Job Discussion Forums

[Peter McAlpine]

I am trying to find a language school in China, or a school with several branches in China, which would like to offer a variety of hotel English courses in addition to its current array of General English courses. Do you know of any schools that might be interested?

While the demand for General ELT is booming throughout China, there is one area of ESP, which will become very significant, especially as the Olympics draw nearer, namely hotel English teaching.

There is great potential for this line of the English teaching business because being able to offer job-specific courses would not only enable the language school(s) to offer various job-specific hotel English courses to the public at its school(s), but also place English teachers in 5-star hotels, and conduct job-specific hotel pre-opening English training. (Any school that can do this for hotels will be in great demand.)

Moreover, the courses could be adapted for other customer service and hospitality related businesses, and include customer service training so that the language schools would not just be providing an English teaching service, but also enabling the client to increase its reputation for service and its revenue. The courses would appeal to learners in the general public because the courses would be helping them directly to find employment.

There are further possibilities after this. It would not be hard for the language school company to dominate the country's market in these areas within a year or two, while benefiting synergistically from an increased demand for its General English courses.

I have the expertise and experience in training and consulting in 5-star hotels, customer service training, course writing, hotel English teaching, and the other possibilities referred to above. I also have all the course materials needed. What I don't have is the physical structure of a language school business in China to launch all of this from, which is why I am looking for (ideally) a chain of schools that is interested in the idea.

My role would be to help the language school company to develop this business in return for profit-sharing in the hotel English teaching and training side of the business that would be built up.

If you know of any schools that might be interested in the idea as a business, please let me know. I'd be most grateful.

[Roger]

A little cautionmight serve you well: Staff training in China is extremely difficult. Employers hire teachers for such purposes, but they rely on their own staff to tell them whether they (the learners10 think that YOUR service is of any use!
I think this is laughable. Any teacher has to win the students' hearts. they won't like to conform to Wstern notions of teaching and learning. If the students don't like it, the course will not stay.

On the other hand, this is also the best reason why China BADLY needs training programmes such as yours. Their staffs do need to learn something that their Chinese teachers were unable to teach them.
This means they have to undergo a change of their mindset.
I would try one of the international hotels as a partner. No CHinese-owned hotel will give you free reign!
You might also try one of the many Swiss hotel management schools. They often recruit students direct in China. One of their acceptance requirements is a TOEFL score of no less than 550 (if I remember correctly).
They might be able to point you to a school specialising in pre-training CHinese students for their training abroad!

[Explorer]

I don't know of any private school that would not be interested, especially since China will become the No. 1 tourist country in the world if it isn't (SARS aside) already. Many of the resorts and hotels hire English trainers through private schools, and others hire them directly. For better, pay, I suggest that you contact hotels or the franchise owners directly.

Several years ago, I taught at a major resort in Southern China, and the income paid not only my salary but that of three Chinese staff plus office rental and overhead. Training was essential to the resort's business, so the five-week contract was renewed twice and included all employees from golf caddies to top management. Also did a stint at a Holiday Inn at which the HR manager tried to steal me away from the school.

There is also a market to teach Chinese hi-tech and other joint-venture workers hotel survival English for their trips abroad.

Happy trails.

[TEECHER]

Hello Peter, I notice that you have posted this same thread in the China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam forums. You must have a grand scheme for your business designs! I have read your postings on life in Thailand, so I understand that you are no stranger to Asia. Please feel free to enlighten us further on the use you wish to make of our free help and advice.This is not meant to sound trite. I am genuinely interested. To organize various language schools to teach hotel English in over 6 Asian countries is no small feat. Bye for now.

[Peter McAlpine]

Dear Teecher,

Thank you for your reply. Actually, I hesitate to reply as I have seen what happens on the forums to some people. It’s not at all pleasant! Let me reply like this.

Until I was 28, I was wandering through life not knowing what I wanted to do. I even left a good job, my first one, in order to travel. When I got down to Tierra del Fuego and made a geographical turnaround, I also discovered what I would like to do in life and where I would like to live. For the first time in my life I had a personal vision. Not much of one, mind you, and nothing like what I have now.

For things to change, you must get a picture of what you
want them to change to.

For quite a few years now, I have had a very clear personal vision, which in essence is what I would like people from the various roles in my life to be saying at my funeral about my abilities, values, character, and my achievements in each role. When you have a personal vision, you discover energy and inner motivation that you may never have known before. (I have trained many people how to write one, and I have enjoyed seeing how it has changed their lives.) If you have been in love before, it’s a bit like that feeling, but it’s with you all the time. It never leaves you. There is no longer a Monday morning syndrome. Every day is Saturday and Sunday. Boredom becomes a thing of the past, and your life achieves balance.

Developing hotel English in several countries is part of my personal vision. It may seem very hard to achieve, but nothing is too hard when your heart is lit by the flame of a passionate vision.

I’m not actually trying to use anyone on the forums. I’m just asking if anyone knows of a language school that is interested in doing something different; that has a vision of what it could become and would like to become; and that would like to step into the unknown without any risk – at least none that I can see. I would be helping the school. The school would have to think win/win and run the business ethically. Win/lose almost always becomes lose/lose.

It’s probably more of an idea for a young, lively school that is starting to grow, perhaps with 2 or 3 branches, and which doesn’t want to spend its time “fighting” with every other school for the same pool of ELT students when it could become the leader in another market, which would synergistically benefit its ELT classes. I don’t expect big schools with many branches and a corporate structure to be able to get involved or even be interested. Big companies have to follow lines of command, corporate rules, etc., which prevent flexibility and a 3M-style approach.

One other point - the teachers would benefit because they would get paid more. Also, I prefer that people are hired with incentive schemes to encourage them. But that’s another matter. (I do a lot of work with hotels on organizational change, win/win thinking, and on replacing worn-out systems, ideas, and approaches to doing business.)

I hope this answers your question.

[Roger]

Peter,
why don't you simply post your resume on Dave's Job Wanted forum?
I don't think there are many schools out in CHina that would accommodate you, but it would be worth a try. With your idealism, you do not need to settle for those jobs that routinely are offered us - "train our staff" and things like that, because you need to set the criteria by yourself, not lower your expectations to students' arbitary wishes!