Job Discussion Forums

[hmm]

dear all,

is there anyone who has experience with working for ILA in Ho Chi Minh? Is it worth trying???

thank you
hmm

[OzBurn]

I've never worked for them, but I can tell you what I have heard from three different teachers.

1. Bad curriculum -- the "Pacesetter" series. I've looked at this myself, and I have to admit, it is very poorly done.

2. Indifferent management -- doesn't listen to or care about feedback from staff.

3. One of the few schools that has all foreign teachers, and charges more, accordingly. Therefore, it attracts the most well-heeled of the Vietnamese. Whether this is a bad thing or a good thing for you is of course subjective. Wouldn't want it myself.

To tell you the truth, these three teachers had not one good thing to say about the place. Maybe someone else does. The three I talked to could merely have been disgruntled. But after looking at the Pacesetter series, I'd have to say that anyone who'd choose it as a lead text must have his head crammed firmly into his nether parts.

[frankly]

I worked for ILA in 2001 very briefly. I was recruited from China over the internet, assured it was a fair contract and of course found out the opposite when I arrived. Just one example-they have you working overtime (one teacher had worked 50 contact hours in one week) in order to 'earn' your annual holidays. Read the small print carefully....I didn't sign it of course.
The atmosphere and management was unpleasant to say the least -so I found a better paying position and a nicer environment within about two weeks.
When I called to give a month's notice the boss cut me off, became abusive and told me not to come back to the school at all. They then threatened to take my visa (which I had organised in China and paid for, as well as my airfare) away from me. Then they telephoned my new bosses and threatened to take them to court for 'poaching' their teachers. There was no need for poaching as they gave teachers the incentive to go all by themselves...I was not the only one to last a short time.
From what I hear from friends in Saigon nothing has changed. Why do you think they are always advertising?
There is more but this should give you a fair picture...it was a very memorable two weeks for me...!!

[Thay Jim]

I have worked at ILA in the past and cannot understand why it is being trashed. ILA has the best facilities of any private English language training center in HCMC. Its teacher compensation is among the best in Vietnam. I have always found the management team at ILA to be approachable and willing to assist me with my special needs. Actually, my only complaint with the management is that they are generous to a fault. Most of the teachers there, particularly the women, appear as if they are groomed to attend a dog-fight, not instruct a class.

Core curriculum decisions are matters in which the Academic Directors prevail. They work with the resources available to them. If people do not like a particular series of books, perhaps they should take their complaints to the folks at Longman, Cambridge or Oxford Publishing (Who produce the books.)

This Saturday evening ILA is feting a Christmas party at The Caravelle Hotel for its teachers and staff. This will set the school back at least $30/pax. Not one other school I worked for in the past has as much as taking its staff out for a bowl of pho during the holiday season.

Teachers are much like soldiers in the field...they gripe alot. If anyone is expecting to be molly-coddled and spoon-fed while teaching in Asia, he/she is in for a rude awakeniing. But after adding up the plusses against the minuses, one can do much, much worse than teach at ILA.

[Micro67]

[OzBurn]

I've never taught at ILA. I only posted the reports I have heard from people who work there, and made my own comment about their textbook.

That said, if the best you can come up to defend a bad choice of a text is to say that one should take it up with the publisher, it seems to me that there is something rather fishy here. There are many, many texts out there, and a school that chooses a bad one has to answer for its choice. Pacesetter, from what I saw of it, was hideously bad, and no one here has contradicted that opinion in detail or in summary.

It is true that disgruntled teachers tend to post, and one should always take criticisms with a grain of salt. On the other hand, calling a teacher's subsequent employers and threatening them, or trying to yank one's visa (or threatening to do so) is so wildly out of bounds that if this really happened, the person responsible should be sacked, and until he is, working for ILA would be, I think, out of the question.

ILA is, so far as I know, one of the very few schools in Vietnam that hires exclusively native speakers as lead teachers. I believe that as a consequence of this, they must and do charge more than other schools. ILA students are therefore quite economically privileged compared to students at the other schools, and this may be something that a teacher wants to take into account when considering working there.

[greent]

I also worked briefly for ILA last year and though I found it to be a professional place that encouraged progressive teaching methods, I found the atmosphere to be less than desireable. I particulary found the man in charge of the adult program to be very difficult to work with and unprofessional in his dealings with people. I was not there long and this person was enough to make me want to quit, especially after hearing of his unsavory reputation amongst many other expats in town.

There is also definately a lot of fine print to read with the contracts. The two contract options are designed to make people commit to stay there at least 6 months or a year by withholding overtime (more than 20 hours a week I think?) pay until you complete your contract.

[Vesuve]

...........................

[Mr Wind-up Bird]

They rang me up just before xmas to try & get me to work for them when I get back to HCMC later this month. I wouldn't agree to a full-time contract with them, and they only give out part-time work on Sat & Sun which doesn't interest me either. And yes, they did say that any overtime accrued was payable upon completion of contract, which absolutely stinks.

That's the only contact I've had, but the above policies, plus their frequent recruitment drives and the fact that they're prepared to make long-distance calls to the UK to virtually beg someone they've never met to sign a full-time contract suggests they have personnel "issues". I'll certainly exhaust every other possible avenue before I think about working for them.

[Paul John]

I've never worked for ILA, so everything I know is very much secondhand.

A few years ago, they got quite a bit of trashing on this forum and others. Many of the issues that people raised then have apparently been fixed. I know several teachers still working there and for the most part they are satisfied. The accepted wisdom around town is that ILA do indeed have the best resource library and teaching conditions in HCM City.

In the past I've heard that the contract stipulated that overtime would be withheld until the end of the contract period and that still seems to be true. I also heard that if your hours dipped below the promised minimum per week, you would still be paid for the minimum hours not worked but the extra money would be taken from your overtime. Can anybody confirm whether this is true or not?

[frankly]

Yes that really happened. I don't lie about stuff like that and yes tehre were witnesses. The guy who did this, a Chilean, ran into me when I returned to Vietnam and he was quite frighteningly hostile. The Australian woman with me witnessed it and told me 'Don't worry about him darl, he's gone Troppo':)

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