Job Discussion Forums

[phunkhead]

Anyone know anything about this school. i have a potential job there.

[thelmaharper.1921]

Shane English (Kunming) is a good school

The academic director there, Gary, is a good guy. (An Englishman.) The curriculum was OK. My only complaint was having to spend 2 hours per class with the same students.

They are not afraid to hire black people (that are from native speaking countries.)

The way that I went wrong with them was falling afoul of the boss' girlfriend (as in, the Chinese owner, and not the academic director). It turns out that she was promoted to office manager (because the school didn't have any job for her after off site classes were banned by the local government). It seemed that she decided to turn her area of expertise (finding ways to enjoy/ overlook the taste of the school owner/boss' smegma) into trying to take over English classes (even though she was not a teacher). I stayed there less than 6 months and ended up leaving.

You will also have to get your own apartment, and the apartments in that city are paid for for 6 months at a time plus agency fee and one month's deposit. That works out to be something like 1.5-2 months' salary after it is all said and done. You must borrow this from the school, and it's a significant outlay. If you leave before you finish the contract or finish paying them back, they'll hold the balance out of your paycheck. (Fair enough.)

We did have one Englishman who worked there who complained about everything imaginable. It was like he was the love child of a cattle prod and a funeral home director. He wasn't in the least way malicious. Just really, really, really whiny.

The classes are taught for something like 1 hour, break 1 hour. Too much time to spend with the same students. A good chunk of your classes will be very young learners. (A waste of time.)

The school was also overmanaged. One owner. One academic director. One assistant academic director. One head teacher. And then the boss' tackle-vacuum (her English name was Spring). They are up to 20 teachers over 2 schools, but at that time there was only one school. It may be that now it is a good idea to have 5 layers of management for 20 teachers. But it didn't seem necessary when there were about 8 teachers or so.

[phunkhead]

so you think I should take the job there?

[phunkhead]

thanks for the info BTW

[phunkhead]

anyone else?

[southwest]

where is your job offer
im headed to ningbo with them!

[phunkhead]

Kunming. I guess they have a couple of branches there. I would be at the smaller one.

Last night I had my 2nd interview and I believe it went well. Who knows though

[phunkhead]

got the job. bump for any info/advice

[posh]

Go for it. Kunming is a great city and the one I'd choose if I ever went back to China. Yunnan is a beautiful province and being in Kunming you are in easy reach of Dali, Lijiang, Xishuanbanna, Guizhou, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand.

I'm sure most jobs are very similiar wherever you are. People will always say "Oooh, don't go there, so and so is a moron/bitch/alcoholic, etc" but every school will have its oddballs.

[mitchm]

Sorry to thread-crash: I've applied to about 20 university jobs in the last week or so and am still waiting to hear; at what point should I start indiscriminately applying to language mills and anywhere else that will take me, etc?

There is a school that I have a good feeling about which isn't going to start hiring until late May; needless to say, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket.

I have a Bachelor's and Master's in English; But I am only 24 years old w/ no TEFL cert.

[lukebrinkworth]

Hi,

Have you started working at this school yet? I'd like to hear anything you may have to say about it, as Kunming is a city that interests me.

Cheers.