Job Discussion Forums

ThoomaasssB · Joined: 02 Jun 2009 Posts: 3

Hi,

Has anyone on here ever heard of, or even better worked for the Bond institute in Zhongshan? I'm considering a job offer from them and would like a bit of impartial advice.

PandaLover · Joined: 08 Jun 2009 Posts: 3 Location: Shanghai

I worked for Bond in Zhongshan when I first came to China in 2004. That was obviously quite a while back, so things have probably changed. I arranged the job from Italy and it was my first visit to China and I was traveling on my own, so it was a bit daunting. I flew into Hong Kong and got the ferry over to the mainland and someone from the school met me as arranged....that was a relief!

From then on they just took me under their wing and sorted everything out and it was all pretty smooth. Shared a great apartment with another teacher whom I got on really well with and for the first few months all was fine.

The only reason I broke contract early was because I wanted to move to another city and because I realized I really didn't enjoy teaching children! It was my first teaching job and I didn't realize how hard it would be. The way it worked with me and Bond back then was that during the weekdays I was placed in a middle school with 15 classes a week of 75 students in each class who really had no great desire to learn English...not much fun!...and then on Saturdays I would have to go to another town to teach all day in Bond's private school to teach primary school children. It was OK and it was good experience, but for me, I just don't enjoy teaching children.

Looking back, I'm still glad I chose to come over to China with Bond because they really made the whole thing stress free and everyone connected with the company was really good to me.

That was 2004 though. What's it's like now, I don't know. If it's still the same setup and you enjoy teaching children and large classes of teens then I would certainly recommend them. As I recall, aside from middle schools, some teachers were also placed on university campuses and also in kindergartens, so they pretty much cater to everything in that area.

Good luck with your decision and I hope you have a really good experience with whoever you end up working for.