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[Confederate]

Here is an article draft I might write for one of the TESOL organizations I belong to, it is my experiences working at one of the so-called big franchised schools here in Moscow. A lot of peopel are going to be mad at what I say, but everything I said is the truth about this school Now that I quite working there is kind of is funny how they operate.

GA Confederate

Teaching in Russia
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Schools
When good dreams become Nightmares


Life can be funny sometimes with the things life throws at us, completely by accident, out of the blue something that looks like a good opportunity will just drop into our laps, at least that is what it appears to be. Maybe it is faith that drops these things into our lives to teach us a lesson that is the only way I can explain how what I believed to be a golden opportunity turns into a crappy deal of the deck. And we think that life does not have a sense of humor, read on and see. I did change the names some what to protect only myself.

I have been working here in Moscow as a teacher for the last 15 months. Back in the US I had taught survival English to Mexican immigrant farm workers in my home state, and taught business principles and management with the SBA because I have a degree in business and have worked and owned my own successful business since 1982. How did I end up here in Moscow as a teacher? I guess you could say I am here in Moscow because of love. I met and fell in love with a lovely young lady, so here I am in Moscow for better or worse.

I have been teaching here in Moscow since August of 2003 and really have enjoyed my teaching experiences very much. I have worked mainly with Russian owned schools; my favorite was at one private school where I taught US, English and World history, plus American and British Lit. I love history and know true history very well, I loved teaching my students the Southern reasons for the War Between the States, but just like in the US, all my students had been taught before was all Yankee trash, but now I was able to set it right. I do not teach political correct fairy tales, only true factual history. Since I have a degree in business, I sometimes teach private students business communications, very important if a businessman/woman wishes to do business in the US. I found myself with more work than I possibly could do most of the time. But during the dacha season (vacation season) jobs can be some what hard to find from time to time. So just to see if I could get a job with one of the top schools here in Moscow, I applied with one. I really did not think I would be hired because of all the false hype on teacher requirements on various schools web pages, but I tried it just to see, plus if I were hired it would look very good on my resume to be able to say that I have worked at one of the big three schools, or so I thought. Lo and behold, I was called for an interview and after the interview I was hired. Will miracles ever end in my life? Except this job was no miracle, it was more like a curse teaching in a Nightmare in Missing Link School. I call this school Missing Link because it was almost like nothing but chimps ran this school. In all honesty, I think a chimp would have better business sense than most of those who run these so-called schools here in Moscow, I haven�t seen a one that knows anything about American business practices, let alone common sense business practices of any kind.

When I started teaching at Missing Link school, I had no idea that the Three Stooges owned and ran that school and Bozo the Clown was the DOS. I mean seriously, if the Three Stooges and Bozo were involved with this school, it would have been a great improvement. Let�s face it, as it is now, this school is a joke, and it is supposed to be one of the top schools here in Moscow? I honestly find that hard to believe, but then many strange things have happened in our lives from time to time. After all when I was a DNR ranger, I once stepped off into an open grave one night trying to sneak up on night hunters. Once during a flood in my home town, the cemetery became flooded and the coffins came up out of the ground, and it was the DNR that had to go out in boats in the middle of the night and retrieve these coffins. I grabbed one and it pulled me out of the boat, here I was floating down the river in the middle of the night holding onto a coffin, so strange things were pretty common in my life. But my experience with Missing Link School has no comparison, maybe because I considered this school to be nothing but a big joke and rip off to both teachers and clients, but I have to admit I was fooled by their web page like so many others. I have to give the general director of Missing Link School credit; he does do the work or three men, Moe, Larry and Curly.

The first thing an ESL teacher should do is learn about the business and how the ESL schools are run. Here in Moscow, most of these schools are run in the manner of monkey see, monkey do. What ever one school does, the rest do it too. Individualism and independence is not a trait of ESL schools and they do not like teachers with individualism and independence either. It is like one big club where everybody wants to get along and each school blends in with the crowd, strange business practices especially for an American, but that is how these schools do business here, kind of like, live and let live, where as US business is more competitive and kick the competition�s butt, prove that you are the best and others are crappy. Business is completely different here; nobody wants to be number one, except in their wild fantasies I guess.

Here in Moscow, the British run the majority of language schools. If you know anything about England, then you know that the British are world famous for their comedies, especially the comedy TV programs of the BBC. When you start teaching here at one of the British run schools, it is almost as if the school is the setting for a BBC comedy TV show or something. It almost is as if Benny Hill or Monty Python is the DOS of the school. When I started teaching at Missing Link School, I was told to go and buy the textbooks for my students myself and the school would reimburse me, so like a fool, I said no problem. My supervisor told me that I could pick up the books at any bookstore in Moscow, so off I went into the wide blue yonder looking for books my class would need. Big mistake! Finding the Golden Fleece and fountain of youth would have been easier than finding those books. Not every bookstore in Moscow had these books like I was told, only one bookstore had these books and it was the last one I went to. My first mistake that I made with Missing Link school, but this was a learning experience for me, since I never had worked at one of the big franchised schools before. Getting refunded for the $85.00 I spent on the books was something else, only one person could authorize a refund for me and she was always out of the office when ever I called or stopped by, it would have been easier to find a genie in a bottle than getting my money back from Missing Link School, but I finally caught that lady leaving the office. What else could I expect; after all, my supervisor at Missing Link School was named Cheeta.

After that I told Cheeta that I would not buy any more books for any of my classes, Cheeta had an expression as if we both were in a small elevator and I had just cut the cheese big time. Here I was just a lowly dimwit teacher telling my supervisor what I was and was not going to do; I think I was the first teacher at Missing Link to stand up to the foolishness that goes on at this school. What kind of teacher support did I have at Missing Link School? At the branch school I was assigned to, I do not think they ever heard of the term teacher support. When I started teaching new classes, it took Cheeta three or four weeks before books were provided for my students. Luckily I am a pretty inventive teacher who does not always believe in following the rules; let�s face it, sometimes the rules seem like Bozo the Clown invented them. For example once in class I had to cover a boring grammar subject, I mean let�s face it, English grammar is boring as hell, especially when Missing Link has forgotten to get the students textbooks. So I said, excuse me I need to take care of some business and I left the classroom. My good old buddy, The Unknown Professor filled in for the rest of the class period, paper bag and all. When you work for a school run by the Three Stooges, you have to be inventive as heck, if your not, you�re going to find yourself in deep doodoo, especially when the school waits three or four weeks before they provide the textbooks your class needs and paid for.

I remember once my students got very upset with Missing Link�s foolishness. The students had paid for and were expecting cassette tapes to help with their English, well Missing Link told me to tell the students that if they wanted cassette tapes, they would have to bring in a blank cassette tape and Missing Link would make them a copy of the tape. The students had paid for real cassette tapes, not some cheesy bootlegged copy and they wanted the real original tapes that they had paid for and they had to threaten to stop using Missing Link before they finally received the tapes they had paid for. The students wanted to stop using Missing Link and hire me instead as their teacher, but I did not do that, foolish me I guess. I have always wondered how Longman, Oxford and Cambridge would feel about Missing Link making bootlegged copies of their cassette tapes and selling them to students instead of providing legitimate licensed copies. Another of these strange European business practices I guess.

Since I had temporary residence here in Russia, I wanted Missing Link to hire me legally and officially. Missing Link�s own web page states that they only hire teachers officially and legally. I should have known better to even have bother asking Working here at Missing Link was about as much fun as riding in a small elevator and somebody cuts the cheese loudly and smelly. Everybody is looking at everybody else, yet everybody knows who did it. So much for Missing Link doing as they say they do on their web page, I should have known better to believe that trash on their web page. I was told that only contracted teachers were given that benefit, yea right and everybody else is hired illegally I guess at this school, I wonder what the Russian tax authorities would say about that?

What shocked the hell out of me was I honestly thought I was working for Missing Link School. I always turned in my time and class reports on forms with Missing Link�s logo, address, and phone no. on the reports. I always went to the branch school to turn in my reports and collect my pay, the door of the school had Missing Link School sign, I always thought I was working for Missing Link, but lo and behold, I was not working for Missing Link in reality, I was working for one of the dummy schools that Missing Link had set up to monkey with the books when they found out that another one of the foreign owned schools was being investigated by the Russian tax authorities. I was in shock, here I was thinking I worked for this so-called school and they lied to me. I heard so many stories about what was going on at this school that I gave up trying figure out just what the heck was going on and what the truth really was. No wonder this school is in deep trouble, the business practices of this school is butt backwards compared to the business practices I was taught in college and from the business practices I taught with the SBA. I guess they just do business differently here in Europe than the way business is done in the US.

The British like to think that they are the only ones who can speak and write proper English, yet not a single British school here teaches real English for the real world, only fairy tale English that is about as useful as rap music. What these schools teach is about as useful as a one legged man in an arse kicking contest. It almost is as if it is the village idiot that reviews which books should be used for each class. I mean really, at that school a person wanting business English is given a crappy Reward textbook instead of Market Leader, I mean really? There is nothing wrong with using Headway, English File or even Crappy Reward for conversational English, but such books have no place for business or academic English or English for Special Purposes and I question whether or not such books are good for learning formal English. It must be the same village idiot that reviews the client�s evaluation scores to see what level of English they are at. I had one class at Missing Link that was rated as pre-intermediate, yet the students did not know the English alphabet, they were beginners and could not read the pre-intermediate text books at all. How on earth this school rated their English skill as pre-intermediate? Maybe the village idiot smokes a little wacky weed on the job? Doesn�t anybody at these schools ever wonder why the students of these classes ever look confused as a hungry baby in a topless bar; not so much because of bad teachers, but because of the school�s foolishness. I mean really, no wonder this school is in deep sheet (sheet, I once had a student who thought sheet was the English curse word for dung) I mean really, a lot of businesses here now want to do business with Americans and in America and that must really insult the heck out of these British schools that business people here want to learn American English instead of British English, because they mostly only will send some American sap who could not even teach remedial courses at Cucumber College, sorry, but that is a fact and these big foreign franchised schools know it.

Now that I have said adios to this joke of a school, I can laugh about the experience because I learned a lot from this experience. When you dance with the devil, you have to be prepared to play his tune. I have seen how these big franchise schools operate and how they go about getting clients and who they like to hire as teachers. These schools live on their reputations, more on the reputation of the school name rather than on the reputation they build for themselves. I talk with Russian businessmen/women all the time and most now know that there is little to the schools reputation, only just a name and nothing more. Like I said before, if Missing Link had Moe, Larry and Curly, and also Bozo running the show, then it would be a great improvement, at least then the school could deliver to its clients quality education of some type instead of the rip off this school now delivers. Missing Link has made its bed, now they all have to sleep in it, but I will not be in that bed.

But I can say now that I gave working at one of the big shot schools a try and I did not like it. Teaching is a profession where the teacher should learn as much as the students; you can bet I have learned a lot here in Moscow. When I return to the US and start back to teaching business with the SBA I will have plenty of examples to use on how not to run a business. I know some will be insulted because I have told the truth about my experiences at this school; some will be angry no matter what I say, so be it, no matter how or what they think, I still have plenty of work, plenty of clients and make plenty of money. It was not my intention to insult anybody, only to describe my experiences working at one of the so-called top schools here in Moscow. This school did me dirty and was dishonest with me, plain and simple and there is no justification or excuse for this school conducting business like this. The impression I got from the general director was that he had no idea of just what was going on at the school�s various branches when I last talked with him and whose fault is that? This school can believe that I will speak out; I will tell every business associate and Russians I know about this school. I am a member of several TESOL organizations and I write articles for some of the publications of these organizations. Yes, this school pissed me off and made me mad and I think any normal person would be angry with this school. This school used me and lied to me; I stopped working for them on my own, even turned down jobs this school offered me up until my last day. I�m glad I taught at one of these schools and glad I was able to learn first hand just how these big schools are really like. I think most people know that these schools are �as useful as a condom machine in the Vatican.� These big franchise schools used to have good reputations, but because they just sat on their tails and do nothing to improve their reputations, just let themselves become worse. So if you want to call me names, threaten me or any thing else, fine, I can deal with that just fine and so can my Russian attorney. If you do not want to believe what I said, fine, then you can pay the price for it by working at this school. Just do not say you were not warned. But to give a little to the school, it could very well be only a crappy branch school I was working at, but still, those problems should have been realized and corrected by those in charge of this franchise school. I was lied to, mislead and accepted the job under false pretences and that is inexcusable for any school to operate in this manner, so those who want to get mad with me, fine because it really doesn�t matter to me one way or another.

I can now say that I have given one of the big shot schools here a try and as far as I�m concerned it was nothing but a joke. I will now only teach privately, maybe at a Russian school every now and then because even though there are many bad Russian owned schools, there are many that put these big foreign owned schools to shame. If you�re serious about teaching or willing to work hard at teaching, then do yourself a favor and stay away from these foreign owned franchised schools, only accept a job with one as a last resort. Leave these schools to the kiddies just out of college looking to spend a year out of the US and then run back home to mommy and daddy. If you are serious about teaching, then teach on your own, you will find that what these schools say on their web pages and what reality is, are two completely different things. Some people love these schools, fine, if their happy there, more power to them, but the majority or real, professional and serious teachers stay away from these schools. Believe me, you will find greater satisfaction and higher income teaching on your own. I love it here in Moscow and plan on staying at least three years, my students� love me and my clients have stayed with me. I have a well stocked reference library both hard copy books bought at various book stores here in Moscow and books copied onto CDs. Because I only teach Real English for the Real World, not that useless fairy tale English and you can do the same if you choose to.

A teacher who knows

[Confederate]

Clarification of the above article:

I did not mean to put down Missing Link as whole, only the one branch I was working at. The branch school I was with during the summer was as unprofessional managed as a school possibly could me. I do not even know if the branch had a DOS at all. My supervisor was a person who sold the services to the various clients and it was this person who made all the decisions as to what textbooks would be used, the level of the students, everything. I thought one of the duties of a DOS was to review each client, determine the client level and then recommend the proper textbooks to be used in order to make sure the client�s wishes and desires for taking the course were met, at this branch that never happened one time as long as I was there. I always tried to find out a little about the students level, just what type of English they wanted to learn, the textbooks that would be used, as much as I could before the first class and I was always told next to nothing by my supervisor. I was told that I was a professional teacher, that I could choose what textbooks and resources I wanted to use for the various class sometimes, which suited me to a large degree, but with other classes, textbooks took three to four weeks to be provided to students, cassette tapes, (you just about had to force the school to provide tapes they promised to provide), and any other supplies was next to impossible to get, much less any information. Always the same textbooks it did not matter what type of class it was. That person who sold the course was making these decisions not a DOS and that was very unprofessional in my opinion.

In my opinion, this was very unprofessional and really did more harm to the school�s reputation instead of improving it. I know that I used some very strong terms about this school in my article, but I only did that in hopes that somebody in management with this school sees just what is going on at the various branches of this school. I told one person that I felt this school had grown too big, that now who ever is in charge of this franchise was unable to keep track of what was going on at these various branches. This school has a good reputation, at least among a lot of teachers, but this reputation will go down the toilet if nobody keeps some control and watch what the various branch schools are doing and operating. That was all I intended in the above article, not to insult or put down anybody. Still I will not ever work with any of the franchised schools any more; there are just too many shotgun branches with these schools that operate in unprofessional manners. To me, this school was just on big let down and I know of several clients of this school that were not too happy with their actions either, several wanted to hire me outside of the school to teach instead of the school. This school has some serious problems that need to be addressed, running a school like this by letting the branch schools act as shotgun schools doing as they please will only cause trouble.

Also it did not exactly help for somebody with this school to call the clients, my students and tell them not to pay the person they bought the services from, but to pay somebody else at the school. Several of my students asked me what was going on at this school and I could tell them nothing because nobody told me anything either. My students were asking me just who they should pay and the only reply I could give them was look on their contract and see what the name of the school was and make the payment to that school. I know from some of the contracts I saw that I had to carry back and forth between the school and client, not all contracts had Missing Link�s name on them, what else could I tell the students? I was stuck in the middle of a big mess by this school.

I do not know exactly what was going on at this branch school and never claimed to, I can only say what I was told by my supervisor and I will not repeat what I was told because I honestly do not believe it. All I meant by that article was to say, somebody at that school better wakeup before it is too late. Everything I stated is fact and did happen to me at that branch.

GA Confederate

[zaneth]

minor criticism:

The first paragraph seems overburdened with cliches. No time to read the rest right now.

[waxwing]

There's just too much negativity here. My suspicion, from reading between the lines, is that your assessment of the school is at least largely accurate, and I doubt that this branch is a totally isolated case.

But this kind of thing is totally inappropriate for an 'article for a TESOL organization' IMHO. It's fine for a 'vent' here on Dave's; there are tons of reports like this on the Job Information Journal here. But for anything else, less invective, less generalisations and more substance would be my suggestion.

I resisted the temptation to play proofreader ...