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ABC KID
Joined: 14 Sep 2007
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 Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:55 am Post subject: Wonderland - Hell For Teachers, Paradise For Children?? |
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We read the stories every other week it seems of teacher's having miserable experiences of Wonderland, or newbies planning to take a leap of faith and start working at one, often despite the warnings of numerous other posters. However, I don't remember ever having seen a Wonderland thread from a students prospective...
So what do you reckon? Do students have it good at Wonderland? If you were a parent would you ever consider sending your child to Wonderland? A lot seems to happen outside the classrooms of Wonderland but does anything good happen inside the classrooms of Wonderland? Does that telephone teaching do the kids any good? Do the kids go home happy? Does Minsu learn lots of English? |
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nomad-ish
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Location: On the bottom of the food chain
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:03 am Post subject: |
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minsu gets to torture his foreign teacher, so of course he goes home happy 
but seriously, how you 'perform' or teach has a lot to do with how content u are at your job, and with all the disgruntled employees at wonderland, i'm sure some students can sense that not everything is rosy there. that being said, kids can be dense, so maybe not many would notice.... |
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The Hammer
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Location: Ullungdo 37.5 N, 130.9 E, altitude : 223 m
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 5:04 am Post subject: |
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We studied at Wonderland in Dallas, Texas. It was great! |
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garykasparov
Joined: 27 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 6:19 am Post subject: |
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Behave in class Minsu |
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Matilda
Joined: 17 Jun 2006
Location: Gimhae gal
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| Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2007 11:47 pm Post subject: |
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I too have wondered about the student's perspective... especially since 3 out of 5 of our recent 'English champions' at our elementary school attend this very hagwon chain! Also, my co-worker's children attend Wonderland (she is a switched on lady).
When I asked some basic probing questions about the hagwon, the kids seemed to enjoy it. I casually mentioned that I had heard about a high turnover of waegook staff, and it was explained to me that 'the lady who left recently had spread bad rumours about Wonderland around Gimhae'.
Seems that the high turnover is blamed on the staff. The kids were happy enough! |
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chronicpride
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:48 am Post subject: |
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Wonderland has a good rep among mothers and students compared to most schools that cater to that age group. The brand is solid enough that Wonderland actually has one of the most expensive franchise licenses. As much as 90-100 million won.
| ABC Kid wrote: |
We read the stories every other week it seems of teacher's having miserable experiences of Wonderland, or newbies planning to take a leap of faith and start working at one, often despite the warnings of numerous other posters. |
Actually, thats not true. Truth be told, we really don't ever hear a great deal of bad experiences from teachers at Wonderlands. And most of the warnings from teachers advising to not work at one, are coming from people who have never worked at one, per se, but are just carrying over the advice that they read elsewhere from another poster who said it was bad, but also never worked for one, etc...
Wonderland is actually no better or worse than any other hogwan, but there are some reasons as to how the rep has developed to be a punchline.
Firstly, I should mention that I've never worked at Wonderland. My experiences with them are limited to when I worked as a recruiter years ago and dealt with many different hogwans, which included the occassional Wonderland.
Wonderland has over 100 independently owned schools throughout Korea, making them the largest chain of private language academies (not sure if GnB has overtaken them yet). So, naturally, you're bound to hear some bad reports now and then, due to the sheer volume of teachers who have worked there over the years.
But the negative stigma didn't really begin to get attached to them until two girls had a really bad experience with a director who ran a Wonderland. They went ahead and wrote a book about their experiences called Prisoners of Wonderland. They also put up a site, as well. The site is no longer active, but it actually offered fairly balanced feedback from other teachers who submitted reports about their Wonderland experiences. Some were dicey experiences, some sounded alright, and some sounded like the issue might have actually been a flakey teacher doing some exaggerated bad mouthing. In short, no different than anything we read about on Daves about any particular school.
But despite the actual teachers who worked there giving balanced feedback, the stigma associated to the book trickled into the forums and teachers who never worked there began to perpetuate the stereotype. And the lines between real testimony and stereotype became blurred and people just started subscribing to the domino effect of 'well, I read someone else say it sucks, so it must suck'.
And that's where we are today. All that one really needs to know about Wonderland is that a school is only as reputable as the director who runs it. The franchise name has very little to do with whether an individual school is a good place to work at or not. Therefore, don't pay much attention to the name on the sign, but instead, ask current and past teachers about what the school and director is really like. |
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