Job Discussion Forums

[ContemporaryDog]

Can anyone advise me about working for either of these.

English First doesn't seem a very good deal for the amount of hours worked. Although they have the advantage of being able to choose one of the nicer towns like Xiamen, Nanjing or Kunming.

I've never been to China before, passed my CELTA course recently. Don't want to end up in some industrial hellhole, want to be somewhere nice and scenic!

[AKA]

I hope someone helps you before Bertrand gives you rabies.
EF don't have a good reputation overall, but some locations/franchises are not as bad managerially as others. AES probably gets better reviews. Look at the Job Information Journal at the top of the page-you'll often find place specific postings there, and hundreds of archived entries, good and bad. China's got hundreds of scenic little cities-look at Suzhou for example. But industry is hard to escape in a place growing this fast. Are you degreed, or just have a CELTA?
Good Luck.

[ContemporaryDog]

[quote="AKA"]I hope someone helps you before Bertrand gives you rabies.
EF don't have a good reputation overall, but some locations/franchises are not as bad managerially as others. AES probably gets better reviews. Look at the Job Information Journal at the top of the page-you'll often find place specific postings there, and hundreds of archived entries, good and bad. China's got hundreds of scenic little cities-look at Suzhou for example. But industry is hard to escape in a place growing this fast. Are you degreed, or just have a CELTA?
Good Luck.[/quote]

I've got a degree in French and Poltics, and CELTA from International House....

What's AES?

[MyTurnNow]

I advise you to stay away from ALL the chain schools...EF, Saxoncourt, AES, Modern English, New Oriental, etc. etc. etc. I've personally had bad experiences with some of them and have heard way too many horror stories about all the rest.

Please believe me when I assure you that you and your CELTA will be able to find much, MUCH better than any of these, even (or especially) in the best cities. You can find higher wages, shorter hours, fairer treatment, better conditions, and more rewarding classes (assuming you aren't coming here to teach spoiled sugar-crazed 10-year olds for hour after hour) in a lot of other places. I strongly encourage you to expand your job search (definitely include the classifieds at http://www.thatsmagazines.com ) and to be patient.

You can afford to wait for the right job in the right place. You'll be glad you did...and oh, so sorry if you don't.

Why, you mentioned Suzhou! Wonderful place...can't say enough nice things. But EF just opened their doors here...and I'm already hearing from angry, freaked-out teachers there. Smoke signal say "Tonto no go to town."

Good luck,
MT

[ContemporaryDog]

Thanks, MT. I had wondered about these agencies. I suppose its like doing any agency work, they are always a hasele. I was definitely unsure about English first with their 36 hours a week, far too much!

[Roger]

AES stands for 'American Education Services', and from many accounts the conclusion is that they are more teacher-friendly than the rest.
If a school stays open long enough it inevitably attracts some criticism, fair or otherwise. A disgruntled newbie will give his subjective account and expect you to assume this is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. AES have been around for many years, and only a year ago did they start becoming the butt of abuse. Read up on them on the Job Information forum, and you can easily gauge how narrow-minded some ex-employees can be!
Having said this, I am not saying you should consider working for any such private training centre; they are all the legally-allowed commercial window that makes money in education whereas public schools are not supposed to be profitable. So, if you really are interested in teaching you go to a college, university or kindergarten (I do not recommend primary schools!); but if you are here for the experience and for a westernised lifestyle, go to a training centre (and experience some of the many uncounted ups and downs). Pay levels vary accordingly.
AES pays well, is western-managed but works inside China. EF is a set of franchise takers, all Chinese. I do not know the rest of these McDonalds' of the English-teaching world!

[MyTurnNow]

Boy, "the rest" must be incredibly teacher-hostile, then.

I'm extremely disgruntled (for very fair reasons) but no newbie and last time I looked not particularly narrow-minded. When you look at the records for all these schools you should be aware that some of them are prettty vigorous abouttt using legal threatts to have informatttion hosttile to their corporate interests suppressed...all you see are happy campers and loony flamers. Not necessarily the full picture!

Most of the chain English mills pay 4000-6000 per month depending on load and location. This is OK pay but not great. Someone with a CELTA and a good background, who presents themselves well, can earn a lot more if they are patient and selective. And Western management is usually better than Chinese management, with emphasis on the word usually.

I'm not trying to single out any one company here. You've expressed an interest in EF, and they certainly have no shortage of enemies. I can't recommend them...and again, I can't recommend any of what you referred to as "agencies"...they aren't really brokers or headhunters but rather are chain schools that inflict a formula that proved profitable in one place upon more places. Kinda like, as Roger said, McDonalds. The brokers/headhunters are yet another set of headaches...

Roger, remind me...have you had any formal association with any of these chains under discussion? I have...

MT

[ContemporaryDog]

Saxoncourt pay 7000 for an 80-hour month, which sounds considerably better than English First, though. Mind you its so hard to know if they will live up to their promise.

[MyTurnNow]

Wow, 7000 isn't too bad, especially for first job.

I don't know much about Saxoncourt. They are worldwide. I think they are part of Shane English Schools, and despite some good reviews of the local Suzhou school I've heard tons of complaint about Shane schools in China and elsewhere.

MT

[ContemporaryDog]

That's what I was thinking, MyTurn. 7000 is by far the best I've seen anywhere.

[muushi]

I am looking into the Shane English school in Beijing and wanted to know if anyone had heard anything dodgy about them?

They seem alright and do offer a good salary of 7000 which is the highest I've seen since searching. I also do not have a uni degree.

[NumberOneSon]

So here I go with a long rant (or is it an anti-rant?). First,
let me assure everyone that I am NOT on the AES payroll,
I am a former teacher who worked there through much of
last year.

I thought they were fine. They just don't have schools where
I want to go.

AES is not perfect, but better than I expected. And I did meet
some disgruntled teachers, but many of them were people that
I felt damned lucky to have little to do with myself.

It's a two-way street. There are just as many jerk teachers
as there are jerk schools. After seeing both, I have to
admit that I don't know exactly what to conclude when I
hear some of the disgruntled teacher stories.

I just can't condemn all of AES because of the teachers
who don't like it, run away, nitpick contracts to death, or
whatever. Some just seem to come in with chips on their
shoulders that just keep growing. So, how do we know
that it isn't one those guys complaining?

One of the most difficult problems evaluating schools is
evaluating the character of the people who evaluate the
schools.

I can't think of any way to weed that our in a survey,
or even an anecdote unless I know the person fairly well.
And even then I'd have to hear both sides.

I really wish I knew how to do this anonymously because
I think it would be an invaluable service to teachers.

An older, boring guy such as myself has very few grand
expectations from a school, so I'm not easily disappointed
as long as the basics are covered and we can discuss our
differences. Usually, I expect to win some and lose some.

I found AES to be fairly accomodating when approached
properly. And I've had them do a few stupid things, but
I didn't blow it out of proportion or conspire with a lot of
other teachers to try to "teach them a lesson" over every
little thing, as some try to do.

I've seen some people drag an issue like a higher than
average phone bill out into a major battle they pursued
for months. Damn, it's 12 bucks out of the 750 they
just paid you. Drop it and get a life.

But, oddly, I've had the school OFFER to pay part of an
unusually high phone bill of mine because they forgot
to tell me something that would have made my internet bill
cheaper. And, even though I had asked about that before,
I just decided to eat the high charges and change it later.

Some people would say I got screwed, but what the hell,
it was my choice.

I know some teachers who would have grabbed out their
contract and tried to force the school to pay the whole
thing, but I saw it as honest mistake on both our parts
and wrote it off to experience.

Others expect some kind of teaching nirvana or expect to
go into a place and have everything done their way when
they say. Some are extremely obnoxious and rude and
don't even seem to be aware of it. Some are just spoiled
little punks. Some are know-it-alls. Some are drunks.
Some are total goof-offs. Some are extremely thin-skinned
and can't take criticism of any kind. Some are perverts. And
some even miss their mommies.

I've seen all of this, and more, in teachers.

And, others do get screwed over, even by AES schools that
DIDN'T screw me over. Yep, it does happen, but I don't
think ANY place is free of such problems. Some of it is
just luck of the draw.

Some get extremely bad housing, have fights with
managers (some of whom are drunks, perverts, and
jerks), have electriccal problems that nearly burn
down their apartments, floods that cause their
ceilings to collapse, and maintenance men who fix
things with hammers.

The only real solution to finding a good school is to start
one of your own.

If you work at McDonalds, you don't get to make the
hamburgers the way you like them, but you just might
learn something about making hamburgers that people
will buy.

[Roger]

Thanks for this one, NumberOneSon - excellent, 100% my opinion!

I only want to add that I always get worked up when some TEFL jerk out there posts exhortations to us about how we should get paid 20 K for the hard labour we are performing here, what's more we should tip the economic scales to the side where it belongs since it's a demand-driven situation in which we dominate...
So, if it's demand-driven, go to Shanghai all of you, set up your "school" with the help of your girlfriend and rake in the dough, brag about your feat to your peers at STARBUCK'S and move on to other countries so that there is a chance for newcomers!

[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

I worked for a Shane's school in Hangzhou in 2002 for four monthes. It was owned by a woman who spoke moderate English. I was paid 7200 RMB for 20 hours worth of work. No housing allowance.

I taught all levels from little kids to adults. The books with some exceptions were horrible, especially for the evening teenager class (I had a Saturday night teenager class). I had problems with the so called "telephone teachers", who would call the students once a week. I had an issue personally with one because she was trying to tell me how to teach this book. I told her that I was teaching this book my way because it is my class. So she went over my head to the DOS. The next time she showed up for my class, I threw her out.

There was a lot of bull sh i t work involved too. The boss would give the kids a week off, and then make the teachers do English corner with all the adult students. Then they would shorten our hours. Saturday was an all day painful event with classes from the morning until 9 PM. Night work.

EF sucks too, mainly because of the pay, the hours and the dress code. A CELTA is not required for most jobs, and the jobs that do require it are a lot more attractive than Saxonhell and English Fart. You are not going to make any money here in China anyway, so it should be enjoyed. Or go to the Middle east to make some real money or go to sunny Thailand for a good time.

My suggestion is to get a University position, you work Monday to Friday, work daytime hours and have good students. Have a place on the campus and if you like the job and the city, network around for more work.

Thank you for reading!

Senor