The schools name is Well Young Education Institute in Juhnan Township, Taiwan.
The owner has sent his niece, my wife, home in tears about the poor performance of the kids. This has been going on for months now.
As far as I know, the owner of a cram school or school should pay for your Visa run.
He didn't pay for my first one and loaned me the money for my second run which came out of my first pay check. Sadly, I got no pay after the first month teaching. There was a problem with the first run as the school or local government failed to do some sort of paper work.
Also,I was on a Visitor Visa and told the owner of the school I needed to leave before the Visa expired. Let me go out first then file the other paper work.
In true Chinese fashion,he filed the paper work for the work permit and what not,which caused me to be in an overstay situation. I had to go out a second time when there should have been no need to go out at all.
The same should go for getting your first Visa. Depending on where you are at and the mood of the local Immigration officer and their knowledge of the rules,you should not have to leave Taiwan at all for your Visa.
Last I read,two years ago,you can stay in Taiwan while your paper work is being filed. I always end up having to travel out and more often at my expense.
Needless to say,this was a sore point for the owner of the school and a savage attack on my wife just two weeks ago about the poor scores of the students and all other associated problems.
This is not a bad place to be,but down here in the country,it takes a long time for things to get done. I have no grudge against the government,but I do know what I need to do when it comes to Visitor Visas going to expire and some of the rules of obtaning a Visa.
Problem is the rules change all the time,much like your socks for the day,and what you may know has changed since the last time you thought about it.
It has made for difficult situations around here.
The rule of the school is kids should have fun learning.
That means Tee Hee haw haw English.
Is it just me or do other foreigners in Taiwan find the kids go berserk when they start teaching? Every time the Chinese teacher leaves, the kids never give the foreign teacher any respect.
Unfortunately, over here they tell the kids we are not the best of our societies and that we can't get jobs, true now with jobs going to China,we are not qualified to teach them,a private Senior high school was and still is telling the kids that,and various other sayings.
Sad but true. The Private school is in Muzha County of Taipei. A private Catholic school.
I'll say more on schools here later. I have got to get ready to teach.

Greetings,
My name is John and I teach in Taiwan. For Senior Classes and some Junior classes,I have to use magazines such as:
Let's Talk in English
Studio Classroom
ABC English
and there are other magazines available such as:
Times magazine for Kids
A Plus
Some BBC mag.
National Geographic.

I find that the magazines are all the same in that there will be some story, something about a star, travel,some kids hiking, and the like.
The Chinese kids don't care about the magazine much less understand the vocabulary in the magazines. Sad fact is,much of it is vaocabulary they have had through their texts,whichever text their bushy ban has or school uses,and they have no clue what Taiwan has. Frankly the kids hate the magazines with a passion.
They get stuck on words such as had, with, for, or, nor, with, Fruit, and the list is endless. As mentioned before there is a lot of vocabulary they should be familiar with and new ones usually in bold or they don't recall within the text.
The other problem is:
They know nothing about their own country.
They can't have discussions about the article in the magazine as they can't tell me what Taiwan has. I change the topic from the magazine as the kids here don't do any thing but play computer games or basket ball.
Most do not travel and will probably never leave Taiwan much less travel around with in Taiwan.
That kills any conversation about travel. Get a class full of kids and the slightly smarter kid will come up with a place to go travel to and the rest will repeat it. They can't imagine themselves going some place much less talk about any place else.
I have given home work to find out about an assigned country and none of them bother to do it. That kills any future conversation.
They are intimidated by the articles,as there are too many words, and they have no interest in the articles.
So,after this sad story,how can I teach these magazines?
my wife says teach the useful phrases. There are usually 2 to 4 of those phrases,but my god I certainly don't want to teach those phrases for 4 hours on end.
What are good ways to teach those magazines? Any Ideas out there?
The kids don't give a toss about the magazines nor anything in them. I hate to teach them,but that is all I have to go on. The only other books are usually Far Eastern English, which they can't handle either as they are really difficult for the students to learn. If any of you are at number one ranked schools here in Taiwan,you may as well tune out as I don't want to hear,
"my kids don't have any problem with those magazines and we do blah blah blah."

Any ideas on teaching those magazines would be greatly appreciated as I have classes that last for 2 hours to 4 hours and I hate them as the kids have nothing to say about anything. I end up teaching what the Chinese teacher would teach.
It is a euphamism to be hired in to teach Conversation classes as the kids just don't know anything and lack any imagination to leap to anything. That comes from the education system over here which is like some parts of the US. Especially Arkansas. Nugh said!

Any suggestions to this forum would be greatly appreciated.
I end up telling the kids about thier national parks, etc. . Very few have travled any where. those that have don't remember what they say or say anything about it. Some of these kids have been at the bushi ban for 8 years now and they still can't put things together.
I have dropped most of my Senior classes thank God,but I still have one school where ABC magzine is used and I 'm looking for new ways to deal with teaching that material. More talking on their part and less on mine.
Also, I have to constanly come up with easy ways to explain what some word means. Some they don't know and others I have to say again for the umteenth time. My brain is burning out trying to come up with simple explanations for words.
Since there may be 500 to 1,000 words or less in the articles, I really don't have the time to make a lesson plan with defined words as I would have to define all words as every student picks words they don't know or would know if they didn't forget.

Thank you for your suggestions.

I found that geocities grey list is non existant as well as English school watch.
Geocities has not been listed for several years now. I thought Geocities went out of business or merged and that the fellow running the grey list had stopped running it.
I am trying to list a school in Taiwan but, there is no place to list schools any more. Are there any grey lists out there?
I did not find a listing for Leons grey list either. the last one does not have a grey list either an dis black lists 2003. I didnt' see any link or tab for selection to post or read about blacklisted schools at black list 2003.