Job Discussion Forums

[clark.w.griswald]

Double post!

[clark.w.griswald]

[YearOfTheDog]

I was going to post about some of the same the same things...But I don't need to now...Thanks Clark.

[clark.w.griswald]

Oh, online at the same time

Just wait for the suggestions that we must be the same person

[YearOfTheDog]

That has to be the funniest thing I have read all day...

I am online to burn sometime before my night class.

We could be the same person though...Do you live in Rural Eastern Inner Mongolia??? lol..

[bearcanada]

Roger, I repeat my earlier comment that your post is nonsense. In the first breath you say you are 'owed' a rational explanation, then in the next breath you provide it yourself. That qualifies as nonsense.

What is source of your observation that, "you are making nothing but blanket statements based entirely on your prejudices including, it would appear, against me."

I made no widespread 'blanket' comments about any subject; it was instead one simple, specific item. If you have contradictory information based on the valid experience of a mature adult, please refer to it.

You are guilty of precisely that fault - making "blanket statements based entirely on your prejudices including, it would appear, against me."

And what is the point of your comment, "Engage in some real adult talk, can you?" I'm sorry, but it seems to me this kind of puerile personal attack should be directed to its author. Slinging insults is a sign of neither intelligence nor maturity.

Cheers,

[bearcanada]

This is sounding like disagreement for its own sake.

[quote="clark.w.griswald"]Don't forget the tens of thousands who didn't encounter any serious problems and went away happy.[/quote]

Well, good for them, but I'm interested in helping those who DID have serious problems and to prevent others from having them.

[quote="clark.w.griswald"]I think it highly likely that every teacher who comes to work in China is going to have some disappointments during their time here.[/quote]

That may be, but my purpose is to help prevent the deliberate cheating by scammers, not to save the world from every possible disappointment.

You objected to my recommendation to avoid recruiters because that would "create a brick wall." That's nonsense. It isn't all that difficult to find direct school postings, nor to visit schools if one is already in China. You know that.

The first-timers will have little ability to distinguish good from bad, so the simplest way to avoid the problem is by going direct. And in most cases they will earn more money by doing so. They can also ask the opinion of learned and experienced people like yourself and make posts on all the teachers' ESL boards.

You objected to my suggestion to avoid 'private' schools; you asked why, and what kind. Because this is where most of the deception takes place. The reasons are all on my website; if you're interested, have a look.

I advised teachers to avoid unlicensed schools. Your comment: [quote="clark.w.griswald"]How do you know if a school is licensed or not?[/quote]

Well, first off, you ask. Then you confirm. The details are all posted. We aren't talking about "researching the background of schools" or learning whether "appropriate documentation was provided in a timely manner"; we're talking about whether they have a license to hire foreign professionals or plan to make you an illegal alien. Period.

Your comment: [quote="clark.w.griswald"]I thought that you suggested above for teachers not to deal with recruiters.[/quote]

I did, but for those who do it anyway (and some will), a check of references is a must. How can you possibly object to that?

I recommended that teachers get their "Z" visa before they leave. Your comments:

[quote="clark.w.griswald"]".... downside is that .... any misunderstanding or deception will basically be forced upon you as there is next to nothing that you could do about it. There is no turning back if you go this route.[/quote]

You seem to be confusing a contract with a visa. Are you sufficiently familiar with Chinese law to know that one is beholden to a visa issuer?

You also said that without a visa, [quote="clark.w.griswald"]".... If everything is not as promised then you can walk and find another school.[/quote]

You can walk away WITH a visa too, and in fact you can walk away even with a contract if you insist on the insertion of appropriate articles about misrepresentation. But much of the point is that if a school can and does issue a visa beforehand, a teacher's confidence can be much higher and many problems can be avoided.

And in any case, the issuance of a visa is a good test of legitimacy and worthy on that count alone.

You objection to my advice to try to have airfare paid before leaving or on arrival is astonishing.

[quote="clark.w.griswald"]I personally would be skeptical of any school that was offering this upfront as it is not standard and would possibly indicate desperation. [/quote]

You would be 'skeptical' of a school that gives you a contract, arranges your visa and pays your airfare up front?

FYI, this is how the expat business community has always worked. NO manager or accountant or IT professional or anyone else I can imagine would ever consider going to another country on his own dime without these things in place.

I have never heard of people in any industry paying their own way to a job 12,000 miles away that may not exist with a salary that may not be paid.

And yes, to answer your questions, the advice is practical, I do know of schools that do this, and many teachers have made posts on ESL boards testifying to it. How much research have you done?

To suggest that a school who pays your airfare up front may be desperate or dishonest is insulting and foolish. As is your statement that a teacher who can't afford the airfare shouldn't come.

Your statement about "the general process" may be accurate, but it is not a process that should exist. And in any case, if a teacher appears on a doorstep to begin duties, that is the time to reimburse the expense.

It is also a significant measure of self-protection because the shady schools inevitably refuse to pay it at the end of the term; the 'private' ones often dismiss a teacher just to avoid it.

My recommendations are sound advice for new teachers to protect themselves from the unscrupulous. If it makes them excessively cautious, that's not a sin.

[clark.w.griswald]

Yearofthedog - Phew! We could not possibly be the same person as I have never even been to the neck of the woods you now live in

BearCanada, it seems that the more you say here, the further you move away from protecting teachers and more to protecting himself.

[YearOfTheDog]

[YearOfTheDog]

[bearcanada]

Post Deleted

[bearcanada]

Dear YOTG;

I appreciate your sincere comments. Your first question is well made. FYI, my experience in China spans 25 years including teaching English. However, I was never part of the school system and didn't have to deal with recruiters then, though I do have a comfortable amount now of dealing with them personally.

I have never been burned by a school recruiter, but a Chinese agent is a Chinese agent. Through my dealings with the Chinese Consulate here, I have been successful in having some agencies in Mainland China shut down for fraud. I don't know if the owners went to jail, but the local consulate did have them put out of business on my documentation. They DO care.

In one such discussion about a scammer, I mentioned to the Consul that I had lived in Rome for 7 or 8 years (where every Italian has a reputation as a con artist), and he said to me, "Oh, then you know what it's like to do business with the Chinese". Very funny.

It is true that not all recruiters (or indeed all Chinese agents) need to be avoided, but there is no easy way for an inexperienced person to know the good from the bad from a distance. To deal with them in any field is to be burned until you learn, unless maybe you're just lucky.

The 'private' schools that I was referring to are the "Guangzhou International Economics University" or the "Slappy Happy English Kindergarten" located in a seedy walk-up and run by a guy who had his DVD-burning factory closed down 3 weeks ago.

It's the scam money-spinners I worry about, not the legitimate privately-owned schools like Wall Street et al. I don't know how else to categorise them; if you have a suitable term, I would welcome it. I was not referring to a "private company that places teachers in rural schools". If I have accidentally lumped a good one of these in with a bad of the other, I regret that.

My suggestion about government schools follows from that. It seems at least more likely they will be licensed and will offer fewer problems, although I believe what you say about your earlier experience. It really doesn't seem possible to tell in advance without lots of work and reference checking, and the posts of people like yourself to warn others who come after you.

I do believe that one is generally safer in Beijing or Shanghai in this regard, and partly because our Embassies and Consulates are near to hand. But for eg., I've seen many stories of EF franchisees (and I don't mean to slam EF) running clone EF schools and using their teachers as unpaid extra help for the clones. That isn't as likely to occur in the large cities as in the farther-away places.

You may have noticed that my reference to buxiban has been removed, as I have already told Mr. Griswald, and I do regret anyone's having been misled in the interim. My experience with buxiban was in fact a personal one but perhaps misunderstood, in part because there are jobs "offered" by schools or recruiters and jobs "offered by buxiban". Maybe I'm just thick.

Certainly you are vey correct in saying that one complaint cannot form a basis for blacklisting and that caution is necessary to avoid harm to good sites and people.

My blacklisting information comes from personal experience where recruiters have proven their con artistry to me, but even then it is supplemented with more than adequate documentation from teachers and ESL website administrators, international ed people of various kinds, and so on. It's unfair for you to suggest otherwise without asking for facts. However, your observations hold.

The odd scam link on a website don't especially bother me, although a responsible site manager should be doing some self-editing to avoid throwing a perfectly good teacher's site into disrepute. I mean, if Dave's "job board" were to consist largely of ads from scam recruiters it wouldn't be of much value to anyone, would it?

However, to refer to your specific point, posting a CV on a site will obviously leave you open to approaches from anyone - hardly the website's fault. That was never my point - I was referring to ESL 'teacher's' sites that accept JOB ads from recruiters who are widely known to be con artists - like James Zhang aka Alin Buuer, for eg.

And the reason I came down hard on some of the "tefl.xxx" sites is because they had his and other ads openly displayed. And, according to me, should have known better. After all, if I know and you know, how can they not know?

Your comments about your own school were much appreciated. I have not been there and can appreciate only in a general sense the difficulty you have of finding good teachers. I don't believe I have specifically mentioned 'rural' schools anywhere, but my reason for mentioning small centers is that there are so many more reports of scams coming from there. People seem more ready to do things there, than in Shanghai or Beijing, it seems; maybe more pull with the authorities. I don't know.

And of course, no 'list' or 'recommendation' or bit of advice can cover every eventuality. Just as there are good recruiters, there are good private schools and bad government ones. And bad teachers too, for that matter.

So, especially if you are young and inexperienced, you go slowly with lots of caution and try to avoid the trouble other people have identified.

Again, your comments are appreciated.

Cheers,

[bearcanada]

Dear YOTG;

An additional comment, if I may. I missed the last part of your last message - about the money and so on.

I guess yes, I am thinking more of the larger cities in my comments, though I have seen enough confirmed reports of a school paying 8,000 and a recruiter offering 4,000 or so for the same job (and pocketing the difference, as well as the advanced air fare - they cheat schools too).

Certainly in the tiny towns and villages things will be very different, but that may not be the best place for a first-timer with no knowledge of the language or customs and far from friends and help.

I couldn't know how many teachers earn 10,000 a month, but I do know that many schools pay about that much when you add in all the extras. My point in asking for the cash is that you can choose your own apartment and pay your own bills, and if the amounts are in your monthly salary they can't be withheld at year end.

I do know that in the large centres people like Wall Street, Language Key or Clark Morgan pay as much as 14,000 per month for top teachers.

A nice apartment in Shanghai or Beijing costs 4,500 or more; a passable one, not too handy, is maybe 2,500.

Just so you know, all of the things I suggest on my website (that teachers should receive) have come in large part from the Western country Embassies in China (US, Canada, UK, etc.). They were kind enough to research teaching contracts in several places in China, and sent me the contents of what, in their experience, "standard" contracts include.

Cheers,

[YearOfTheDog]

[bearcanada]

Dear Readers;

I have a couple of apologies to make.

First, in a couple of posts as well as in one of my website pages I got a tefl.xxx link wrong. I was commenting on Frank Zhang aka Alin Buuer and his 'copycat' websites, and got a couple of the URLs backward.

One was identifying tefl.com as a bad site instead of tefl.cc, and I believe that one was fixed right away. However, the other was a transposition of chinatefl.com and chinatefl.net, and I wasn't aware I'd done this a second time.

I have changed these now, on my website and wherever else I can recall putting them, and I apologise to any of Dave's readers on these. It was a stupid mistake to make. I knew the facts but got them scrambled.

Many thanks to those who pointed them out to me.

Also, I want to apologise to Clark Griswald for my suspicions of his buxiban website, and for the aggravation I caused him. I have deleted any references to his site wherever I am aware of their existence.

Cheers,