Job Discussion Forums

[carolynne]

Just wondering if which one is generally considered better for students in St. Petersburg. Many thanks, Carolynne

[rusmeister]

Darn. And I thought it was going to be like Godzilla vs Megalon.

Which fast-food chain produces healthier food - Mickey D's or Burger King (TM)?

[Deano1979]

You did not even help the OP man. I chuckled, but jeez man

Carol, its a very difficult question to answer. They are both franchise schools, so quailty differs from province to provice, country to country. SO much is dependent on the school owners and managers, along with the quality of the teachers. So some might be better then others.

English First has a standard textbook I believe, and are quite adamant that teachers must not stray from the material. So there is a standard of sorts with them

I know that the Language Link St Pete does not have a very high staff turnover, which is normally a good sign.

Best thing to do would be to contact the schools and ask for student references

[maruss]

In Moscow they both have an equally bad reputation but I know nothing about St. Petes. so I would take the advice above and try to get info. from past and present teachers etc.It is also very true that franchises vary enormously from one place to another so the name is not necessarily a good indicator.But EF text books are notoriously bad-as is their vast and sprawling international organisation which took weeks to pay me some money they owed me from a summer school in the summer of 2006,after I made calls to the Netherlands-at my own expense ,of course!

[carolynne]

I figured language link would be better considering they pay properly... Thanks for the heads up, Carolynne

[Takahiwai]

Probably not very helpful, but I was offered a job by EF, which I was about to accept until I read through the book-sized induction manual they sent me, and noticed how restrictive everything seemed.
On the other hand, I did my CELTA with LL many years ago, and did my observations in their school in London. I enjoyed the classes and the teachers seemed to have plenty of freedom to design their own lessons and introduce whatever material they deemed appropriate.
From that you can guess that I'd plump for LL if it were my choice.

[maruss]

Their operation in London is quite a different story from the one in Russia and I would agree wth the posting as they were more than helpful when I went to see them in Gloucester Road some years ago.The director in Moscow was also very friendly and helpful and saw me without an appointment.But the problem is that Moscow is not a place where you can live properly on the kind of wages that these firms pay and as soon as people find they can earn much more elsewhere they leave.
There is an American who runs a school in St.Petes and he seems quite upfront but I forget the name of it,although he has posted frequently on this site so you should be able to find it f you spend a bit of time.I would really suggest you contact him BEFORE you accept anything from LL.

[Confederate]

Went to English First once, the office had trash every where, garbage cans overflowing, men teachers had long hair in pony tails wearing holy jeans and flip-flops and the few female teachers were dressed like Moscow street walkers, I jot out of there as fast as I could. Language Link is the worse school in Moscow. The director is the biggest cry baby I have ever seen, I worked during the summer there as a fill in teacher. That moron director had me called into te police station to be questioned about another school stealing his clients. Just how in hell that idiotic thought I knew anything about that I do not know. The police investigator told me that fool is always pulling stunts like that and the police were getting fed up with him. I know if that fool tries that again, I will make a few phone calls myself. Stay aways from Language Link, as a matter of fact stay away from all the franchised schools, they are all alike. I have been living here in Moscow for the last five years and have seen a lot of changes in the teaching field, thank goodness I now have permanent residence and can come and go as I please without worry about the visa foolishness and can do other things besides teaching. But stay aways from Language Link at all costs.
JD

[blackcorsair]

Definitely not Language Link Krasnoyarsk: a bigger bunch of sly, deceitful, incompetent, slave-driving zenophobes I never met.

[maruss]

And it's a LONG way from anywhere else when you find out and want to leave!

[elena_104]

Hi

I just found out this morning that LAnguage Link Russia turned me down for their internship program...I am pretty pissed since they basically told me that they decide by level of education and relevant experience etc and I wasn't pick even though I have a B.A and a B.ed plus 2 years experience as a teacher here in Canada... I very much doubt that people with masters degrees or more than 5 years experience would have applied to an internship that pays 600 dollars a month... Anyway I have other offers that are much better in terms of contract package..just annoyed because I was really looking forward to visiting Russia and leraning Russian!

[George1983]

Hi Carolynne,

Just make sure you get recent info on Language Link St. P's. I did a summer camp organised through them in 2005 and pretty much all of their Russian management team was leaving (seems they were being let go after a LOT of complaints from all angles.)

All the teachers there were good though, and the school seemed run well for the students. Basically the old staff were happy to mess around English teachers, rather than the Russian students, but couldn't keep records well. That should have changed now.

If the Moscow whip was cracked and the staff were replaced with better people it might be a good sign. Just letting you know that any pre-summer '05 horror stories are probably out of date.

That said, having just read elena104's post, I'm not sure how great their judgement or admin is now Unless they were flooded with applications from top university professors ths year

Best of luck anyway!

[maruss]

You are quite right-you can find better firms to work for that will at least pay you something for your efforts!$600 is worth very little in Moscow nowadays and you would certainly have ended-up going through your own funds!What's even more disappointing is that the director of LL is an American,but it seems he has learned Russian habits after so many years there!!-mindyou, I doubt he even knows you applied!

[PeterBar]

I worked with LL several times in several cities and I would say that my overall impression was that it is a good company, especially for less experienced teachers.

If you're young and inexperienced and in Russia for the first time then you will very probably find a lot of things to complain about wherever you work in the country - and I guess that is why there are so many anti-LL anecdotes.

The Country Director has done a great deal to help, support and encourage his staff on many occasions.

In any company staff costs are probably the highest expenditure. It is also understandable that any company will pay the minimum that they can. As long as there are queues of minimally qualified young people trying to work in Russia salaries will stay as low as possible - demand for teaching jobs is high, so salaries will stay low.

Russia is not the place to go if you are looking for a high salary. Get yourself properly qualified with a Master's or a PhD and go to the Middle East where salaries are still relatively high.

[maruss]

He is probably right-the best paid teaching jobs are to be found in the Gulf and a few other countries,but Russia is definitely not one of them!
Even so,Moscow is expensive to live in and there is a great deal of visible wealth there....but also a large number of people who still live on very low salaries and in conditions which are more third world than European!This is probably one of the hardest things for an outsider to understand or appreciate.Outside Moscow there are just far less rich people and far more poor ones!
My advice to a new teacher would be to work in another country first before considering going to Russia because this guy is right,there are far too many things there which can go wrong or simply hassle you!