Job Discussion Forums

earthyroots · Joined: 05 Nov 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Calgary Alberta

Greetings,

My name is Stephen Belgrave, and I would like to hear from anyone about the New Century English School in Dalian City. Has anyone taught there? What was it like? Any comments good or bad would be cheerfully accepted.

Many Thanks Stephen

pandasteak · Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Posts: 166

if you do a search of this site, you'll find some things.

be wary...

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/job/viewtopic.php?t=7912

lyttlefish · Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2005 10:30 am Post subject:

Dear Stephen:

Sorry i have never heard of that school BUT, iIhail from Calgary and have been teaching in Daqing, Norhtern China for the last 5 months.
If you get any answers could you let me know as i am also very interested in Dalian.
Hope to run into you in china one of these days.

jimoin · Joined: 21 Oct 2004 Posts: 455 Location: Dalian

Stay away from New Century in Dalian. They have many foreigners who were attracted to the pay, bonus and conditions looking good on the surface. But they run the school as their own personal fiefdom and see their workers as nothing more than indentured slaves. They always find an excuse to fire workers when it's coming towards the end of contract so they don't have to pay them the bonus. They seem to have a policy of getting new workers all the time, since workers who have stayed longer know exactly what's going on there.

Working at this place you are little more than a dancing monkey for entertainment of the children. That and a tape recorder. The real teaching is done by the Chinese teacher, if there is in fact any at all.

And watch out how they try to rush you into signing the contract instead of actually looking at it. You have been warned.

latefordinner · Joined: 19 Aug 2003 Posts: 973

I was there some years ago. At the time it was a good place for a newbie to begin teaching in China, but there were also some serious issues. I saw some disturbing things first hand and also heard of others; I wouldn't say that all of the stories about the school are true, but it would be wise to be wary. The biggest telltale sign is the high turnover, of Chinese and foreign teachers both. One of the things that made it a good place at that time is that there was a core of dedicated professional teachers, Chinese and foreign alike. That group is long gone. This is a common problem with a many schools in DL, BTW.

I'm just thinking of applying for a summer job there, but that's because it might fill the time between the end of my current contract and the September hirings, when I hope to get a job at a real school. If there is one in DL.

I realise that this has been a little too murky and imprecise to be of much help, but the nature of employment in this business is that nothing is ever true for very long. Lots of luck

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

I posted a thread on account of that school because it was dragged into news headlines by its unscrupulous partner, Northeast Normal University. Do a search on this forum and retrieve that thread - I forgot its name.
But if I recollect well, the school itself was not mis-managed; it was deceived by NNU or its leaders.
The newspaper I had the information from was the relatively trustworthy SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST.