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[Mr. English]

Alcanta Vocational College - not recommended

I taught at this school, located on the east side of Baiyun Shan at the north end of Guangzhou, recently. About 25% of the students are from hell. Cellular phone use is rampant in the classes and the administration refuses to take a position on it, so teachers are left to deal with it. Students act as if they have a god-given right to use them any time they want, and I actually had physical struggles with students when I tried to take them, had students curse at me (three times in the six weeks I was there), and eventually gave up on it. Cursing of teachers is also common: one morning one teacher came into the office and said that she had been cursed at that morning; turned out five of eight foreign teachers had been cursed at that week. Class sizes run about 40 on average, though students do not always show up for class so you might have fewer on any given day, and class control is a job and a half.

The contract promises bonuses that are commonly not given. The single biggest issue is that if a student complains about a teacher during a month, the teacher does not get a bonus that month. Complaints are not uncommon, and other than one teacher who has been there a long time, and another who has been there for perhaps two years, turnover is high.

I took a part-time position to finish out a semester at a low rate, 100 yuan per teaching hour, because I was promised a full-time position the next semester. I was aware that 100 yuan was low as I had been shown a blank contract for full-time teachers and knew of the various perks (not that they are always awarded), but took the position due to the promise. I later discovered that part-time teachers were usually paid 160 per teaching hour; unclear why they low-balled me. At the end of the semester I was told that they were "combining some classes" and that they no longer needed another full-time teacher. My teaching had gone as well as could be expected under the circumstances of the classes, and I do not believe that their failure to offer me a full-tiime position had anything to do with quality (and by then I wouldn't have accepted the offer anyway).

The same outfit also runs a more traditional college on the west side of Baiyun Shan and I suspect, though cannot say with certainty, that conditions at that school might be less than ideal as well.