Job Discussion Forums

[Jackie Chan's Double]

This is a warning about what you will experience at Guangdong Ocean University (GDOU) in Zhanjiang if you decide to be employed by their diploma mill university. Hopefully you will reconsider your decision and look elsewhere, there are MUCH better univs in China which will give you support, humane housing, the classes that you want to teach, smaller classes, and a better salary.

The following is why…

I used to be a teacher at GDOU. Initially I was told I’d be teaching General Oral English, after I arrived they assigned me Business English and History to English majors. Other teachers were outsourced to non English departments where the students’ English ability was that of a 5th grader. If students failed the course, the univ would ask the teacher to pass the students anyway so GDOU wouldn’t lose face and drop in univ rankings even further.

GDOU doesn’t rotate classes between teachers, ie. a couple from Kentucky who have taught the same subjects of Oral English and Writing the last 5+ years (a redneck couple who are the sleaziest people on earth. For our Halloween party they told their students to BUY THEIR OWN HALLOWEEN candy! They collected the candy in class and handed it back to the students through trick or treating. Halloween reached a new low last year. They tell students how poor they are and ask students to buy them gifts despite the fact they have two salaries, they are always out looking for gossip to discredit other foreigners, they also hire students to do their final exam grades) .

Hopefully you enjoy having 80+ students per class. Yes, they double the classes to avoid paying overtime. Reread your contract, there is no mention of overtime in it. No mention of class size, no mention of double classes. They write a general contract and sucker new ppl into signing it and then will screw you over big time when you get here. It has happened multiple times to other co-workers.

MOD EDIT

Hopefully you know how to read Chinese because you will get ZERO support from the administration. Your class schedule will be 100% in Chinese, your roster 100% Chinese, you will be asked to enter grades into a 100% Chinese language database after clicking on 15 links in Chinese, which by the way crashes every semester among other things. Don’t open any attachments the admin sends you as they have viruses on it. Yes, this is China, however most foreigners aren’t fluent in the local language and if you ask for help from the English Department you will be ignored and if you’re lucky to get their attention, the English Dept. administration will yell at you in Chinese. If you ask for help from the International Office, they will either ignore you (as is the usual case, especially with the Director) or tell you to talk to the English Dept.

There is a massive lack of communication from GDOU on every level. The English Department assigned a Chinese teacher to be the liaison between the admin and the foreigners, despite the fact this particular person said openly she doesn’t like foreigners. She is incompetent on every level, gave wrong messages to teachers, etc.

Our apartments were the worst univ housing around. Old Mao era housing which is infested with mold, leaking, if it smells like new paint, it is because there was black mold in your apt. and they painted over it without removing the mold and fixing the crap roof. Cockroaches, unidentified roaches, mosquitoes and large spiders everywhere inside.

GDOU mainly uses university recruiters to rein in foreign teachers and then the recruiters try to extort and blackmail the teachers; ie. Their leading weirdo recruiter, asked multiple times for money from foreign teachers for "mom's cancer treatments", GDOU continues to deal with this unprofessional and corrupt recruiter even after bringing it to their attention. Additionally, GDOU's recruiter threatened to pass on and sell private teacher info to third parties, try to destroy teaching career by threatening to spread rumors if the teacher refuses to give the recruiter money for their "mom's cancer treatment's".

Some years ago there were court cases against GDOU for failure to pay salaries, airfare allowance, etc. among other things.

The facilities... the swimming pool is cleaned maybe twice per year at best, the water is so dirty it's green and would fail any proper water test. It’s a shame students take swimming classes in it. The badminton courts have no a/c are old and moldy.

GDOU charges students extra to use the badminton courts & swimming pool among other things on top of the tuition they already pay. The fees are going into someone's pocket. Strange to charge students for using univ facilities, yet there are never any upgrades of anything. Where does all this money really go?

On the upside, the campus has lovely palm trees and nice students. Yet again, you can find palm tree lined campuses and nice students anywhere in the tropics.

If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

[wangdaning]

I don't buy candy for my students. If they want to do Halloween they need to organize something themselves. I am a sleazy redneck though. Unfortunately, I am not an evil Christian.

I am not claiming the school is good, but you chose some bad examples to bash people. Paying their students to mark work is pretty shady, to say the least. However, not buying candy and being Christian? I never understood why a Christian would celebrate Halloween anyway.

MOD EDIT

I get you might be angry, but you make it hard to take this as credible. Stick to the issues of work, and specifically your work.

[twowheel]

Nonetheless, it does sound like a less than pleasant place to work. I'll pass.

twowheel

[Spelunker]

If Charming (sic) Z***g is still there as the FAO I doubt much will change. Years and years back, on another esl teaching board, I moaned about this mysterious individual. I suspected him of being in on a degree mining/personal info scam. Either way, I would not trust that this outfit in guangdong has changed that much....it's been blacklisted by me for years, good to see it getting a blacklist warning on here too!

[Jackie Chan's Double]

[Spelunker]

One of them, his name would not be R*n would it, and his wife, shorter, both been in Guangdong for a good few years and as tight as a duck's arse. It may not be them as the couple I knew that seems to match this description were there back in 2005-2006, but they do sound similar. China sure does attract them like flies to....ah well.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

OP:

A lot of what you report about this university is true of many public universities: large classes, having to teach history as well as business English (which consists of much more than playing guitar, games, and telling jokes. One must actually know how to teach). If you teach to English majors, it's an easy job. You merely need to have a good grip on the subject (study and take notes) and be able to explain it in simple terms and be able to answer pretty deep questions at times.

Re: No support from administration. Your FAO should be able to fix that. If not, you (like MOST FTs who teach in public universities) must create your own syllabus and lesson plans as well as create your own content. If you are a qualified teacher (I don't mean certified), this is pretty basic everywhere, even in some western universities.

Re: other FTs. Well, they're there for the long run. Your only hope to dislodge them is to outteach them.

Yes, it is a problem when you are given Chinese instructions. You merely go to your FAO and ask for help, or you get a student to help you.

You will also need to have your students set up a student roster that has their name in Hanyu, Pinyin, and their English names. You'll need this for every class, and most English majors like doing this sort of thing if you give them advance notice. What I do is I set up my grade books with their English names, and then the students fill in the Pin Yin names, then their names in Hanyu.

I really don't understand what the problem is. If your co-workers are so sleazy, their students know it, and they report it back to their work leaders (whoever they are) and in time, they are disharged if no one likes them.

Usually, FTs who are outsourced are ones who just can't teach. I've known a few like that. They were given one class on campus, then they taught in primary schools. If you work it right, it can be quite fun, especially if you are outsourced because your university has too many teachers. That's what happened to me during my first year. It was a blast. I got to teach in several schools and did little more than tell stories about myself and my life in the U.S.. A lot of small kids speak very good English, and those who don't are often quite malleable.

Teachers who are sent to teach the low-ability non-english major students are often pretty low-wattage teachers both educationally and competently.

In truth, I don't the teaching problem is with the university. Sorry.

Housing: Yeah, the mold can be awful if the A/c is not adequate and there is no exhaust fan in the bath room. That usually starts before current FTs arrive. The simple solution is to provide adequate ventilation in the bathrooms. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. This is the sort of thing that you need to climb all over your FAO and the recruiter who got you the job about. Bugs, roaches, etc. can be minimized if everyone fumigates at the same time. I've had few bug problems in Jiangsu, largely because the bat population keeps them under control outside before they can get inside.

School problems are largely under the teachers' control if there's no administrative support to hinder their mission. Though you didn't mention it, discipline problems are the school's responsibility.

Living conditions are the responsibility of the school.

[IvanaShaanxi]

Thank you for your very informative input. I've always believed Chinese unis to be more like prisons, usually being so secluded and everything. That's another aspect that needs mentioning.

[mackidrei]

i think it's interesting how quick some have been to make discrediting comments, while not having worked there and not knowing anyone that has.

i also had a couple discrediting thoughts, i think because some of it reads as a personal grudge, but then realized that's probably because of my experience in china, which has strictly been uni. at my old job (not gdou) i had a problem with roaches and rats in my apt (they gave me two glue traps and that was it), a mess of colleagues (pedos, sexual predators, personality disorders, straight out nut jobs...) that i pretty much avoided all contact with most of them, useless fao that wouldn't respond/communicate, an english dept head that avoided any and all interaction with everyone foreign (dealing with foreigners wasn't his job, as he liked to say), and a "helper" that was really just a uni assigned student (always too busy with her classes) to do anything other than keep tabs on what the foreign teachers were doing (she lived in the same building). this type of job is absolutely perfect for some though, being completely on their own to do as they please.

i had to rely on trustworthy students of my own choosing quite a bit. yeah, i met great people and made great friends that way, but was it ideal, comfortable or the least bit professional? no. and doing that as someone inexperienced or without experience in china? no thanks. a lot of this crap takes place at many places though it seems.

so yes, some jobs are rough. i can deal with shitty jobs a lot better only from going through past shitty situations. but i don't think that means shitty jobs are normal or should be considered acceptable. can people who haven't gone through these situations before manage on their own? no and yes, from what i've seen. doesn't make it ok, doesn't make it a job for everyone, doesn't mean it's normal or should be considered normal. if you end up in this situation, do your time and get out, or just straight get out, it isn't worth it.

for taking the time and being honest to warn others, thank you, i'm sure this will help some. it's better than doing absolutely nothing.

[wangdaning]

My point was that focusing on the negatives of the job is much more useful and makes the post a lot more credible. Name a colleague of mine and I could tell you something negative. I would not do it though, as we all have our issues. For someone's relationships and religion to be dumped out and put down is not helpful for the OPs credibility.

The things mentioned about the school seem bad, but you have to balance that with what is mixed in with the statements.

I have nothing to gain or lose from this, I am in a different province and will not be going back to Guangdong for other reasons (nothing criminal, on my part at least).

[7969]

OldBud Powerll has already pointed some of this out, but I'll reiterate.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

I also went around my apartment and plugged up any holes/cracks with small pieces of cardboard that I cut to the right size. I rarely see any kind of insect in here now.

Soaking wet gobs of toilet paper can plug pretty large holes and gaps, and it can even be sanded.


Some of the other complaints registered here - Not getting info on time, unlikable fellow teachers, school websites and timetables only in Chinese, large classes etc - are valid but not unique to GDOU. Living and working in China successfully requires you to be somewhat pro-active, and if you are then you solve these problems (at the very least reduce their effect on you). If you're not willing or able to be pro-active then you'll be unhappy the entire time.

Perhaps it takes some folks longer to learn how to deal with the crazy FTs. The manipulators and the liars are to be avoided and shunned. That's the ONLY way to handle them. Avoid them and seek out like-minded company. There's safety in numbers. I think that some folks come to China believing that their fellow FTs are kindred souls. They're not. It's not much different from those one meets in the west. Not everyone is your friend back home, especially at work.

Always assume that it's a dog-eat-dog world out there and that you're wearing MilkBone underwear.

[Jackie Chan's Double]

Thanks for your input on our situation you never experienced.

That is the point, the FAO and English Dept. was unhelpful. There was ZERO support. The FAO at GDOU was to recruit new teachers, they passed the buck to others for everything else.

Some co-workers knew who to rub the right way and thus got a now 6 year winning streak going. Despite the fact Guangdong Provience has a law regarding working 5 years max at one univ. However once again, this post wasn’t about them. It was feedback regarding the overall experience at GDOU.

The teachers who were outsourced to other departments. Were solid teachers and some had 20+ years of teaching. There was no logic with the admin’s decision making process.

You should ask yourself why 6 out of 10 foreign English teachers at GDOU left this year. Most of them after only one year of teaching there.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

The FAO at GDOU was to recruit new teachers, they passed the buck to others for everything else.

The FAO's sole responsibility to FTs is to help them with housing, possible problems among FTs, paying the FTs and other things not directly related to working at the school. After you're settled in, the only thing you'll need the FAO for is pay.

Class schedules,acquisition of resources, holiday schedules, and anything directly related to working at the school is the responsibility of the Chinese liaison person. That's usually a member of the English department.

Believe it or not, the Foreign Affairs Office is actually involved in foreign affairs besides recruiting FTs. They attend meetings with foreign school representatives, work toward placement of students overseas, seek funding from foreign sources and the like.

[Non Sequitur]

That's usually a member of the English department.

At my last school, we had a 'Teaching Affairs' dept.
They did the scheduling and loaded marks etc.
As Bud says the FAO generally just hires teachers but a really big focus is also attracting foreign students.
My last school was a vocational and the FAO organised the students for their interviews with employers for their practical (2nd) year.
We had a cuisine school and around 20 Korean students each semester. Nice kids but bloody noisy.