Job Discussion Forums

[naturegirl321]

I've heard about this school repeatedly on this board. Anyone worked for them or can give second hand info about them?

[HLJHLJ]

What would you like to know?

They have sites in Guayaquil, Quito and Porto Viejo, plus a training centre near Montanita.

The main thing is they are a British Language Centre, and preferentially hire native speakers with a British accent, they do very occasionally hire teachers from other areas, but it's rare. They also require all their teachers to have CELTAs.

They run a CELTA course in Ecuador, and get a lot of their new teachers through that. They pay better than most places, and although you use course books, you are expected to create a lot of your own lessons as well. They sponsor and pay for work visas if you commit to working for just them for 12 months, with other arrangements (part pay, admin help, etc) for people who only work part time, or work for other places as well.

[portugina]

Yes they offer all of that to the few teachers they hire, I say few because they don't have many students. Not many students in Ecuador can pay $220 per module for only 40 hours, they really do rip their students off. Plus the additional $50 for a book for each module and then in the long run many students don't actually pass the Cambridge ESOL exam because they didn't have enough hours under their belt.

[naturegirl321]

Pay, hours, levels, ages?

[HLJHLJ]

Pay varies according to qualifications, experience and what classes you take, I think the minimum is $8/ph but most people are on more than that. Hours also vary, some people are on full time contracts (25 hrs), others have hourly work, which is mostly part time. AFAIK it's all levels and ages at all their sites. The Quito school seems to doing OK and are supposed to be moving to bigger premises in the next week or two, I don't know about the others.

[naturegirl321]

Thanks so much

[clarke501]

How stable would you say this school/chain is?

[HLJHLJ]

Do you mean financially? If so, they are owned by a much bigger company further up the line, they have plenty of resources behind them.

[clarke501]

Yeah, that's mostly what I was meaning, thanks. In truth, I am trying to boost my post count to 5 to allow me to contact you via PM regarding working in Quito.