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hyperpress
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Portland, Oregon
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 Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:35 pm Post subject: English Sanguage schools |
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what is an English Language School, english training school? i see a lot of schools with these tags?
i also see a lot of "University" jobs that want english teachers for converstaional english, spoken english, are these actual universities?
thanx again |
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jeffinflorida
Joined: 22 Dec 2004
Posts: 2024
Location: "I'm too proud to beg and too lazy to work" Uncle Fester, The Addams Family season two
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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There are lots of universities in china, both private and public. These are typically real schools, not storefront schools. Quality of education varies.
An English language school is a private English school - maybe big, maybe small, maybe nice, maybe real crappy looking, that has teachers who help the students learn. They tend to like foreigners because we can teach English better, our presence adds value to the school, and they can usually charge more to the students.
Conversational English tends towards learning to get the students to speak in English and you guide the conversation. The students really don't learn by sitting there listening to a teacher drone on and on, but they learn better by actually speaking together. Of course most students want to talk to the American teacher and will ask you the same questions over and over again...
Spoken English deals more with teaching the proper way to get them to speak correct English. Usually with a book and lists of words and sentences.
Keep in mind every school is different in the way they want you to teach.
I worked for a school that gave to input, no objectives, nothing to help me teach their students. To make it worse the previous teachers just had English conversation with the students and didn't follow any curriculum so I was totally clueless in what to do and the dean and teacher's aids were no help at all. It was not a fun situation to teach in. And as a result I failed what they wanted me to accomplish...
This help you at all? |
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hyperpress
Joined: 07 Jan 2007
Posts: 4
Location: Portland, Oregon
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: thanx |
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yeah, thank you. love the zappa photo. i guess there's really no way to tell the quality of the schools that are hitting me up. i have looked at their websites on Chinatefl and seen photos and testimonials but how representative are these sorts of evidence?
another quick question, pay rates seem to be between 4 and 8,000 rmb/month, w/housing and generally a round trip reimbursement on airfare, is this sufficient?
thank you again
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jeffinflorida
Joined: 22 Dec 2004
Posts: 2024
Location: "I'm too proud to beg and too lazy to work" Uncle Fester, The Addams Family season two
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 11:07 pm Post subject: |
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Don't believe what you see in the photos either! They take some nice "file" photos of new buildings, smiling students etc...
4 - 8k is the typical range for a position, inc rooms and r/t airfair.
About the photos, I once met with one of my business students who graduated and took a job as a sale rep for a plastics factory. He showed me the website for the company - impressive site with great pictures of the "state of the art" factory - when i got to the factory it was a dump! the owner was so proud of the bogus photos he posted on his web site... |
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Steppenwolf
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 1769
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:18 am Post subject: |
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"Sanguage school"? Probably Language school...
The latter are private centres of learning where participants pay a tuition fee to attend classes designed for specific groups of "students" - usually adults that attend evening class, public school students who are coerced by their parents to take extracurricular English (or other subjects), etc.
It's a "Payer rules" world so you often end up doing them all kinds of favours without really helping their English. Revenue is your employer's first priority. And since China's public schools botch the job of timparting English to their captive classroom crowds there seems to be an endless supply of impressionalbe takers of such private lessons.
One of the downsides is that class sizes vary from lesson to lesson; it's difficult to offer a structured form of lessons.
You may know BERLITZ, English FIrst, Wallstreet, Linguaphone - those are names that may ring familiar to you; they are in the same line of teaching and have branches or franchises here in China. |
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clark.w.griswald
Joined: 06 Dec 2004
Posts: 2056
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:24 am Post subject: Re: thanx |
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| hyperpress wrote: |
| i guess there's really no way to tell the quality of the schools that are hitting me up. i have looked at their websites on Chinatefl and seen photos and testimonials but how representative are these sorts of evidence? |
The type of institution that you work for is probably not going to guarantee you happiness nor success. Probably most important is finding a place that is suitable for you regardless of what it might be called.
If you have never been to China before, have never taught before, and are considering some of the bigger cities then the private language institutes may be worth a look. They tend to offer curriculum, support, and have other foreign teachers who can help you get established. Be careful though with private training institutes as many of them do not employ teachers legally. My advice would be to stick with the best known ones such as EF, Web, and Aston etc.
If you are a bit more adventurous and/or have teaching experience or teaching qualifications then you may find one of the high schools or universities more to your liking. There you can live at the school or nearby, and in many cases will have more freedom in the classroom as there may be flexibility in the curriculum for your input or no curriculum at all.
Testimonials and comments from past teachers are in my opinion a good way of getting an idea of what a school is like but they should not be your only resource. When you do read such try reading between the lines and decide for yourself which areas of their comments would be good or bad for you. Be sure to contact the person making the comment if at all possible as this may help to give you a better idea of the person�s reasons for their comments.
Visiting the school�s website if they have one can also be a good way of getting an idea about the school but as has been pointed out the pictures may not reflect the real school accurately as they tend to be doctored for best appearance. A school with a website that is regularly updated is a good sign in my books and sure beats a school without such. |
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eslstudies
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
Posts: 1061
Location: East of Aden
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:27 am Post subject: |
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| Steppenwolf wrote: |
"Sanguage school"? Probably Language school...
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Umm, thanks Rog. The rest of us were putting together a thinktank on that one. You've saved us days! |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 8:04 am Post subject: |
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sansuage school - maybe the OP was after the title sausage school, and that type of description wouldn't be too far of the mark when describing the chain mills. You know - meat factory English - churning out a cheap product - where that gooyey pink stuff thats supposed to be its english meat actually smells a bit off to those real classroom cooks - qualified teachers.
But then again - we could 'em fried Chicken schools - that Aston joint Clark mentions put out this hillarious article not so long ago -
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KFC and Dongying Aston a perfect partnership
The Dongying Aston School has been working in conjunction with KFC to give back to the community through our weekly English corners. They have been a great success usually having 60-80 enthused participants attend each week. The English corners have provided a wonderful opportunity for the people of Dongying to meet the Aston foreign teachers and engage in culture exchange. KFC has been so pleased with our partnership they have insisted that the Aston school extend there English corners to all three of their locations.
Everyone in the community is welcomed to take part in the Aston English Corner. They are held every Saturday night from 7pm-8pm. Come and have fun at KFC with some truly special people, and if you are lucky you might even become the winner of our special door prize |
Cultural exchange - anybody with FT experience will know what kind cultural BS would be going on at an English corner in the KFC!! But anways - like it or leave it - it surely sums up the chain school - any extreme to get new fee paying students.
another poster BR Smith sums up this type of school very nicely in another thread -
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| The chains, such as English First, Wall Street, Delter/Telfort are not places you'd want to be, especially with your family. Workloads are not only long and gruesome, but often your assignments are capricious. Many of us who've worked for these dumps have been given an hour's notice to grab a cab and get across town to teach a room full of 60 unruly, spoiled six year-olds (Little Emporers and Emporesses) in an unheated classroom in January. These petulant brats whould rather be anywhere than in your class, and they let you know it. |
So newbies when considering working in this kind of factory - beware  |
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cj750
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
Posts: 3081
Location: Beijing
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 9:13 am Post subject: |
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| My advice would be to stick with the best known ones such as EF, Web, and Aston etc. |
All these examples also sometimes hire workers with non-valid teaching visas...
try the independents, and other schools not pushed by posters involved in a website ... such as Perfect English in Changchun ...this school's owner is personally invested in the day to day operation...there are a few of these schools ..if you need I will PM you a few email addresses...
Aston is also connected with Future School..and they also hire on the F visa..although many (not all)people who I have spoken to... like working for the one in Dalian..one person I know was extremely disappointed....
EF is one school I would not even consider..but a heck of a lot of folks get their start there.. |
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clark.w.griswald
Joined: 06 Dec 2004
Posts: 2056
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| cj750 wrote: |
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| My advice would be to stick with the best known ones such as EF, Web, and Aston etc. |
All these examples also sometimes hire workers with non-valid teaching visas... |
Quite possibly every school in China sometimes hires teachers illegally and sometimes this is done at the request of foreign teachers who want to maintain their �freedom� so I don�t see why you would restrict your comments to these companies. I don�t condone it but it is the individual teacher�s right to choose to work the job that he or she sees fit.
The most important thing, and the point that I was clearly making, is that a teacher who wants to work legally can find legal work at these schools without problem whereas other schools can sometimes be an unknown. Public institutions can also be a good place to go for legal work but the pay is generally not so good and they often do not offer the curriculum and support that new teachers may appreciate as per my point in my earlier post. |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:16 am Post subject: |
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| the point that I was clearly making, is that a teacher who wants to work legally can find legal work at these schools |
Dearest Clark - but as you have pointed out in your post they also partake in illegal practice with regard to FT hire (and you put the the moral blame on the FT - poor chains schools they just have to give into those hungry FT's clamering for illegal work:lol: ) - as can be well illustrated for example with the Aston school in an earlier thread. But I suppose there are allways those so desperate to sample a life abroad that they travel all the way to China to work in joints like these 
As for being a start in your ESL career - remember they can also be your "never want to try again end"  |
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cj750
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
Posts: 3081
Location: Beijing
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Quite possibly every school in China sometimes hires teachers illegally and sometimes this is done at the request of foreign teachers who want to maintain their �freedom� |
at the request of the teacher?
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| so I don�t see why you would restrict your comments to these companies. |
only because these were the schools mentioned..
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| The most important thing, and the point that I was clearly making, is that a teacher who wants to work legally can find legal work at these schools without problem whereas other schools can sometimes be an unknown. |
Thank you for the clarification... I am just pointing out that these schools (in some cases) practice the same procedures... work visa problems are the same no matter where a teacher works...best to be prepared... |
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Hendahu
Joined: 27 Apr 2006
Posts: 69
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| Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 10:43 am Post subject: |
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| I have done some work with New Dynamic International on a part time basis, so they head no responsibility for my visa or housing, so I cannot comment on this part of the company's service, but it was a decent company to work for by an large. A good curriculum, great facilities and support. I am even thinking of going with time full time next year if I return to China next year. |
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clark.w.griswald
Joined: 06 Dec 2004
Posts: 2056
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| Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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As usual this is being all twisted out of proportion and selective quotes being taken from my post. Here is what I said, and I believe that it is both logical and true:
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| If you have never been to China before, have never taught before, and are considering some of the bigger cities then the private language institutes may be worth a look. They tend to offer curriculum, support, and have other foreign teachers who can help you get established. Be careful though with private training institutes as many of them do not employ teachers legally. My advice would be to stick with the best known ones such as EF, Web, and Aston etc. |
Sure there are always exceptions to every rule, but as a general rule a teacher who knows what constitutes legal work (having read up about this) and who is seeking legal work can find this work at these schools. This is not always a certainly with other schools.
| cj750 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Quite possibly every school in China sometimes hires teachers illegally and sometimes this is done at the request of foreign teachers who want to maintain their �freedom� |
at the request of the teacher? |
Yes.
There are more than a few foreign teachers who choose to work here on business visas and they would be only too happy to work at any school that can give thme hours (i.e. money) without the comittment of full time employment. In those cases if you are going to condemn the school for employing those teachers then equally you should condemn the teachers who seek that kind of work. Personally though I believe it is nobodies business but their own provided that no one is being misled.
| cj750 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| The most important thing, and the point that I was clearly making, is that a teacher who wants to work legally can find legal work at these schools without problem whereas other schools can sometimes be an unknown. |
Thank you for the clarification... I am just pointing out that these schools (in some cases) practice the same procedures... work visa problems are the same no matter where a teacher works...best to be prepared... |
Sure, this is true. There is no guarantee that a certain type of school will only employ legally. Sometimes this is dictated by the school and sometimes it is done through mutual agreement between school and teacher. We may not agree with it but that is the nature of China. Even public institutions are known to hire foreign teachers illegally, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.
This is why the individual should take it upon his or her shoulders to identify what constitutes legal work and seek out positions that meet those criteria.
Aside from the schools that I have mentioned above you may like to check out an English language list of SAFEA registered schools. |
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vikdk
Joined: 25 Jun 2003
Posts: 1676
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| Posted: Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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| We may not agree with it but that is the nature of China. |
so when other posters write about other aspects of the "nature of China" concept - as in contracts that mean very little, a serious lack of legal protection for the FT in the ESL business, the climate of corruption that always places the employer at an advantage during legal dispute, the common exploitative practices that employers often use on their FT hirelings - why does Clark always tut tut these notions away and paint this job market in such an attractive light 
Come on Clark you can't just wipe the slate clean for these companies by playing the "nature of China" speech - in just the same way you must admit that whole nature of the ESL market is in such a shambles - precisely because of the "nature of China"  |
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