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Posts: 40

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Q: What's the best English training center - EF, Wall Street, Disney...?

12 years 24 weeks ago in  Teaching & Learning - China

 
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Posts: 37

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Disney works you hard but pays you good
EF depends on management
Wall street - well we all know where the protests are right now

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12 years 24 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1932

Emperor

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Any of the big box franchise training centres will likely be awful. Lazy people with no ideas and no passion for their own businesses trying to cash in. I'd stay away from the franchises, as they'll be the quickest to break your contract, and likely have the least business sense.

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12 years 24 weeks ago
 
Posts: 3292

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None of them are really attractive as full time jobs. The chain schools think only of making money.

You will probably do 20-25 one hour classes per week, 5-6 days a week, spread over a 12 hour day, including weekends. Most of the classes tend to be nights and weekends, due to students work and school commitments. That seriously cuts into any socialising plans you had when you came here.

In addition, most will expect you to make up the 40 hours per week with administration time, which is basically sit in the office and give the students free lessons between lessons. Others will enforce a 2 non-teaching hours equals 1 teaching hour policy, which means if they schedule you for only 20 classes per week, when your contract says 25, then you must do 10 non-teaching hours in the office to make up for the 5 teaching hours you didn't do. New Dynamic seem particularly renowned for this one. Sometimes, you can work 45-50 hours per week, if you haven't read the contract carefully.

Additionally, if you are required to work away from the office, you will not get paid for the traveling time. That's another freebie you give the company. The salaries are quite low, especially if you take the time to work out your actual hourly rate. If you are required to do a 40 hour week, including admin, on 10 000 a month, that's less than 60 an hour. 10,000 a month is very generous for a chain school, especially outside the bigger cities.

However, part time work with some of the chain schools can be more lucrative, paying 250 or more per hour, depending on the subject material and location. I am unsure about the legal requirements, but have always had written permission from my employer, which satisfied the PSB on the two occasions they questioned me about working a second job.

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12 years 24 weeks ago
 
Posts: 2604

Shifu

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Disney english they have the best theme and the best pay. I've heard not so many great things from the others, but those were all rumors. Not sure if they are true stories, but out of the three that you mentioned possibly Disney English.

kchur:

I can't believe how hard it is for you Chinese to distinguish between marketing and teaching. If I wanted to get into marketing, I would have never applied for a teaching job.

12 years 11 weeks ago
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12 years 11 weeks ago
 
Posts: 3

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Ya I got burned big time by Pattison English..Horrible apt with hard bed. Tv was so old it was unclear. No water in the mornins. Ane the salemen sell the books to the group without good evalution..And when I had to quit..they cancelled contract, give me 24hours to get out. And no last months pay..And they threatened to call the police. What a nightmare..

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11 years 33 weeks ago
 
Posts: 461

Shifu

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Try to go to the reception of one of these centers and start to speak in English with them, you'll how bad is their English. But then they want to teach you English.

I have a couple of friends who decided to waster 80'000 RMB just to sign up with one of these English Centers.....

It's like if you go to learn Chinese in a Chinese training school and they don't speak Chinese at all, how would you feel.

When learning a language, the best in China is to either learn a language by yourself or get a language exchange, don't waste time and money on all these so-called language centers....

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11 years 33 weeks ago
 
Posts: 1201

Shifu

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i think Wall-Street is the best international English training school but the best Chinese  English training school would be New Oriental for sure

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11 years 33 weeks ago
 
Posts: 4

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Teaching English in China sucks, unless you work for yourself or find an independent school. If you work for one of the big franchise/national centres then don't expect to have time to see China and enjoy yourself. All of them expect you to work weekends, and most will only give you 5 paid holidays after 1 year. The salary seems good for a 25 hour teaching week, but if you work for yourself you should earn around 200rmb per hour. So a 25 hour teaching week will give you a salary of around 23,000rmb per month and you have plenty of free time.

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11 years 30 weeks ago
 
Posts: 458

Shifu

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I would recommend avoiding training schools altogether, unless you really value sleeping in on weekdays or simply CANNOT find another school, or something. They tend to pay marginally better than other schools, yes. But your bank account will take hits from all the visa screw ups, mystery/irrational 'fines' (think about clocking in at 8:01 for a shift that starts at 8:00 and losing a full hour/half day of pay. I am a punctual person who believes in 'time cushions' for jobs. I never got slapped with a late deduction...But a policy like that-and I've never heard of a training school without one-is still a steaming pile of something), and miscellaneous mismanaged BS. So, in the end, the money balances out, and the training school still treats you like little more than a dancing monkey than a teacher, let alone human being.

If you MUST work for a training school, aim for adult ones. If you MUST work at a training school for children, avoid brand-y ones like the plague. Chinese kids are, by an large lovely...but no one is making up the fact that this country has a serious brat epidemic happening. And do you know where the most entitled brats of parents put their entitled brats of children so they can brag to the neighbors? Childrens' English training centers with a mega-brand name, that's where. You will spend your days not being able to teach 11-15 lovely children because some overfed little shit insists on dominating the attention of every adult in the room.

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10 years 42 weeks ago
 
Posts: 458

Shifu

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I would recommend avoiding training schools altogether, unless you really value sleeping in on weekdays or simply CANNOT find another school, or something. They tend to pay marginally better than other schools, yes. But your bank account will take hits from all the visa screw ups, mystery/irrational 'fines' (think about clocking in at 8:01 for a shift that starts at 8:00 and losing a full hour/half day of pay. I am a punctual person who believes in 'time cushions' for jobs. I never got slapped with a late deduction...But a policy like that-and I've never heard of a training school without one-is still a steaming pile of something), and miscellaneous mismanaged BS. So, in the end, the money balances out, and the training school still treats you like little more than a dancing monkey than a teacher, let alone human being.

If you MUST work for a training school, aim for adult ones. If you MUST work at a training school for children, avoid brand-y ones like the plague. Chinese kids are, by an large lovely...but no one is making up the fact that this country has a serious brat epidemic happening. And do you know where the most entitled brats of parents put their entitled brats of children so they can brag to the neighbors? Childrens' English training centers with a mega-brand name, that's where. You will spend your days not being able to teach 11-15 lovely children because some overfed little shit insists on dominating the attention of every adult in the room.

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10 years 42 weeks ago
 
Posts: 21

General

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EF (English First) is usually pretty good but you have to check out the center you are interested in ... may be good or bad depending on management.

Wall Street English - it's gone tits up ... out of business.

Meten - may be good or bad depending on franchise management

KidCastle - again depends on the management.  Huai'an branch was run by several deranged women whereas the Zhongshan branch was run by very well-meaning women.  So it all depends.

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1 year 17 weeks ago
 
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