Job Discussion Forums

[olabueno]

**please,only if your currently teaching at WEB in Shanghai (or in the last 6 mos.)**

I would really appreciate talking with you for a few min. I just have a few questions about the company/ daily sched. , etc. It would mean a lot.

Skype= baichenglamb

or please email @ [email protected]

I can't receive pm's via Daves.

Thanks!

[Chris_Crossley]

[LoPresto]

Olabueno,

I do not work at Web in Shanghai, but am familiar with their system. I once worked for a competing training center in Shanghai. Either way, most adult oriented training centers are similar.

Working for a training center usually requires wearing professional clothing and possibly a tie. Jeans, shorts and t-shirts are not the norm.

You will be scheduled to teach 5, 1 hour classes a day at Web, most likely in the afternoons and evenings. A typical schedule will have you arrive at the center at 1pm with your 1st class at 2pm. Most likely you would have 2 classes in the afternoon and then 1 hour for dinner at 5pm. If you're lucky you will get a 2 hour dinner break sometimes.

Then you will have 3 classes between 6pm and 9pm. At least once a week one of those evening hours will be English Corner. You will also be scheduled to work at least 1 weekend day between 10am and 7pm. Maybe 9am - 6pm sometimes. The 1st class on Saturday & Sunday is at 10am. The 2nd is 11am. 12 - 1pm = lunch. They might have 2 English Corners on the weekends.

If you want 2 consecutive day's off, you would most likely only get them during the week if it is a larger center. If it is a smaller center, you might be fortunate enough to get Friday & Saturday or Sunday & Monday off, but definitely not both Saturday & Sunday.

The salary is pretty good, in my opinion for Shanghai and China in general. The last I heard, it was around 15k a month(after probation) or perhaps 14k after taxes. After paying rent, utilities and commuting costs you should have approximately 10k, maybe 9k, to spend on food etc...

Depending on your lifestyle, you should be able to save as well as enjoy yourself a bit. Unfortunately, my lifestyle and desire for western food is a bit extreme. When it comes to western food, Shanghai is definitely expensive in most cases. A steak will cost more than 100 rmb there. Where I am now, I can get a nice steak for 80 rmb. The same goes for apartments. I once paid 3k rmb a month for a small 1 bedroom apartment near People's Square. Here it is 2k for a 2br. Either way, call Jim at Mealbay - www.mealbay.com for some nice western food delivered to your door.

The best part about working for Web or most training centers is that the lessons have already been "planned". Basically, you will be scheduled to arrive 1 hour before the 1st class. During that hour you will get your class schedule for the day and then retrieve the "plans" for your different classes from the files and proceed to make copies of the handouts for the students. This may only take 30 minutes and you could arrive 30 minutes late if your boss isn't a stickler for the rules and they don't want you to clock-in, which seemed to be the trend a few years ago. I assume all centers now have timeclocks. The same goes with the tie requirement, if you're a guy.

You might want to arrive earlier than 1pm your 1st month or so, so that you can devise your own way of presenting the material for each lesson. Keep notes of your personal lesson plan and then just re-use it everytime the same lesson is assigned to you. You will probably need some of your own stuff to fill in about 15 minutes. I tended to use a list of questions that the students asked each other.

The worst parts about working for Web or any other center are the hours and holidays. You will most likely work most nights and 1 weekend day. You will receive about 5 days off for National Day, Labor Day and Spring Festival and a few other 1 day holidays. I think Web also gives you 1 week off of your choosing. This is why I prefer facilitating English conversations at a university - no nights or weekends, 5 weeks or so for Spring Festival and 2 months during the summer.

Either way, Web isn't a bad place to work for 1 year and if you are smart, you will make an extra copy of each lesson for your personal files which can be used later on when you decide that the grind isn't for you and would prefer to teach at a university.

Good Luck!

[Chris_Crossley]

[mnguy29]

I have worked for them my first job. Far too many hours, no time off, nights, weekends, can be stressful because the students pay big money for fabulous teachers and classes. Pay is good but............? I will never do it again.

[olabueno]

Wow! Thanks LoPresto (and others) for all the info. It's as I figured, too many hours, no holidays, etc. The money is appealing however. I think I'll stick with Uni. and seek private centers/private lessons part-time.

As far as the pm is concerned...idk...? I'll try again.

Zai Jian

[struelle]

That was a very good description of daily Web life and it matches my experiences with them back in 2004 almost to a T. Mind you, at that point I was working part-time for them to tide over a transition time in my life, and we had agreed on such an arrangement. Long story.

The best part is indeed the pre-planned lessons and small class sizes, and in fact they are very good. With a bit of creativity, you can fill stuff in and adjust to various student needs, but the basic plan is already there. I really liked the beginner lessons because those were always the most difficult for me to plan by myself, whereas they had already done it.

Their system of lessons is actually very well organized and has a thorough mechanism inolved so that students can't cheat their way through or exploit loopholes. Of course no system is airtight, and students can find ways to buck it, but overall I was extremely impressed with how well designed their system was.

Another plus is that the branches in Shanghai are all located along the Metro network, so it really makes commuting a breeze. You'd be better off to live near a Metro station, even if paying a bit more rent, and then just take the subway to work. Forget the hassle with cabs, buses, etc.

The most common shifts are 1pm to 9pm, or 9am to 5pm on weekends. In a way this is good as you avoid most of the rush hour, as we all know can be horrendous in Shanghai. The drawback of this is dealing with the constant late issues of students for their evening classes because they got stuck in the goddamn traffic.

As for holidays, pretty much bang on the money. It's always the case when it comes to language schools. The short holiday breaks are a pain, but at least they're up front on what you can expect.

[Fred Smith]

Web should be avoided. They are in the habit of scheduling back-to-back classes with no breaks for the teachers and the students complain if you start class 5 minutes late because you had to go pee or need some water.

Web burns through a ton of teachers every year and there's a good reason - they treat them poorly and try to cheat them out of holidays, vacation, and airfare.

Avoid Web if you are smart.

If not please work there and we look forward to reading your horror stories of abuse and getting cheated.

[chryanvii]

Web is not that bad. It's true that it's not perfect. They could throw in some more holidays. But I think it's a good place to start if it's your first time teaching ever. It's a good way to get experience for teaching at a University. Since it's a business setting, it also rolls over quite well into any other kind of business environment. Leadership skills, communication skills, curriculum development (social clubs), etc. etc.

The hard part is pleasing the students, because they pay a lot of money for these classes. Many of the plans are what students consider "boring", and you must fill them in with either stories about yourself, or other information from the internet.

English Corners are tough too, because you have to develop the lesson plans yourself. And we have 3 a week to do each. You MUST prepare for these. Otherwise, the students will dislike you and complain about you. It is also hard to please everyone in these "social clubs" because the students are at all different levels, and all have varying interests. Some are threshold - others are business level, and about to finish at WEB.

But the best part about the place is the students themselves. Even though you seem to have certain students who you can't keep happy, you have others who are really cool as well. They will be good friends, and there are also a lot of really young, hot girls here. As far as I know, they are free game since it is a training center and not an official school.a

I still think that 2+ months is way too much time to have off, at least for your first year. I would personally run out of money too quickly going on all these trips.