Job Discussion Forums

dharmasister · Joined: 28 Aug 2010 Posts: 1

Has anyone here had experience with Aston English Schools? What are to pros and cons working for Aston? Is any particular city they are in better than another?

Daphne · Joined: 02 Jul 2004 Posts: 119

There have been many, many threads on this site in recent years on Aston.

Going through them patiently should give you a pretty good idea of the consensus about them among present and former employees, which is a negative one.

It was originally started by a husband and wife team (the Wisners), but nowadays they apparently oversee a minority of the schools that bear the name and most are franchises run and controlled by its individual owner.

They started out in Dalian, and over the years the only area which seemed to have consistently satisfied employees was their home base.

A few weeks ago I had a chance to return to the Shandong city where I had worked for them a few years back, and saw that the building where the branch was located has been turned into a KTV/brothel Rolling Eyes

The Wisners were unwise enough to hand the managerial duties of not only that branch, but another one in an adjoining city; to a bloke with quite a serious issue with alcohol. Anyhow, as you can imagine both branches went belly up in a matter of months.....and I also found out during my recent visit that the "manager" in question has now fortunately put aside all pretense of being an educator and is devoting himself to to his real love , by tending bar in a city in the South of China.

Hopefully you'll have more luck with this outfit if you sign up with them.

mk177 · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 9:58 am Post subject:

I worked in Yinchuan Aston for six months last year and had an amazing experience. Really worthwhile. But it depends on the management, we had a geezer from Wigan, called Phil, who was sound, always helped us and things ran smoothly. You will work alot of hours for not great pay, but for Yinchuan it was more than enough, and all lesson plans are provided etc.

Now I am inm Chengdu, so it depends where you want to go. If you came to this city, I definetly wouldnt recommend Aston, as there are many better jobs out there.