Job Discussion Forums

mette · Joined: 20 Apr 2006 Posts: 1 Location: denmark

Hi
We are two teachers from Denmark who have sought employment as English teachers in Shanghai with Cheery English - does anyone have any information about this company and working in Shanghai? Any tips etc?

Thanks, Mette

mike3478 · Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Posts: 7

I've also been contacted by them and would be interested to see if anyone has info on them.

Have you gotten your offer letter yet?

Domino · Joined: 17 Apr 2006 Posts: 6 Location: Boston, MA

I was looking to work with them as well, that was before I did did some background searching on them and found several negative comments. I relayed the comments to them and said I was no longer interested.

At this point, they wrote me back and assured me that the comments online are bogus and they were made by really irresponsible teachers. I decided I would test the waters and give them the benefit of the doubt, so I wrote back and said that I would like assurances IN WRITING on my contract that they would not do the things that they said they were not doing to their teachers (not paying them overtime, not giving them legit visas, and excessive unpaid commuting times). A few days later I received my reply, which said they were sorry, but they had filled all of their vacancies.

Now, everything they told me could be true, but I have my doubts. They post ads for jobs on every ESL site out there almost daily and they tried to convince me to join even after I told them I was not interested. This does not seem like the behavior of a employee search that is going well.

Hope that helps.
-Derek

prof · Joined: 25 Jun 2004 Posts: 741 Location: Boston/China

Shanghainese students are incredibly demanding...especially if they are paying for the tuition themselves (as that money could be used for other uses such as KTV or a teahouse!)

If they suspect the teacher and/or the school is dodgy it's doomed to failure.

mike3478 · Joined: 29 Apr 2006 Posts: 7

Well, they are not even a school actually.

They are an agency that places teachers into local schools in Shanghai and supposedly Japan, and Taiwan as well.

Basically, they have two weeks of training, then the teachers are placed with a school of their choosing (in Shanghai). The teacher does a demo for the school and if the school likes the newbie teacher they hire 'em. Now, the hiring school is still not the employee, Cheery is. As such Cheery is also the one that is supposed to provide the contract and visa. In their own words "Chinese schools can't provide visas for people, so they have to use agencies like Cheery, an outside company, to do this for them". Load of bull or what!!??

I personally don't have a very good feeling about them...

Voldermort · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 597