Job Discussion Forums

[JulianMikka]

AMA Hue….. Unquestionably the worst work related mistake I have ever made. Since it was still new when I joined, there was nothing about them on the ESL Cafe to warn people of the tragedy that is the serfdom of that place. Hopefully, this posting can help others to steer clear of the ignominy of dealing with them.

I
Far and away the biggest issue is remuneration. Simply put, you are told/ promised that you will be paid X. Once you get there, you will be offered minus X. And they will justify this be either;

a. Putting on some song and dance to display a heartfelt shock while questioning “who told you that?” (their advertisement and recruiter)

b. Asking you to do a demo lesson and then say that it did not meet expectations so your salary will have to change.

c. Agreeing to your salary, but when the pay arrives, you did not “sign the contract properly” or “you are not as certified as suggested” “ or maybe in 2 months we can honor what we said” or some other BS they think you will believe. The most galling thing about the remuneration is that AMA Hue, by a large margin, charges the highest tuition in Hue, but the teacher compensation is closer to the lowest.

II
Paired with the rate is the guarantee of hours. You are only compensated for contact hours, and you are told that you will be paid for a minimum number of hours per month. When you bring this up, incredulous looks and surprise will be followed by yet another contractual provision not being met. While the reputation the school is earning for itself means that staffing challenges virtually assure one of working an abundance of hours, this is not a comprehensive solution. For example, when students cancel class at the last minute, you are sent home, and not paid. Of course the contract protects you in this instance, but they can’t seem to see clearly when you point out that provision (and yes, they keep the students’ fee). You quickly find that more often than not, you will be working all seven days in a week. And while there is not much going on in Hue, having classes from 08:00 to 11:00 and then again from 17:00 to 20:30 prevents you from taking part in the limited range of activities available. And then there are the holidays. It is a national regulation that a bonus should be paid during the Tet holiday. I am sure by now that you realize that not only do you not get the bonus, but also you also loose at least 10 days of pay…but gain a cheap gift basket that “ shows apperception”.

III
The other major concern is the working permit. You speak to three staff members and you are told three sets of requirements. Apparently, whether you have the correct documents or not, the bureaucrats appear to have a set “fee”. But with AMA Hue, when you have all the documents with the certification in place, they will either try to tell you that you must pay for it or they will try to talk you out of the need to get a permit. The incorrect visa was an annoyance at 30 dollars, but now at 385, it is significant. And what happens when you have family and you need to 2 or 3 or 4 visas? Visa’s and work permits do not have to be a problem. With the collusion that has become all too apparent, AMA Hue is able to operate without all the correct licensing and it provides lessons to senior people in the local government. One phone call solves everything. But clearly, the interest in investing in human resources is not there.

IV
While those major problems cause the most consternation, it's the (miss) management and niggling things that have you looking for the exit. Everywhere in the building you will see the corporate line of “Care and Success”. The Director of the company is not shy to demonstrate that she only cares about her financial success. All that time and education in Australia and she still does not understand that if you take care of your personnel, they will take care of you. But she lacks that vision. She thinks that because she pays the staff, they are her serfs and you will be exploited as such from the moment you arrive. You don't know the city or anyone in it, and they expect you to just appear and sort out your own accommodation, documentation and transportation. They wont even meet you at the airport or train station. No support is provided for anything. All the promises/assurances of “we will help you with everything” quickly becomes “ask one of the other teachers”. Just about no one wants to be accountable or responsible for anything. And unfortunately for the lone person working hard to escape this paradigm, the culture of dishonesty and disinterest that starts from The Director and works its way down, means they are climbing a mountain with no summit.

Teacher development, professionalism and development in general are completely lacking. There is no staff room, even though this was the only item that came up repeatedly at the 3 or so teacher gatherings. They have to be called gatherings because they certainly were not staff meetings. Actually, NONE of the ideas suggested to improve things have been implemented. Investing in the school that is supposed to be the vanguard of the “NEW Vietnam” is a non-starter. There are scant writing and coloring materials. There is no center based effort to have workshops or seminars. All the computers run illegal software so they constantly cause problems. And even the most important area in the building, the classroom, receive fledgling support. The classrooms share air conditioning. This means they are poorly connected with cheap, thin walls that have holes in them. It makes for a noisy environment. And due to poor planning, a class with rowdy children would be placed beside a class of Adult Learners. Teacher/lesson development fairs no better. A new type of kids course is coming into being. This will be a big earner for them. The AMA Headquarters has provided only a few lessons. AMA Hue has made it clear that teachers need to make up their own lessons with the template provided. When asked about how one will be remunerated for this effort, they just smile and say nothing, but they intend to keep whatever lessons you make as their property.

So if there is no investing in the school, resources or staff development, where is all the money going? Marketing. It is all about filling up the rooms; the quality of what goes on in the room is an afterthought. There are a lot of TV and newspaper commercials. Being in them is outside the scope of your duties and it is only fair you should be compensated. The best response they can give is “just help us out”. I guess I should be happy they even asked about the TV commercial as they have used my image, and words associated with me in at least two interviews in the newspaper that I did not give. Students had to show me the newspapers for me to know. I have also seen myself on advertisements on TV I did not know I was shot in. And when you make an agreement for additional things, the Director sees no problem altering the terms at her leisure. I agreed to do a field trip as long as my family came along. The night before, via text, I was informed that there was no space on the bus. Of course there were seats available on the day of. This kind of patron/serf mentality is prevalent with all the dealings with AMA Hue. You are just not valued as a human and they don't even try to pretend that is not the case. After spending 17 hours on an arduous bus ride because of their dishonesty with the visa, they could not see the problem in asking me to cover a 5 hour shift: just minutes after getting off the bus.

This being on call for them at all times, with no questions asked comes in many forms. We were TOLD at 6 pm on New Years Eve that there would be a gathering at 8 am on New Years day. It’s your day off, your free time and you are going to be hurt after New Years night parties. Somehow there is disappointment and shock when it is not well attended. The farcical AMA Hue Party bettered that demonstration of aloof arrogance. The Director wanted people to see the “international spirit of AMA Hue” with teachers being COMPELLED to have a dancing and singing performance. To further demonstrate her lack of vision, she wanted family members and partners who joined the party to pay. So when the turnout was low, and none of the foreign teachers who came performed, the director was angry at this defiance from the ingrates. When you rule with such edicts, how can you expect support, interest or admiration? And then there are the ridiculous cheap moments. There was this gimmicky, marketing thing of having an outdoor lesson in the park for the little ones. I was involved with another teacher. It started to rain. There was no preparation for that even though the skies were overcast all day. So I ended up with several of the kids in a taxi to go back to the school. I saw the meter and I told the staff how much it was. About 20 minutes later, a student came to me. The taxi driver was still waiting for the fare. AMA Hue was trying to get me to pay for the taxi for their marketing event. If AMA Hue is the professional institution they like to present themselves as, they would have office cash around for intangibles. Instead, the downtrodden front desk staff had to figure which of them would pay.

And speaking of the front desk staff, as sub par as it is for the foreign teachers, spare a thought for the local hires. They get blamed for everything, and have to deal with the poorly qualified management. There is shameless nepotism in the management. To avoid a light shining on them so their lack of ability will not be exposed, they do as little as possible but make it seem weighty. Really stupid things like the staff is given petty, illegal fines for forgetting to closes windows and doors. Management does not see the need to spend money on quality furniture to make the students comfortable, a photocopier or fully working cables to connect the computers to the TV to keep the lessons flowing well. But they have no problem buying a biometric scanner to show dominance and instill fear if you are 30 seconds late. And even when the money spent can be beneficial to her unending marketing, she still hold the view that leaving people short is the best way. Some of the guys started a football team that would carry the AMA Hue name. She agreed to repay the fees but we all know that when it came time to do so, she felt the money was better spent on nothing. She has even tried to withhold the staff bonus so it could be used for a party (marketing event). Something they did not ask for and don't want. And then, the Directors shrill dictates can become ridiculous. When a foreign recruit demanded that all of the stipulations he was promised be fulfilled, she told the coordinator that the airfare reimbursement would come from their pay. These long suffering people are totally not responsible for AMA Hue not meeting the promises of recruitment, but the dominance The Director seems to need to display in order to get self worth means someone else will have to suffer for her shortcomings. This recruit was smart enough to see how things would be at AMA Hue and left after 3 days, so this threat was not carried out. But do you have any doubts it would have been?

Look, It is not like there is no thinking going on. But it’s all focused on cutting and scheming.

a. Adult classes use to be 2 hours long. When the Director saw that the students took a little break, instead of everyone taking 10 minutes, she dropped the classes to 90 minutes. And while the teachers lost 30 minutes of pay, the fee for the class was not altered.

b. The Assisted Learning Kids room should have no more than 1 students speaking with the teachers for no less than 5 minutes ( http://www.ama.edu.vn/en/images/slideshow/active-learning-kids-teens-2.jpg). Since the director is too cheap to properly staff this, it is not uncommon to have upward of 4 learners at the table and when you only see one or two at a time, it is never over 2 minutes. This is of course not what the parents are told and why they are not given access to the webcams.

c. There were these interesting debates and talks that Uni students took part in. This is actually a great idea and good marketing as it motivates students. The Director got the “brilliant” idea of monetizing it, and was then surprised when people stopped coming. As ever,……. penny wise but pound foolish.

She is not blind to the problems; she is just not interested in seeing them. She has hired two levels of staff to separate her from the drudgery of responsibility; all the while she hides out in her office or at her home watching the web cams. For a company so clearly focused on money, here are some important numbers she ignores in the hope of them not being relevant. The company is just over a year and a half old. They have lost at least 14 foreign teachers in that time. The average stay is 3.5 months. And 0 people have shown any interest in returning after they leave or have recommended AMA to anyone.

American Academy had to change the name from Cleverlearn because they operated the same way under the previous guise. Maybe when they have change the name for the 3rd time they will do it right. So you want us to “just help you out” ? Hopefully this posting will help AMA Hue out. An impetuous for change is needed. Stop lying. Stop treating people as if they are disposable. Honor what you say about pay. Demonstrate a desire to live up to the polish and prestige you present this company to be all about. The Director knows who wrote this and I have sent her an email to let her know this posting is online. It will be interesting to see what (if any) response comes from them. But as problem are to be ignored until they go away……….

[jukboo22]

I was recruited in February, 2015 by the woman who owns this school. She was very polite and seemingly professional in her correspondence, and guaranteed me $1600 net per month, with 25 hours of classes, along with reimbursement for my flights from Bangkok to Saigon and then Saigon to Hue. I'd been to Hue in 2008 for a trip, and was excited to live there.
The day I arrived in March and met this woman was a very depressing one, indeed. Mrs. Dung was immediately very cold and nasty, bitterly complaining about the air fares, though I'd gotten the cheapest economy rates. She refused to cover my flights. That was my first meeting with her.
Then, her harried underling told me that they did not have the promised hours and pay available to me, and that there "might" be the promised full schedule in a month or so.
I was shocked. I'd moved to Vietnam from Thailand because I was guaranteed a certain salary. Then I arrived there and found that the owner knew well before I'd left Bangkok that the promise she'd made was nothing but words. Chillingly, she evinced not the slightest bit of remorse. Nothing.
When I spoke with the other foreign teachers, they all told me that the owner had done the same thing to them; that's her basic strategy to lure teachers to that, for lack of a better word, "school."
All the foreign and Vietnamese staff are filled with loathing for the owner. The environment is dark and depressing. She has this rather palatial office, and is not friendly to anyone, while the foreign teachers have one tiny room to share, which is actually the office of two Vietnamese staff. In other words, the entire foreign staff has a shared "office" space that's about the size of a closet.
The owner roams, or, rather, stalks around the place with this creepy glare. No warmth ever emanates from her.
I knew the first day that she had deceived and cheated me big-time, so I immediately started looking for better work, and found a much better gig in Saigon. I worked for a total of four days at this sorry excuse for a school, and got out of there pronto.
The owner cheated me out of several hundred dollars. I knew I had no chance of getting any justice in a court there.
After moving to Saigon, I corresponded with the American teacher I was hired to replace. I told her how I'd been scammed, and she apologized deeply for not telling me earlier that the owner is a "monster." So it goes ...

[skarper]

Typical if extreme situation. AMA is I believe a franchise so other branches may well be different but my general impression is they are generally 3rd rate.

The rule of thumb when signing a contract is get multiple endorsements from previous teachers who have already left. If they cannot get you at least 2-3 good references then move on.

If the school is new then you are taking a risk.

I always advise people to work for 3-4 different places part time before accepting a full time contract.

While I feel for the teachers who get abused by the likes of this AMA owner the most victimized are the students and their parents who are wasting their time and money.

[ExpatLuke]

Lol another horror story to add to the many which seem to follow AMA wherever they go. People need to learn this outfit should be avoided at all costs. This is the same school chain whose reputation got so bad that they had to rebrand the entire franchise a few years ago. AMA, formerly known as Clever Learn (Never Learn more affectionately), is a franchise built on lies to both students and teachers.

You should have quit on the spot when they refused to pay your airfare as they promised.

Stay away from AMA. It even rhymes.

[I'm With Stupid]

I'm amazed anyone still works for them. Even 5 minutes of research reveals that they're the worst major employer in the country.

Anyway, you should put your opinion on this website.

[JulianMikka]

[cb400]

I am surprised people are still surprised about this place.

AMA is re-branded Cleverlearn, and anyone in Vietnam can buy a franchise for about 5000-8000 USD and use the AMA name.

IF stupid expats would stop working for these places the mega-rich owners wouldn't be mega-rich.

Stay away from anything AMA or Cleverlearn in Vietnam.