Job Discussion Forums

[dreamin']

G'day all! It seems EF gets a bit of a pounding on this board and as I'm about to accept a job with them I was hoping to get some info on other outfits in Indonesia. I've worked in China and Korea (neither were much fun) and Thailand (which I loved) so I've got a bit of experience teaching in Asia. But EF seems to be the only employer advertising for teachers on the internet. Is it really as bad as people say? Or are they just posters who'd be moaning wherever they worked?

[gugelhupf]

They're 'entry level' ESL employers - for the most part. Some franchises are well organised, some are positively diabolical. All pay the minimum they can get away with.

One thing EF is good at, though, is advertising. This is partly because they are a big organisation and partly because in some of their schools staff turnover is very high.

There are a lot of smaller independent outfits but these don't advertise often, while bigger schoolls like TBI www.tbi.co.id prefer to recruit in country and generally recruit ex EF teachers.

Regular schools have all done their recruitment for this year although there are the odd vacancies as people drop out.

[philbags]

There are two Ef branches in Bandung, both with the same DOS who's a pretty cool guy. I knew about 20 people who worked there over 2.5 years and I'd say 90% were happy- the pay may be low but so is the stress and that can count for a lot.
check out my post on the China VS. Indo thread for info on KITAS and changing jobs - its important to know your legal status - once you're there, the school pretty much owns you.

[guruengerish]

EF schools, as you will know, are all franchises, owned and operated by various Directors in geographical regions. e.g EF in Central Java schools, all come under the one director.

You can strike it lucky and find a good area, and in particular, I found EF in West Jakarta quite fair and reasonable.

As someone has said, EF can be a good entry level, and you can work around from there. There are good private schools around, such as EEP in Bandung and TBI in some cities.

EF classrooms tend to be so small that any sort of activity other than sitting down, is nigh on impossible, so if you like action games, forget it.

[Winmarr]

Yeah the Bandung ones are pretty good, and the DOS is a cool guy. Not exactly overloaded with plush facilities, but they're alright.

[bayabule]

While it's good to have a forum where teachers can warn others about dodgy schools it's a shame there aren't more people on here sharing good experiences.
In all parts of life it's generally the people with bad exeriences who make their voices heard, which is natural.
It often seems here that those with good things to report get attacked and I imagine that puts a lot of people with sensible things to say off posting here.
Shame.
There are a lot of good schools around Indonesia that you never hear about because their teachers are happily going about their lives.
Not all EFs are bad either but because they have so many schools here and the biggest number of teachers, you hear more negative stuff about them. It's to do with maths, innit? Don't ask me, I'm an English teacher.

[Chancellor]

[guruengerish]

I never had a problem with rubbish, just the zillions of little green mini-buses which clogged up the traffic, as they stopped anywhere.

Do they still burn old tyres at night on the footpaths, to keep warm?

..and they wonder why there's a pall of pollution in the air at the start of the day

[guruengerish]

One writer has commented on people only writing about the bad schools.

Here's one most will not have heard of in Bandung. That's EEP.

It's an excellent school, all the facilities you could wish for, great people at the top, insistance on learning English through activities.

The problem? the teachers stay for years and years, and there's rarely a vacancy!

[basiltherat]

[Winmarr]