Program Reviews

The recruiter at Saxoncourt was extremely helpful and had the insight of somebody who has previously lived and worked in Japan. The whole process was well explained and easy. The job itself is both rewarding and challenging. The best part of the job for me personally is teaching such different age groups. I can't recommend Tony and Saxoncourt highly enough.

Working at Shane English School through Saxoncourt, has given me an interesting and rewarding Job. I've had the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and learn a great deal about Japanese culture. I recommend this job to anyone!

The saxoncourt reps were extraordinarily
Helpful. The transition was smooth both socially and professionally, mostly thanks to the team at saxoncourt. I would absolutely recommend this program to anyone.

Shane is one of 3 large chain schools in Taiwan. They have branches in virtually every neighborhood of the island. The idea is that kids of all ages come straight from school to their after school program, which means they usually open up within a block or two of each school. There are benefits to working for a large school, but you should know what you're getting into.
I remember that my boss once told me she was calling the head office to "Order a new teacher," sort of the way you might order a sweater from gap.com. This is really the mentality they have towards teachers in general. They bring in an enormous amount of foreigners each year, mostly who have no teaching experience, BA's in unrelated fields and marginal cultural sensitivities. They have developed a curriculum that any white faced monkey could teach. The students do learn and make progress, though not at a speed that I was comfortable with.
The job is not hard, once you get a feel for it. It will take more out of you than sitting in an office, but it's pretty fair to expect to start your work day after lunch and end only shortly after dinner. You'll be making less in your first year than the average salary, but remember that if you're taking this job, you probably have absolutely no teaching experience. If you do, you may be making a relatively comparable salary. You'll never make **big bucks** of other teaching jobs, but you'll be plenty comfortable and rarely stressed. The job leaves you with enough time and money to enjoy Taiwan, learn Chinese, get into trouble, make friends or do whatever you please.
Shane certainly has it's problems. Most of them go with the territory of a large operation. You should know what you're getting into before hand. Much to their credit, they spell out exactly what you'll be doing and how you'll be paid in the contract, no more no less. This puts them a big step above other schools. I taught there for one year and then moved on. It was probably the best year of my life. I learned an enormous amount, I had a great deal of fun and grew up a great deal. I often complained about Shane while I worked there, then I took a much higher paying job with an extremely disrespectful boss at a mismanaged school that never paid me what they promised.
Shane is what it is: it sets a low bar which it meets every time. I'm sure there are better schools out there, but I learned the hard way that there are also far worse.

Overall, I would say that my experience at Shane was good. It was my first teaching position and my first time in Taiwan. For the most part, I would say that the school is a bit more professional than some of the other foreign owned English teaching schools and certainly more professional than the English schools set up by local proprietors.

Shane does provide an initial teaching orientation, which helps in gaining your footing if you've never taught before. The pay is slightly lower than other schools, but as others have stated that seems to be balanced out by being part of a responsive and organized school i.e., your concerns are generally addressed and the admin in the head office do try to help.

There were three aspects which I did not particularly like. The first is with respect to taking days off. While the Shane program does have an organized request based vacation system, this does not necessarily work in practice. For example, all of the English teachers tend to want the same days off - usually clustered around specific holidays of times of the year. I found that admin tended to have first choice to take off such days for themselves and then tried to accommodate everyone after. The second problem I had, and one which I do not have a solution for, is Shane's "on-call" system. Every few weeks each teacher is "on-call" on their day off and must be prepared to go in to substitute for any other English teacher who happens not to go into their job on that day. Needless to say, this can be a drawback and - in practice - takes away one of your days off fairly frequently. If you are working for the money, however, this may not be as much of a concern. Lastly, Shane has a dress code. For men they require a button down shirt and tie. Although this isn't a huge issue, Taiwan is a hot and humid place and there are those times when you look at your non-Shane colleagues with envy for not being drenched in sweat.

Overall, a solid program, especially for those new to teaching.

We've all read horror stories of working for schools that treat you badly, don't pay you on time, don't know what they are doing, make excuses for everything. Well at Shane you don't need to worry about all that. They have western managers and all the systems are crystal clear and fair. If you can get a job with them you are onto a good thing.

Hands down, Shane English is a great place to get your feet wet in the teaching English game. A very difficult thing in Taiwan is working with Taiwanese management as their approach won't always align properly with yours. Shane has a terrific support structure to accommodate this with Western Management readily available to help. The managers became good friends of mine and I still keep in touch with them today.

Shane places a strong preference on academic achievement and professionalism. Some people don't like dressing up for work- I relished wearing a shirt and tie. I took my job seriously and presenting myself correctly was a key part to that.

The team I worked with has remained in my life even though I am no longer in Taiwan. I have traveled to visit fellow teachers, been to their weddings, and continue to keep in touch. Shane does an excellent job selecting top notch teachers with great personalities and a love for their jobs. Working with them made my job a lot more enjoyable.

If I could improve anything about the school, it would be two things. The first, I believe that initial compensation should be a little bit higher. By no means is it low, but it was a little bit lower than my friends' working for other schools. They make up for this by giving two days off a week, having an excellent support system, and making it very easy to take holidays- very important aspects that I think outweigh the salary issue (all of which made my friends jealous). The other thing is that some of the schools could use a bit of a facelift. They are all clean, safe schools that make for great working conditions, but some of them have lost that "new car" smell.

These two things are really nitpicky and shouldn't detract you from pursuing a job with Shane. If my friend went to Taiwan to teach, I would strongly suggest they look at this school- it's a great way to start out.

I had had so much fun at Shane - I stayed for a second year. Being at Head Office was a bonus. Line managers were generally useful and helpful. School Manager was a plus - well organised and efficient. If you are looking for a good place to teach - where you will earn a comparatively decent salary - look into Shane. Mitch Gordan and company are fantastic. I will make sure that I get them to help me job hunt each time I move onto another country.

As my first experience with teaching ESL, I found that Shane had a lot of benefits. The initial training and observations allowed me to feel comfortable when I finally stepped into the classroom. Also, I appreciated the assistance offered with finding an apartment, setting up a bank account, and getting my health check done. Also, I knew that I could contact the staff at the Head Office if I ever needed help.
I really enjoyed teaching in their kindergarten program (preschool) and was lucky enough the have a wonderful TA in my class. I taught “kindy” morning and afternoon followed by an elementary class in the evening. I mainly enjoyed my time with Shane, but felt that I needed a change after my first year. Again, a very good experience for a new teacher.

Working for Shane (Taiwan) was a great experience for me since the atmosphere at the workplace was always very friendly and pleasant. The overall experience was phenomenal!

When I worked for Shane as a senior teaching assistant at one of the branches, I have heard a lot of great things from the teachers. For example, new teachers would be accommodated by Shane in a hotel close to the headquarters for the first few days of training and would be assisted with finding a long-term place to stay later on . After they started working officially, branch managers always tried their best to assign more hours to teachers fairly since they are paid based on teaching hours.

One special thing about Shane as an ESL school is that the teachers get a full range of assistance in class from the local teaching assistant, which means the teachers can focus on what they do best-teaching English- while the TAs take the most responsibility for other things, such as disciplining, student performance evaluating/reporting, and homework correcting.

Shane is a great brand with superior established reputation in the industry. Working for Shane is an honor and it creates great professional personal image for people who work there. However, Shane is not the perfect choice for candidates who prioritized the paycheck among other decision making criteria in selecting where to teach English abroad. However, the attentive local staff and full training and support provided by the headquarters are irreplaceable and priceless in making your great teaching experience abroad!!