Job Discussion Forums

[Mysterious Mark]

Ah well, no hard feelings. You're right, there is a lot of muck-throwing on these forums, and like I said, that's why I mostly stay away from them.

I've seen a variety of operations in China that people of different backgrounds and temperaments experience and interpret in very different ways and have also developed some understanding of how people blind themselves to the good or the bad of such things. I don't like the typical Chinese "oral English" set-up, but I know that it can be put to good use by people with enough of the right kind of talent, enthusiasm, and creativity.

If things are as you and some others say they are, then congratulations on running a worthwhile operation and good luck keeping it that way/improving it further. I still maintain that caveat emptor (buyer beware) is usually good advice in China, figuratively if not literally. We should keep our critical faculties in good condition.

[dah216k]

Oh pleeeeease!!!

Just goes to show you really can fool ALL the people ALL the time. Working at BNOFLS really is like being that frog in the Chinese proverb who lives down the well. The frog can only see the sky above. The rest of the world is unknown to him. He simply accepts his entire existence is the world at the bottom of the well and does not realize its actually a very narrow and insular existence. The frog spends his days in complete ignorance of the big, wide, and exciting world outside the well and refutes any attempt by the bird who visits the well to drink that life has more to offer.

As mentioned, the rebuttals do indeed read more like adverts. They were probably written by people with either little or no previous experience of working in China, let alone knowing of the big, wide, and exciting world outside BNOFLS. While there is some element of truth in a few of the rebuttals, most remain highly questionable and its possible to pick holes in each and every one of them.

Most of the rebuttals are a deliberate distraction from the more important points made above above BNOFLS. The wording of these counter statements do indeed sound like sales pitches and remain weak in defense of BNOFLS without qualification or validation. For example, the rebuttals emphasize amenities and facilities, most of which, are available for foreign teachers at most schools in China anyway.

I do not have the time or the inclination to respond to them all, but all I will say is that don't be fooled by the range of facilities in glossy brochures or the blurb of a sales pitch. If you're unlucky enough arrive to work at BNOFLS for your first or next teaching job in China, only then will you discover most of these wonderful facilities and amenities are either still under construction or unavailable because of a lack of funding or resources. That is, if the school plans to build any of these at all. Computer labs, sports facilities, pools, and other amenities are only unlocked when there's a photographer from the local press around or when big shots visit the school. The rest of the time, they will be off-limits to everybody.

The doubtful counter-responses posted above in defense of BNOFLS will, of course, not mention why corporate schools, such as this, leech off the national obsession with English learning in China. Corporate schools exploit the fears all Chinese parents have about their child's future as the job market becomes increasingly more competitive. Does anyone truly think schools like BNOFLS are any more successful at opening more doors in the job market than (say, state) schools in China? Of course not, judging by casual discussions with company managers around Shanghai who remain skeptical whether corporate schools can actually produce a generation of graduates with skills suitable for China's changing domestic and international situation; especially where this concerns English skills. BNOFLS came up in discussions on more than a few occasions. Even the Chinese government is well aware graduates from state schools are academically more successful than those from corporate schools.

And like any corporation that promotes an image, students are often referred to as 'clients' or 'customers' in most, but not all, of the company literature. I also find it difficult to believe anyone is ignorant enough to dismiss the fact that corporate schools, like BNOFLS, aren't run by fat-cat bosses out to milk every buck they can get??? Corporate schools are China's new service industry! They have corporate strategies determined by market forces, after all. Don't you think investors want a return on their money?

The expansion of the domestic economy has led to a growth in the education market (and it is a market), leading to demands for an increase in the range of opportunities for education across all grades to relieve the pressure on state schools. However, we must not forget corporate schools only provide an alternative route in the education system and the high enrollment fees do not reflect a level of education that is necessarily more superior to state schools. High demand coupled with poor management and ambiguous regulations, especially in the BNOFLS case, leads to low quality and poor standards of service for its 'customers'. But in addition to being that alternative route in eduction, corporate schools know they cab capitalize on being that 'safety net' for families whose children do not achieve the kinds of exam results that would otherwise enable them to enter more reputable state schools. Its generally not public knowledge, but a high proportion of the student population at corporate schools are those who flunked the state school entrance examinations.

And what was that about 'the input of the foreign teachers being greater here then at the high school level where they are incessantly tested to exhaustion'? OK if you really enjoy living under a regime of bureaucratic regulations that demand foreign teachers put in twelve-hour days. So I suppose I have to agree with you if, by 'input', you mean you love spending the entire week on campus with contact teaching time, extra-curricular BS, and paperwork? Feeling more like that frog now?

Have your students taken their usual eight exams in one 12-hour day yet? If they're not the ones 'incessantly tested to exhaustion' then I don't know who is. If anything, it does explain why administrators have to make adjustments to exam results to make it look like the school really is producing well-educated customers. I now understand why even the administrators at BNOFLS itself are the first to voice their doubts at poor standards of education. Most don't care as long as enrollment targets are met, and if this means enrolling as many badly behaved, academically poor, students of wealthy families as possible, then why not? Tuition fees pay the budget for the year, so as long as the parents are deluded, who cares?

And why on earth do people here keep referring to their jobs as 'teaching'?!?!? I never figured out what BNOFLS teachers do, but it certainly ain't teaching!!!

BNOFLS has got to be without a doubt the worst school in China. Its the most depressing and pathetic excuse for a school I've ever seen, and I thought I'd seen it all here...

[Sevarem]

[william wallace]

nil

[Voldermort]

[Mysterious Mark]

Good point William, but the numbers here seem closer to 50-50.

Some people are happy to make lemonade when life gives them lemons, and others aren't. ("Damn it, I should be making orange juice!") I say good luck to them all. Those kids are getting an education one way or another, and we can't overhaul the system, so if there are people who enjoy working within the system in an effort to accomplish something, maybe it's worth it.

And any school that doesn't have physically hazardous conditions, contract violations, unpaid salaries/airfares, racial discrimination, constant lying, golddigging, theft, or a few other things that probably would have been mentioned above if they were present is definitely not the worst school in China.

[sttwo]

As to preference for Americans, there are more than 280 million of them. There are about 65 million Brits, perhaps 32 million South AFricans, 18 million Australians, 4.5 million kiwis, an perhaps 32 million Canadians. Statistically, staffing is no coincidence.

I suspect that BNOFL is the "temple school" that is "famous" in China! Students migrate from cities all over China to attend these during vacations. Their publicity is obviously good.

I suspect this is the outfit with the guru who invented "Crazy English"! which is much touted in any book store that touts this tripe.

With outlandish promotionals such as these, it should be no surprise that there are "holes" in any system had anywhere in the chain.

STudents can avoid the hype and the crowd and go to backburner schools for equal or better experiences.

It's like each and everything else that is described as "famous" in Eastern Asia. It's always struck me "odd" that these frenzies are unknown anywhere else even within the same country except in the vicinity where a center or an attraction is located.

[SandyM]

I will not go into the lengthy criticisms written by the Washington Post or several Chinese newspapers have to say about this dreadful place and its owners. Perhaps I'll reserve that for a later post. But as for Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School (BNOFLS)...

I would like to urge all foreign teachers looking to work in China's expanding ESL job market to avoid BNOFLS. Use your intelligence and do not get lured by gimmicky advertising campaigns and the slick sales pitch that will promise all sorts of very wonderful things that will never mirror the realities of working here.

Firstly, the Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School group (BNOFLS) is not really a 'school'. It is a corporation with a business strategy, not an educational strategy, that is merely cashing in on a national obsession for learning English. English learning is China's new service industry and BNOFLS has exploited this to the extreme, as evidenced by foreign teachers employed here who are all expected to contribute to a marketing process; mostly as performing puppets to give the impression that their presence is vital for effective English teaching.

The owner of BNOFLS admitted in an interview with the Washington Post that foreign teachers are NOT employed to be teachers or instructors. Actual English teaching is the sole responsibility of English-speaking Chinese instructors in classes separate from yours. They are contracted as instructors, you are not. Any attempt to assume the role of an instructor by, for example introducing teaching skills associated with TEFL/TESOL, is punished. And, Big Brother will know, because he could be watching you from the camera located on the back ceiling of most classrooms.

As 'marketing tools,' all foreign teachers are paraded in front of parents like show pieces during open school days as if integral components vital to their child's learning process. This creates the impression their child is benefitting from instruction from a foreign teacher. So, foreign teachers are not the only ones being fooled by BNOFLS, but also the parents who are taken in by advertising campaigns and sales pitches before handing over extortionate sums of money for an education they believe will give their kids an advantage in the future job market. Foreign teachers are sometimes ordered to engage in bizarre activities, even if this means dressing-up for a public performance, to perpetuate the myth that BNOFLS is a great place to be. There are consequences for foreign teachers who refuse.

Contractual arrangements for foreign teachers are never clearly defined and job descriptions remain shrouded in ambiguity. Foreign teachers who challenge the authority powers of the school or dare to raise awkward questions about the role or purpose job of a foreign teacher are escorted from the premises (by security guards, so I've heard). In short, lessons conducted by a BNOFLS foreign teacher are not an integral part of the daily curriculum as far as the instructors or students are concerned, and exist peripheral to the whole operation. The rulings of several court cases is proof enough that BNOFLS exists only to pirate advance copies of university entrance examinations illegally obtained to sell to students' parents for money. That is, when BNOFLS is not busy 'polishing' exam results to enable its graduates to enter foreign universities; again, in what is a lucrative side business of employing 'gunners' (BNOFLS-appointed examinees who will stand in for the real candidates).

Classroom activities are nothing more than performing a few songs and games. Sounds easy? Well, yes it is... until angry parents confront you demanding why the hell you're not actually teaching anything useful! Groups of frustrated parents find it impossible to accept the fact that foreign teachers are not employed as teachers. They are dumb-struck when they discover foreign teachers are discouraged from using textbooks designed for language-learning purposes in class or employing other resources to add to levels of skill. Singing songs in class is fun, of course, but when repeated twenty times a day, day after day, month after month, this is hardly a productive contribution to the whole language learning process for all students. Attempts to introduce anything that resembles teaching result in disciplinary measures.

Therefore, a foreign teacher with TEFL/TESOL qualification is a waste of time at BNOFLS, perhaps actively discouraged. And what use would it be at schools that routinely falsify exam results to maintain its artificially inflated reputation of high exam results? Then again, it�s absolutely necessary when BNOFLS forces its own students to do eight exams in one day. But if you think eight exams in one day makes for a long working day, think again. Everyday is a long day for foreign teachers putting in twelve-hour days in most cases, as well as some weekends.

With the addition of 'extra-curricular activities,' twelve or eleven-hour days are common, and mandatory, with little or no free time to yourself. Discharging the frustrations of a life that confines all teachers within the perimeter fence of the BNOFLS campus is expressed in a variety of forms; breakdowns, and symptoms of depression or exhaustion are common. In addition to their own duties, mandatory participation is demanded of all foreign teachers in a variety of other activities, such as support roles in other foreign teacher classes everyday, covering sickness leave without additional pay, participation in evening or the occasional weekend class, or participation in pretty much anything else the school can dream up. As mentioned, foreign teachers do not receive extra pay or other bonuses for these activities, because it is assumed everybody is willing and able to simply give time to the dictates of their job. When finally you are able to leave the campus (usually only at the weekend), a curfew is officially in place and security guards stationed at the main gate keep notes of times foreign teachers enter and leave the campus; especially if this is late at night.

Do not be fooled by oft-cited claims that BNOFLS has a high teacher retention rate. This is not true. Confidential talks with off-duty foreign and Chinese teachers reveal most of them can't wait until the end of the school year when they can leave. The pressure of the workload, living conditions, or living under a regime of ambiguous rules and regulations alone is enough to persuade a huge chunk of foreign and Chinese teachers to leave every year. The dictatorial regime that rules BNOFLS is enough to persuade most they made a big mistake. Only on the weekends when opinions are shared more openly does the truth come out at just how really unhappy all foreign teachers really are.

Lastly, I never worked out why, for a school that is obviously well-funded, the heating, hot water, or the electric is sometimes switched-off by administrators in the dead of winter in a fruitless effort to save money, leaving everyone to wash out of a bucket of cold water from an outside tap. And being woken every morning at 6 by marching band music from loud speakers isn't gonna make me look forward to another day in this lunatic asylum.

BNOFLS appears on several internet blacklists. Avoid it like a bad dose of the plague.

PS: I may mention this in a new post, but BNOFLS will also make deductions from the salaries of foreign teachers by way of 'fines' or 'penalties' for breaking any one of a myriad of ambiguous rules and regulations (regardless of whether the administrators can prove a foreign teacher actually broke a rule or not.) This will also occur even if the foreign teacher who finds themselves found 'guilty' of breaking 'rules' can produce proof or evidence of their innocence. Financial penalties are imposed, and justified by BNOFLS, simply on the grounds of rumour or hearsay from the Chinese staff - whose word is gospel as far as the admin is concerned.

[Shan-Shan]

I really wish that I could ask the folks whose brains have rotted in such circumstances as those described above why they didn't just leave once the rot was beginning to set in? The streets of Beijing aren't paved with gold; sticking it out isn't going to mature into anything else. This is China: the milk comes in little bags, and the honey sometimes contains a stinger or two.

The schools like the one mentioned have mastered the art of attracting dupes from abroad, those who seek to be enslaved, and wallow luxuriously in their own self-pity, with little pamphlets of big nosed folk striking Maoist poses before an orderly mass of students, eyes all a-gleam in adulation for he/she who left the Developed West to spread knowledge of English to the emerging East. I'm certain that were the same white men/women doing the exact same dance back home, such institutes would never find any replacements. Yet once these people get to China, and find out that the pamphlet was just a cut and past job, they become very meek, and get a taste for licking their own blood off the fist that beats them.

Then there might be some who feel that it's valid retribution for what the West did to certain areas of China during the more open colonial days. Martyrism is strong among many westerners in China. These foreigners may see themselves as paying for the sins of their race, of letting China have a go at them to even some old score.

And some foreigners are just smitten by a society that doesn't give a damn about its own people so long as they keep sucking on their cola bottles, and never say anything bad about Papa Hu and his Friends. These foreigners just gotta stay, they say, and keep tightening their nuts and screws in the big China Machine regardless of the hours and work conditions.

Were the RMB one to one with the dollar, and the cost of living here didn't alter, I could understand putting up with some discomforts. But when the pay, the environment and treatment is substandard: why is walking away so hard for so many? With a passport in pocket, and a return ticket in hand, just go back and resume reality!

[sankofa]

Sevarem wrote:

[johnchina]

I found SandyM's post very interesting - thanks! BNOFLS is the master of marketing. In that field, those guys are truly experts.

I have heard (from several reliable sources) that BNOFLS is run like a franchise. Does anyone have any info on this? It would help explain why some BNOFLS cntres seem to be better than others.

[sankofa]

Hey Sandy M,

Do you have a link to that Washington Post article to which you refer?

[dah216k]

why hasn't the chinese government done something about this company? they seem to be intent on cracking down on every else thats fake here? (then again, they're not really making a good job of that either... rightly or wrongly)

what a joke this company is... then again, that could be a good thing and it makes me laugh every time their name appears in the press because they ****-ed up yet again.

why on earth would anyone really want to go and work here?

[englishgibson]

[mike w]

"Connections" being the most important element of any seemingly succesful business here.