun to watch them react like something was dying.

I was master of the stars.

To be honest the teaching is going a bit better, but Hess rules my life at the moment. I now lie awake at night thinking.

“They can't write their name, why can't they write their name? I have to make them practice it more?”

“I don't think Kevin understands anything I'm saying, I'll have to drill him more.”

“I have to do something for fun time, what can I do for fun time?”

It's only been four days, but I already feel like I've been there forever. Tomorrow is Friday so I'm super excited, but I'm going to do an observation for treehouse which will make my day seem a lot longer.

Observations

So as I may have mentioned before, you get one or two observations days to observe your class before they chuck you into a room full of children. I got one, to be honest I've never taught children in my life so it really wasn't enough. I have no idea what I am doing in the class-room. What my children know, or how I'm supposed to be teaching them. The most exposure to children of this age was when my younger brother was five, six years ago. Therefore I decided the best way to pick up on all this stuff, and get the classroom management into full swing, would be to observe some other classes. I figure the sooner I get the class under control and understand what I'm doing, the sooner my job will get easier.

But to do this I'm really using up my own free time the go watch my co-workers teach, and I have less lesson planning time of my own. The way things are now I'm really at my branch for about eight hours every day when I'm only being paid for four.

I really hate it, but it's just the sacrifice that I have to make in order to do my job well, and avoid being fired. What other choice do I really have?

Originally I hoped to stay in Taiwan for two years, but after I arrived at HESS that quickly shrunk to one year, then one month, and now I'm just holding out until my ARC goes through. I'm also quite screwed financially if I quit before my first pay day so I'm going to have to hold out for a while. Maybe three months. Hopefully everything will get easier soon so that I won't been feeling so lost and hopeless everyday.

First Day of Teaching

Monday was my very first day of teaching. I'm not sure if terrible is the right word to describe it, maybe shocking, because it was a bit of a shock for me.

Before coming to Taiwan I had some strange delusion that Taiwanese kids were obedient and studious, and that when I enter the classroom they would all sit there silently and listen to every word I say. Apparently I was wrong.

To be honest I'm not sure if it's wise to let an inexperienced teacher, such as myself, let lose alone with a group of kids. For my first kindergarten lesson the Chinese teacher (Who is supposed to be in the room as well) informed me that she had a health examination, and would be leaving. (Great) I attempted to be the fun amusing teacher that I was trained to be during the Hess training, but it didn't work so well.

Although we were trained by Hess for a week and a half we didn't get any exposure to young children until we arrived at out branches. All the demos were done in front of our fellow trainees who played the roles of the students. They told us about classroom management one afternoon, but we were never actually shown how do do it, and were only told that there would be no hitting, biting, ear pulling, or humiliating the children.

So with no classroom management in force, the children went pretty crazy during the lesson. The substitute Chinese teacher also went in and out of the room. Leaving me to silently plead for help every time she left. Apparently we're supposed to enforce an all English environment and speaking Chinese is forbidden amongst the students during English time. (A little harsh for a five year old, if you ask me) So I was trying my best to enforced the all English thing until the Chinese teacher returned from her health exam and began talking loudly at the back with another teacher, in Chinese, about how painful it was. My feeling at the time was “What the hell?” How am I supposed to tell these Children that you can not speak Chinese when you're in the classroom speaking it yourself? To be honest a lot of the rules here at Hess seem a bit ambiguous.

To be honest I've recited 0 help in regards to kindergarten. I just arrived here, I got to watch one class, and then it was like “Here is your class, teach them.”

Most of the conversations with my fellow English teachers have gone something like this.

Me: Isn't there a teacher's guide or something?

Co-worker: Didn't they give you one? There should be one in the class-room. (Searches the room and finds one that is half falling apart,

Day 2

Me: Do you have any advice for fun-time activities, I'm having a hard time trying to think of a new one everyday?

Co-worker 2: There is actually a book called the fun time activity book.

Me: Really?

Co-worker: They should have given you one, there should be one in the classroom.

We search the class-room and there is no so called fun-time activity book. I eventually borrow one off a fellow co-worker.

Another thing I discovered on my first day of teaching, was that the office seemed to be paper Nazi's. Many of the activities, and fun time activities, ask you to photo-copy or print different things, which was why I was surprised when the office was somewhat reluctant to give me any paper. After a bit of a struggle I finally managed to receive thirty pages. Therefore when I saw that my co worker possessed the paper goodness I asked if I could borrow some.

Me: Do you mind if I borrow some paper?

Co-worker: Actually yes.

Me: Why?

Co-worker: That packet of paper is all that I get for the year. You should have some in your class-room. Didn't they give you any?

Inner me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Why is there so much stuff they haven't given me!! Are they just slack!! Or are they just waiting to see if I stick around long enough to be worth receiving it.

During fun time I also noticed that all my fellow co-workers seem to posses Hess T-shirts, so I'm wondering if I'll ever get one of those either.

Being hired by Hess

Hello, I've decided to start up a blog account of my adventures on Taiwan working under Hess language school. I must first warn you that thins blog may be tainted by my pessimistic attitude, but I will try my best to be truthfully and to the point.

I first discovered Hess a few months back when I was a student studying Chinese in Taiwan. I was low on funds, and decided the best way to fuel my Chinese langauge drive would be to find a part time job. I originally chose Hess out of the many other language schools because it seemed stable, and they were the first to hire me. Because I was already in Taiwan I went for an interview in person, and was forced to do a one minute teacher demo, that they only told me about the night before. (It was not a pleasant experience.)

I then went back home for a month because I thought it might be a bit cruel to go without seeing my family for a year and a half. I thought that being hired gave you job security, but apparently I was wrong.

When I arrived in Taiwan it was during their peek hiring season, and training went for two weeks. It was unpaid, but the hotel, breakfast, and lunch were provided. We had to go out and forage for our dinner. One thing that you should be clear of if you ever decide to work for Hess is that they can fire you any time during the training period if you don't meet their expectations. Out of my training group, one guy left to go to China, another decided he couldn't take the pressure, and one more was let go due to poor performance.

The training involves many demos that you will be forced to do on your own or as a group. Most of them give you a night or so to prepare. I actually did really bad in my final demo (I cracked under the pressure) and they gave me a talking to, and I had to do it again the next day. I think you attitude is really important here, so if you aren't doing so well, whatever you do try and appear as enthusiastic as possible.

Once you pass the demos they finally let you sign the contract, and you are locked in for a year. If you decide to opt out and leave they will apparently fine you a fee as a reimbursement for the training costs.

How I personally feel about Hess: I really wished I picked a different job. I should have listened to what everyone back home had been trying to tell me about getting a real job. I've only been doing it for a week but I'm already considering my options. All throughout training all I could think was

“I should go to Tokyo”

“Tokyo is so cool.”

“I know Japanese, I could understand what they say over there.”

“They would pay me so much more as well.”

As great as Tokyo sounds I knows there's a high chance of me dying in a tsunami/eathquake/landslide/typhoon/Godzilla with the way things are at the moment. Last time I was there for five days and there was an earthquake at the airport. Therefore I'm going to stick with this Hess job for the moment. I look out their 30,000 loan so that I could pay the deposit on my apartment, so they're holding my passport hostage. I'm aiming to stick with this job for a few months until I get get some money together and then maybe I'll go for a career change. I'm hoping to stick to this for at least a year but I don't know if I can last that long. This company is already driving me mental. A guy in my training group once called it a McDonalds education.