Job Discussion Forums

[muffintop]

[PatBateman]

I'll simply lay out some facts for you. Generally speaking the school pays less than most of the other foreign language schools in Hainan for the same amount of work (not including the colleges of course... the colleges pay pretty horribly).
Also another odd thing about the schools is that they frequently "strongly" request that you do overtime... and the overtime pay is actually less per hour than your regular pay...which is bizarre (so obviously the school benefits a little by being short staffed and instead opting to constantly get their workers to do overtime). I suppose I should clarify what I mean when I say "regular pay" Regular pay would be the your total monthly salary plus housing stipend divided by the total amount of hours you worked per month... crunch the numbers yourself... the last time I checked (a few months ago) the OT pay was 80rmb per hour where as the regular pay was closer to 100rmb an hour...
Another thing is that the boss of the school has some serious anger management issues. He is also very conniving so if you want to work at that school prepare yourself for that (These are some of the reasons why the turn over rate of the 'entire' staff is so high at this school) and has had some discomforting skirmishes with numerous teachers before that nobody would wish for.
Another thing is that the school changes it's focus at the drop of a dime... one minute you'll hear blablabla is definitely going to happen... so prepare to be doing this and that.... then the next minute everything will change entirely... my friend said that it used to annoy the hell out of her and it made work unnecessarily inefficient and stressful.
Also... if you've ever worked at "that" school in china before where there is a computer or printer problem... and upper management has been told about it numerous times by the staff... and one year later the very simple task of fixing the machinery (which is needed to do your lesson planning/class preparation in a very efficient and non stressful manner) is still not fixed...well... this school is no different. So be aware of this.

Aside from the school... the city itself isn't bad. There are a lot of excellent local restaurants (serving local delicacies) and a variety of pubs to choose from. There are also some very good KTV places (as well as some bad ones of course) that my friends and I really enjoy. There are also a lot of groups of people that you can get involved with that have various interests.... for example there are swimming groups, biking groups, music groups, touring the island groups...etc. The weather is also extremely comfortable here.[/i]

[sean in guangzhou]

PatBateman is right- avoid! This school will change your schedule every 5 minutes so you cannot plan your personal time around your work. There are great things to do in Hainan, but once you make plans, your boss will make you work to fill in a gap in the schedule because other teachers have quit.

His anger problem- it's there and it's BIG. He likes to yell at Chinese staff in front of foreign teachers, and sometimes make them cry. He wouldn't dare to raise his voice at a foreign teacher, until about 6 months in because then he feels comfortable in doing so. 2 teachers have left in the last month because of getting yelled at or receiving threatening phone calls.

This is the only place I know, thus far, that wouldn't pay a salary for the 2 weeks off during Chinese New Year.

Seriously AVOID - You've been warned!

[choudoufu]

[fat_chris]

[fat_chris]