Job Discussion Forums

[michalola]

I've offered a job from very different companies. I can't decide!

Aston:
Pros:
- Supposedly reliable and keeps their end of the deal (contract-wise)
- In a really cool city -- Yinchuan, China
- Free accommodation
- Only 6 months, 25 hours
- Legal

Cons:
- Low pay --> 6,200 RMB Gross plus have to pay for utilities in apartment. Comes down to very, very little per month and I need to save.
- Franchise school
- Being an Asian teacher of English is challenging in China and worried about racism from parents of students


English First
Pros
- HIGH PAY -- 10, 500 RMB
- near Shanghai
- UNIVERSITY JOB (big deal for me)
- Like the teaching style
- reimbursed airfare and high bonus


Cons
- No accommodation provided
- Wants me to go on a tourist visa which they said they will change to work permit once I'm there (fishy...but they seem to be a big company)
- 10 months (though really, not that bad)

I guess the reason I'm also having so much trouble deciding is that though I've googled them, I still don't know much about peoples experiences with the companies. I would actually jump on the EF job but the whole tourist visa thing is weird and they sent me a sample contract and not a real contract yet. Plus, they are also rushing me to book a ticket even if they havent sent me the contract yet.The only draw of the other job is the location but the pay is just waaaaay too low.

Any advice? I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place.

[North China Laowei]

Each of these two companies has its detractors and friends on this site.

English First generates a tremendous amount of negative comments on this Board and you may wish to do a search to learn more.

I am not sure about Aston, however; my own limited dealings with them have led to believe that they are more respectable (for what that's worth than EF) and they have always treated me very professionally during contract negotiations (which I did not accept in the end).

My dealings with English First have me convinced for time immemorial that I will never, ever have any thing kind to say about them, particularly the Guangzhou Branch. They offered me a job, arranged a schedule for me, I resigned under really good circumstances from a previous job, obtained a letter of release, etc., etc., and then TWO DAYS before I was supposed to start, with my house packed and a lease signed, they changed their mind ... because Shanghai had not approved the paperwork ... and then they offered me part-time. Run from them as quickly as you would flee a tsunami. No good will come of them, IMHO, at least according to my own painful experience.

[Mister Al]

The words rock and hard place are coming to mind

[Moon Over Parma]

Working in the buxiban system is like playing Russian roulette. You may end up shooting yourself in the head based on your innocent hopes and their nefarious job posting lies going counter to this (for example, using the name of the nearest city to claim you will work at a particular branch there only to be stationed way out in the middle of nowhere on the fringes of that city, not once being in that city and having to seriously hoof it into town for anything to maintain your sanity. Small town China is not fun. It can be incredibly isolated, lonely, backwards and sometimes dangerous - all things you won't be told by the school that wants to hire you: even reputable universities).

They may offer you a base salary, but buxiban business is predicated upon how many regular students they have. If they suck at recruitment they may cut your hours and consolidate classes to make up for this. As a result, your salary could be dropped since many buxiban pay by the hour. Universities more often than not pay a base salary with overtime. So, should they make a mistake and only have 14 hours of classes for you on a 16 hour contract - you'd make the same as if they filled 16 classroom hours for you. You wouldn't lose money. Some buxiban have it in their paperwork that you will lose pay if you lose hours.

So, unless you simply don't possess a degree and are unable to meet university qualifications, I would recommend you work for universities. PUBLIC universities. Private universities and Vo-Techs are little more than glorified buxiban working on university contract plans. Unlike buxiban, you'll find fewer students there who actually want to learn their subjects. Forget about English! So, public universities are highly recommended and the nation has its fair share of them looking for eager foreign teachers who are native speakers of English. Odds are good, too, that you could supplement your income doing actual buxiban work without being tied to one once you're working at a university. You can then experience the world of horror and headache buxiban often present without having ot be an indentured servant to them.

Everyone I've met who work/worked for EF mentioned that they have organization in their favor. Curriculum is laid out for you and your actual prep is far less than what a serious teacher would be required to do. Most pay on time. Many require you to be a part of the recruitment. This is often a joyless exercise. I've yet to meet a FT who claimed they enjoyed handing out flyers, shaking hands and putting on demo classes. The biggest single complaint about it was that they felt pressure to lure students in when they'd' rather feel pressure to retain students (which is far easier to do if you even take your job mildly seriously).

Buxiban culture in general; passing on a friend's experience:
China is as gossip-driven as any nation, and in the buxiban environment, should one malcontent take a serious dislike towards you they can spin some pretty big yarns and turn fellow students against you. Some could demand that you be replaced. They use solidarity to control their education much like the red guard would seek to root out "subversives." While rare, I am friends with one former buxiban veteran who had a class of adults that made his life a living hell, all because of a retired public school biddie who simply didn't understand his teaching style.

According to the FT, her English was shit, even though she claimed to have taught it in one of the city's primary schools. She'd come in with a litany of arcane grammar questions and often insisted (rather than suggested) that what she had "been told" by a mysterious "foreign teacher" she never named and none of his FTs ever heard of - that whatever she insisted that week was always right. After weeks of hearing her out he found that she'd show up to class early and there would be heated discussions in Chinese as he entered his classroom at the start of their allotted time. When the biddie would get into her annual grammar and vocabulary challenges she had some conspirators actually arguing her favor against the foreign teacher.

In the end, the teacher was called into the manager's office, lectured sternly that some students were unhappy with the quality of his classes (he made it abundantly clear that it was a single class that he had a problem with. It was his only adult class. His children's classes never received any complaints and he had the largest percentage of student retention in the buxiban according to the owner - who was not the manager - so he was told), and that he should be careful about how he interacted with some of the students.

To make a long story I was told short: after pleading with the manager to find a different FT to conduct the class only for the manager to not even bother to ask the other FTS, he jumped ship to the chain down the street that works with children exclusively. When parents got wind that the teacher had moved down the street his former buxiban lost fifty percent of his students. Months after his departure the owner of the buxiban he left went to his apartment with a Chinese teacher to translate and begged him to come back to the buxiban. He offered him a higher salary and insisted that he'd never have to teach adults again. He told him he wouldn't have to deal with the manager and could talk to the owner about all matters. At the end of the night he turned down the offer.

Why?

Because he wanted to honor the contract he had signed .

I've heard horror stories about teachers being given grief by his buxiban because a couple of parents spotted him at a Dicos near the school and said he "looked too angry." It sounds illogical, but that was the complaint. Parents were "concerned" because they saw him on his downtime, eating at a Dicos and they were concerned that he "looked angry." I heard complaints about parents who did not speak a lick of English demanding that the schools tailor their curriculum to their child because he complained about being, "bored," ignoring the fourteen happy children whose parents didn't complain.

Buxiban offer a world of headaches that you won't find in public schools and public universities. Now, there are complaints exclusive to the university and public school system you won't hear from the mouths of buxiban workers, but there's one universal difference:

You work more at buxiban, get less vacation time, end up making less per hour for what you work and the rate of complaints about buxiban seem exponentially higher than university work.

I would never, ever trust a buxiban to set up university work. You can make more and work less if you deal with universities directly. You may also find better housing and transport conditions, too.

If you want to save money, then China is not for you unless you can clear a lot of money upfront. Perhaps South Korea or Taiwan or Japan are better suited for you. While saving money in China is very possible, it takes time. It also depends on location.

If you have an accredited, four year university degree then I'd recommend going through a public university and then picking up side work to supplement the income. You will probably make more per hour from a side job at a buxiban than the regular wage slaves contractually obligated to be the FTs at a buxiban. You'll also have the freedom to walk away from classes at any time since you have a "day job."

If you get a job working 14 hours or less for 6000RMB a month at a university (housing included) you will make a survivable base salary for many second and third tier cities. Supplement your hours with side work and you could still make over 10K and have your cake and eat it to.

[englishgibson]

i so agree on that buxiban above ... and there was one on our forums promoting the site as well as some schools/centers .. when some complaints about fts' jobs came posted here, this buxiban person tried so hard to convince readers the complaints were just an "opinion" or the posters' fault