Job Discussion Forums

[TRH]

I will be moving to HCMC in 4 days and the home where I will be living is very close to one of the Duong Minh schools. I searched and found just a few posts that mention this chain and they date back a few years. The comments were largely negative but did not clearly state that the posters had first hand experience at the school. Can anyone flush this out? I don't have to work there but it would certainly be convenient.

Also AVSE-Australia-Vietnam School of English is farther away but not out of the question based on distance. Any evaluation of either school would be appreciated. PM is OK.

[Kawika]

Duong Minh has centers everywhere. I haven't met anybody who teaches there, but when I taught a business English lesson around the topic of 'quality' one of the discussion questions was about the best and worst English schools, and many selected duong Minh as the worst. However, they didn't have specific reasons to back it up, but just on general reputation.

My girlfriend's cousin studies there, and she said it was ok, but she had only studied English in public schools before, where the quality & curriculum is not good. she said she gets a local teacher 2 times a week, and a foreign teacher once a week. They use photocopied books, I think she was elementary level new headway book.

If you teach there, I suspect you will be the 'white face' of the center, and parade around to all the different classes. Might be an easy gig, suitable for backpackers- just my assumption, but others may have more reliable first hand experience.

There are plenty of jobs in hcmc so don't limit yourself, even if you land a job right away. Good luck

[Handyman]

I worked there years ago so my input might not be current.

Pluses:

If you're mobile, they can offer you all the evening and weekend classes you can handle (not Sunday evenings though).

Paid, in cash, after your last class of the week.

There was NEVER a game played with your pay. Due to the nature of teaching at various places they would occasionally miss a class that you had worked, but they always sorted this out immediately and your correct pay was given to you either right away or the next day.

Most of the kids were eager to learn but your time with them was short. They would only see a white face once a week.

Taking days off was never a problem.

Minuses:

Low pay. They cut costs at every corner. They are a low cost language mill but they do provide a level of instruction that most of their students could just not afford elsewhere. It�s a �better than nothing� scenario.

When I stopped working there they were hiring mostly Philippine teachers to provide their foreign content. One of them approached me and started talking and my first question was �What class are you in?�. She was a little upset and huffed �I�m a teacher here.� (at least I think that�s what she said, it was hard to tell) and stormed away.

Strict dress code.

That�s the highlights, even though I would never go back there it was a good place to get your feet wet and might pay your rent until you can get in somewhere else.

Oh, and one other experience I had was meeting the owner. He started to tell me how important it was to provide his students with valuable language skills while he was busy stuffing stacks of money down his shirt. I think that about sums them up.