Job Discussion Forums

[englishgibson]

Students keep on bringing this one up and I am wondering how many of you have really worked there and what your actual experiences with the employer, students and the academic material as well as the teaching techniques there might be.

Thank you in advance for sharing your experiences on here
And
Cheers and beers to all hard working FTs in China

[Steppenwolf]

No personal experience but some anecdotal insights:
There was that IPR case a few years back in which a western publisher of TOEFL tests and materials felt they were being cheated by NO in the capital; the court found in favour of the publishing company.

On the other hand, a girl I know in Berli is seriously thinking about joining NO; she is an excellent language student and thinks she might get a good job there... after returning from a five-year stint at a Berlin university.

[Sonnet]

Sorry, everything I know about NO is entirely based upon second- or third-hand knowledge.

I could make comments, but I won't. Because, hey, it's far too cheap and easy to rant about a chain you've never actually worked for, no?

[englishgibson]

so your comments might be more on a negative side, but you won't make 'em public due to your inexperience there...that's understandable and i'd say fair

now, it's a fact that this organization's been doomed in the court of law and fined well

what i've heard is that they use chinese teachers mostly although western techniques and copies of their materials to brush up skills of those chinese students of english ... and there are not only students who go to that TOEFL exams (as i have heard)

it's just amazing that so many students of mine would tell me how great this school is, but we know little about it

peace to new oriental
and
cheers and beers to all hard working FTs in china

[clarrie]

"it's just amazing that so many students of mine would tell me how great this school is, but we know little about it "


If this is the same, one and only of a few New Orientals that offer quick fixes to language deficiencies to enable students to get high scores in IELTS, for example, I would have thought their reputation was legendary!

Are we talking about the same New Oriental here? Must be I suppose, the ones I mentioned did have to face an unfair (in the Chinese mind) court case.

[englishgibson]

i think that that's the one....prep for TOEFL exams is a part of their biz as far as i know...the court case you've mentioned above was about the copyrights abuse ...what's amazed me is that so many chinese know so much "positive" about this school, but little about the mentioned court case

peace to the advertising in china
and
cheers and beers to chinese media

[cj750]

students care bout the place cause it gives them a chnce to pass..the numbers of passing students give NO it's rep....

[Steppenwolf]

I can't see anything wrong if they use CHINESE English teachers so long as they can deliver; nationality certainly shouldn't matter!

(Now I have just defended the Devil).

The crucial question is: does NO mislead its Chinese students by promising them FTs?

On the other hand, and I have this on authoritiy, they do have a solid reputation in terms of students passing relevant admission exams!

I still do not mean to retract my first statement about their run-in with the law; if they were the culprits of the crime I mentioned earlier then they deserved a resounding defeat at court.

[Gray000]

The best student I ever had was at our Jilin language mill after spending a year at NO in bj. He was awesome.

The best Chinese english teacher I ever met had worked at NO.

[chufeng]

I've read a lot of bad things about NO on this board (test prep mill, etc.) so I was somewhat surprised to discover that one of my very best oral english students this year did a stint at NO before entering university. She is an excellent speaker and seems to understand the western philosophy of language learning - she embraces opportunities to practice speaking and reads on her own for pleasure, knowing that broad reading will improve her English. Anyway, she credits NO with helping her to make a huge jump in her English level, says the teachers were incredible, etc. I didn't talk to her in great detail about her experience there, but I can't imagine her raving about it if they just use typical Chinese test prep cram school methods, because she doesn't seem to respect those methods at all. So I've (reluctantly) concluded that they can't be all bad.

[chengdude]

One thing about New Oriental is easy to confirm: with an IPO in New York, NO's founder Yu Minhong is generally credited to have on-paper personal assets of US$280 million.

Also:

[Itsme]

I just did me a search and I does think that there is a switcheroo in the process.

A new oriental and a
new oriental foreign school.

Perhaps people are getting the two confused?

[TravellingAround]

edit

[tw]

I had the pleausre of being invited by the local branch school of NO to go in for a job interview this afternoon. The interview was set up indirectly by a student at this school who has a friend whose sister works there as a "manager". The gentleman who interviewed me was, according to his business card, the Director of Examination Training Department whose spoken English was excellent with a strong North American accent. I learned a lot about NO during the hour-long job interview. Basically, "fun" and "humour" is what NO expects from all teachers. Teachers are expected to incorporate humour into their lessons, and students are supposed to have fun instead of having serious teachers. Being able to CLOWN around is what NO wants from its teaching staff.

The Chinese teachers are probably all top-notch English majors, with many of them having done very well in IELTS and TOEFL. However, new teachers must go through training, sometimes as long as eight months long without pay, before they can actually begin teaching with pay. There are also teacher evaluations, with teachers not expected to ever teach again if they receive a score of less than 4. A score of 4.2 or 4.3 means the teacher would have to watch his/her teaching style, whereas a score of 4.7 would mean being a "great" teacher.

I was interviewed primarily for summer camp. For this, the FT would have to do a lot of monkeying around to ENTERTAIN the students while making sure that they learn something. Strangely, the local branch of NO doesn't have any full-time FT's. When asked, I was told that it's because NO doesn't feel that FT's understand how Chinese students are used to learning, and would be too painstaking to teach the FT's how to teach Chinese students. They do have some FT's coming in for oral English lessons to prepare students for TOEFL and IELTS, but there are no actual full-time FT's. This was clearly shown when the gentleman asked me about my current salary and what benefits are included. Apparently, only the head branch in Beijing actually has full-time FT's.

That is pretty well all that I can remember from the interview that I think are relevant and important. I think many FT's have been curious about NO, so I think my little experience this afternoon would shed some light on NO.

As for me, I don't think I'd work for NO. They want me to do a demo lesson on North AMerican culture to the Chinese teachers. I have 300 students exam papers to grade this week, so I have a lot better things to do than making a lesson plan full of humour, then spending another hour and half on three buses to go there to do a demo lesson only to be rejected while having my lesson being used by the Chinese teachers. If anything, my impression of NO is that it tries too hard to protect its name and a bit of a dictator-style language school as far as teaching style goes.

[Shan-Shan]