Jobs of the Week September 8, 2013

Back from Vacation

For all you job hunters out there with questions upon questions about reputable EFL employers, I am back and at your service.

GOOD

1) Ray English Recruitment – China

Provides (as always) a good number of positions available with reputable employers. Good for noobs with no years of experience.

Testimonials

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2) Shane English School – China

Up front about contact hours, salary and accommodation ranges and curriculum. Though, they did mention a sixth day of work that could be added as a bonus into your salary or to accumulate as time off later in the contract. Sneaky, sneaky, but worth a shot. 

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BAD

3) Assumption College, Bangrak, Bangkok, Thailand

The contract on offer is more than decent considering standard pay is about 60,000 THB. However, these people would disagree.

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4) Westgate Corporation – Japan

Not a bad gig, though the contract dates are an issue. A friend of a friend who used to work for this company said that yes accommodation was supplied, but upon the final day of the contract you had to vacate the abode. For him, that meant leaving the country because Japan was so expensive for him. And that also meant Westgate did not reimburse him for the flights. If you are going to inquire about a job, check with the company to see if they’ve changed their policy about accommodation. If you get a job, be prepared to vacate on the final day.

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NOT WORTH IT

5) Teachers for Primary School – Phnom Pehn, Cambodia

$150 / month for 25 contact hours! Yes it’s Cambodia, but I mean, the school at least has to provide flights or an allowance, or else teachers with 0$ to their name will never be able to save enough money to fly home!

Job hunters beware.

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6) B & A International Languages – China

B & A International Languages you had me at ‘hello,’ but then lost me when I read teachers had to supply lesson plans one week in advance.

Holy shnikes! According to the post, there’s no mention of a set curriculum. Me thinks you will be creating from scratch, and that’s a tall order without having to provide the plans a week in advance. It’s a tough cookie, and I would save myself the headache of doing so. There are other jobs that have a set curriculum and don’t require you to provide lesson plans in advance.

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June 9, 2013 Jobs of the Week

Three jobs that tickle my fancy. I hope they tickle you noobs out there, as well. The other jobs might tickle you in the wrong spot, laugh yes, but then make you angry to know there are such crap organizations in the TEFL world. TEFL employers: get your act together! If you want professional employees, post professional, informative job postings. 

GOOD

I would like to thank Selena Gomez for personally assisting me with these GOOD TEFL job selections. You're such a dear!

1) EFL Teacher – Bell – Assumption College Thornbury in Bangkok Thailand

This is what all companies should aspire to when posting jobs. All the info I need to make a good decision whether or not to send my CV.

Why hasn’t anyone jumped on this job yet?

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2) Prime Teachers - EFL Teachers required in Shenzhen, China

This company’s all up on Bell’s quality job posting. Clear, direct information.

Apply you fool! Apply!

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3) ESL Teachers - EF English First Chongqing Schools

Hey now, English First (EF) provides a decent looking package for noob teachers. The pay is atrociously low, but so is the rest of China. Free accommodation, Chinese lessons, flight allowance.

Be careful if you don’t have a TEFL cert. already. If you don’t, you’ll have to fork out some bucks to get EF’s TEFL cert, which probably isn’t worth more than the paper it’s printed on.

If you’re fresh out of university, it’s a nice foot in the door. Hopefully EF delivers on its promises outlined in the job posting.

Apply to begin paying off your student loans (albeit at only $100 – 200 per month).

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BAD

Even the King of Pop doesn't approve of these jobs.

4) Teach, Travel and Earn Money in Russia! – Aclipse

Something is off here. The job post at Dave’s is for Russia. Go to Aclipse’s website and the only countries on offer are Korea, China and Japan. The following screenshot is from the website. There are no mention of Russian schools partnered with Aclipse.

They probably do have relationships with Russian schools, but for godsakes people, post that information on your website. If you don’t post, then what other surprises do you have in store for prospective employees? Me thinks there’s also a good reason why you don’t post package details like accommodation, flight allowances, base pay and contact hours. This is shoddy marketing at its shoddiest.

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5) Teachers Needed in Sakarya, Turkey

Adapazarý Private Enka School esunter@enka.k12.tr

Straightforward post mentioning the qualifications an applicant should have. But no mention of salary, contact hours, etc. Yes there is an email address, but that’s a mistake of the hiring personnel. Now they’re going to get inundated with simple questions that could’ve been avoided had they put basic info. like salary, contact hours, and other employment package details. No website for us to browse at our leisure?

It sounds good, but I wouldn’t expect much in terms of pay because it’s Turkey. You’ll have to query to find out more.

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6) QUALIFIED NATIVE ENGLISH TEACHERS - Ankara, Turkey

University of Turkish Aeronautical Association ssahinel@thk.edu.tr

This post from Turkey is more comprehensive. It outlines the contact hours, what content you’ll be teaching, vacation, flight allowance. As well, clearly states accommodation is not provided.

Although, no website to direct us to for FAQs.

Again, it’s Turkey. Expect the salary to be low, even though you the candidate is highly qualified with over 3 years teaching experience. In terms of submitting required documents as part of your employment application, it’s a lot. Jump through hoops, but don’t expect to jump through hoops for big salary.

At your discretion, but personally, not for me.

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7) CMT Learning Ltd – UK

First, they misspelled ‘definitely.’ Furthermore, the job posting format looks redonkulous. Other than the max number of contact hours (25), no mention of important job details like accommodation, flight allowance (though I think they’re looking for UK based individuals.)

Nice website for me to look at. 

If you’re athletically inclined and from the UK, go for it. I expect the pay to be around £250 – 300 per week.

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NOT WORTH IT

8) English-and-Skype

This old nugget of crap? They’re spending a fortune on posting on Dave’s ESL Café. They’ve got to change their game if they want to be considered reputable, or at least, halfway decent.

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9) Native ESL/EFL Teacher - Interlingua School

Ok, let me say the employment package is decent (pay, accommodation, flight allowance, etc.)

But what I really enjoy, and for all the wrong reasons, is that Interlingua School is tacking on additional duties. You get to work as an office assistant as well! Maybe it’s a blend of working in the office and teaching, but I wouldn’t think the pay would be much better. Golly gee, no thank you.

If you’re teaching 26 hours per week, you deserve more than 8,600 RMB/ month.

This is a pass.

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10) Beijing Hampson Education Training School – China

One on one teaching? It’s got its limitations. If you don’t develop rapport with the student immediately, it can quickly turn into a nightmare. You will still have to teach him/ her. Do you like pulling teeth on a daily basis for hours on end? Then this job is for you.

For the rest of you sane people, I’d pass on this ‘opportunity.’

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11) Online English Teacher (part time) – dadaabc (company name)

Pass! And a big one at that.

The posting does not provide an email address or website. How do I apply to your crummy organization? Make it easy for employees to apply. Don’t make it a game of chasing the hare.

A Google search only yielded other job postings under the same company name.

These jokers aren't worth the time or effort to track them down and apply.

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China

Week of April 22, 2013

1) Wall Street: English                                                                   GOOD

Reasonably passable, except weekend work; do you have 2 consecutive days off, or will you only have 1? Not specified. 35 contact hours is huge for that kind of money when part of that pay has to go towards housing. 
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3)Asia Experts Network Limited (aen)                                          BAD

Recruiter. Fair job details, however, what turns me off is ‘In some cases,’ give a range or define the parameters. This makes me think everything is up in the air, and decided on a whim. Under what terms would you not receive your ‘bonus?’
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4) Shanghai Euroway Training Centre                                            NOT WORTH IT

Quality of the post is bad. Misspellings, incorrect grammar. The pay is way too low, as you are expected to use part of your monthly pay to rent a flat. Hours good, but 7 days unpaid vacation...please.
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5) Nanjing English First Training School                                         NOT WORTH IT 

No mention of salary, contact hours, visa reimbursement, or severance pay.

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6) Disney English                                                                           NOT WORTH IT 

Pay is moderate, but should be higher if teaching children. Contact hours include nights and weekends. No mention of days off in a week. ‘Deliver private lessons as required.’ This sounds to me like unpaid teaching that is scheduled during your down time. The license for Rosetta Stone Mandarin is a joke. IF they are using Disney’s name legally, they should be able to provide free onsite face-to-face Chinese classes, or at the very least subsidized. No mention of the number of vacation days that are paid. No mention of severance at the end of the contract. Return flight is calculated in your monthly pay, which is bananas. ‘Robust academic training’ means they will put you in a fishbowl and micromanage your teaching. Observations constantly.

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7) Prime Teachers (Recruiter)                                                       NOT WORTH IT

No mention of number of vacation days, contact hours or flight pay or reimbursement.

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8) Ba Zhou Petroleum No. 1 Middle School                                 NOT WORTH IT

Terrible pay, similar to local pay, but you’re a foreigner with foreign bills to pay, massive class sizes, ridiculous statement about 7 years and no ‘accusations of abuses.’ 1 foreign teacher currently. Worked with 20 foreigners, but of course, 19 of them were not retained. Airfare reimbursement, but what about outward, or return flights? Travel allowance is 30, 000 RMB which has to be a typo. No mention of number of hours you must be on campus (40 hour work week?)

With such a sloppy presentation in a job posting, what else is sloppy about this job?

Job details

TEFL Internships in China

Read this job post in its entirety here at Dave’s ESL Café.

Ok, so at first glance, everything seems good. You, the new graduate who’s just received his/ her BA in whatever, decide to go into teaching. You’re serious about it, thinking it could be a worthwhile profession. But you don’t know the first thing about teaching English. So you browse Dave’s ESL Café, where you find the posting linked above. You send your CV (resume) and interview for the internship. Lo and behold, you’ve got the internship! But you have to pay the program fees! The what? That’s right.... surprise, surprise.

If I hadn’t done some snooping on the company’s website, TEFLinternships.com, I wouldn’t have uncovered the hidden little tidbits of information they were withholding from its prospective internship applicant.

You have to pay the program fee of: $888.

On the company’s website, TEFL Internships, it touts the TEFL certificate as something worthwhile. Instead, after researching, the certificate is more worthless than the paper it’s printed on.

The TEFL online teaching website, http://teflbootcamp.com/, promotes itself as being an international member of ACTFL, IATEFL and the College of Teachers. These are worthless assertions. Anyone with a credit card can join these organizations. By placing these organizations on their webpage, it’s leading prospective consumers to believe these are accreditation bodies. This TEFL online certificate is not accredited by the British Council, University of Cambridge, Oxford, hell- not even Kaplan! 

It is, however, accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) which any company can get, but only if it honours its guidelines and pays the membership fees. The main guidelines are that members of the BBB don’t lie to consumers, disclose physical address of their company, and refund customers their money if customers aren’t satisfied. So not one – absolutely NOT ONE – educational body has accredited or endorsed the online TEFL certificate. Rubbish. Absolute rubbish.

Aside from this advertising which provides customers with an opportunity to misinterpret the institutional bodies as endorsers or accreditation bodies, the website looks so schlocky. The online 'class' was created by a single man (not the plural tutors the website would have you believe) with yes a Masters in Education and a PGCE in TEFL and with over 15 years of experience, but those qualifications alone do not warrant his ability to write meaningful teacher preparation textbooks. Instead, this fella created some e-books with little to no content inside them (I bought his TOEFL, TOEIC and IELTS test preparation textbook four years ago and found only content which could’ve been gleaned from a friggin’ Google search.)

Don’t waste your time with this company. Remember: never pay a recruiter for anything. Let alone the $888 this whack-o company is demanding to place you in an internship and give you a worthless online TEFL certificate.

And yeah you can find legit jobs on Dave's, but you have to sift through job postings like this. Don't take the job posting as absolute truth. Research by checking the companies involved websites. 

Stay far, far, far away from TEFLinternships!

Horizon Recruitment ESL Jobs in China

Read this post here from the ESL Employment website.

Read more about Horizon Recruitment here.

There are a lot of jobs to choose from, but if you are just starting out (i.e. you just graduated with a BA) I would suggest applying for one of the jobs in a university. Specifically this one here:

The salary is quite high in relation to the other university gigs in China. 16 hours is stated as the maximum, but in the interview make sure to get that stated in the contract. Also, make sure the contract the recruitment company sends you matches the one the university will want you to sign once you are present in the country. If they don’t match, don’t sign, and call your recruitment contact in China.

3 to 4 hours of teaching per day is a great way to get your legs wet, so to speak. You’ll have enough time to plan your lessons fully before each day begins. You’ll have enough time to research what to do in the class, that is, if you are greener than grass.

In the interview ask:

1) How many office hours will I have to keep? What is the total number of hours I have to be on campus?

2) Will I be required to perform other duties? (Ones related to teaching English, such as running clubs, ESL tutoring for Chinese teachers, writing supplementary materials and/ or textbooks)

3) Is pay salaried, or if I teach less than 16 hours will my pay go down?

4) What is the tax rate for my salary, and am I, or the university, expected to pay it?

5) What amenities are included in the housing?

6) Am I responsible for paying utilities?

7) Will I have to share housing with another teacher?

8) Will I have to pay for internet access, or does the university provide that for me in the furnished housing? (No matter if internet access is provided or not, if you want to have free-wheeling, unblocked internet access to the fun websites as you would in the USA, make sure you buy a VPN and set it up BEFORE you enter China. Go here to read about VPNs.)

9) Location of the housing?

10) Are plane tickets bought for me? Or are they reimbursed? When will I be reimbursed? When will I receive the money to buy my return ticket back home?

11) What about severance if I complete my contract?

12) What is the recruiter contact number in China? Name of contact? Email address? Location? (Before you leave on the plane, check the contact information by sending an email and calling on Skype, which involves a minimal cost. If the contact info. doesn’t work, tell the recruiter. If problems start, walk away from the job. You don’t want to be stranded in China without help.)

This is just a taste of the questions you should ask. Think of others that relate to your personality (Cultural issues, free Chinese classes, monthly train/ bus passes etc.) to ensure you have a comfortable stay.

Once you arrive though, things could change at a whim. But you’re taking a calculated risk here. Get all the answers you need before, and then deal with the problems once you arrive. If the work/ cultural situation is not to your liking, you’ll still have some piece of mind knowing that you were as prepared as you could’ve been. Curveballs will come from places you weren’t expecting...no matter how prepared you are.

The most important part during this phase of job recruitment is to research and ask questions to start off on the right foot.

Newbies, give this a go: apply for this job. Good location, high pay, minimal hours at a university. It’ll look great on a CV, and give you the experience you so desperately need. Be firm with the recruiter if they try to change your mind by suggesting a different city.

If you don’t like the answers to the questions you ask, always, always, always walk away. Don’t agree to something if you see red flags waving all over the place. 

GOLDSTAR TEFL Recruitment/ Wall Street English

Here's a job posting found here

Analysis

Anything over 24 hours for the less experienced teacher is a sure fire route to teacher burnout. You don't want to be overwhelmed, get stressed, and contemplate fleeing the country in the middle of the night. It's a terrible way to begin your career. Even with the lesser number of contact hour option B, it's still going to take a teacher some time to get the gist of the lesson. Although, the posting says all lesson plans are prepared for you, more than 5 hours is necessary for teachers, even experienced ones, to get the flow of the lesson plan, i.e. how to transition from one activity to the next.

Finding a new apartment in 30 days is stressful enough, especially in a new country. One of my past employers provided the first 30 days free stay in a hotel, another 5 days. For both I needed to find an apartment. It was impossible for me to find an apartment in 5 days, extended my stay an extra 25, paid the extra amount out of my own pocket because I didn't want to settle with an apartment. In truth, in that short of time, you will settle for any crummy condition. But forewarned, you'll be spending the duration of the lease in such conditions. Choose wisely!

That's correct! No costs for the recruitment. But what about visa costs? Are flights to China reimbursed? Are flights provided at the end of the contract, or at least the money to buy them?

Posting omits days of working week - you could have one day off, or dare I speculate, work every day as language institutes schedule classes around when students are available. 

Omits if these hours are guaranteed teaching hours - with a small amount of students enrolled for ESL courses, your 30 teaching hours could shorten, and with that, your pay.

Omits duration of the contract - assuming it's a year, but still worth asking about. 

Here's what this person said about this recruiter and company: 

(from:  http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2134070) 

Kereru makes a good point about the split shifts. Most language institutes will require teachers to work when the students have free time. This means in the morning and at night. 

The final verdict would render this job suitable for teachers to send his or her resume. The job does require a teacher to have a TEFL certificate, so teachers without any experience yet should not waste his time.
With that in mind, he or she must take adequate stock about what their work and personal expectations/ limitations are. She must answer questions about adjusting to a (possibly) new country and culture, energy level to sustain over 30 contact hours, working months worth of possible split shifts and the limited vacation days. However, the company does allow an incentive bonus for teachers, except how managers determine who gets the bonus can be quite political at times. This posting provides good information that outlines standard working conditions for language institutes in China, with this one seemingly better than average. Submit your resume, and during the interview, make sure you ask pertinent questions. Especially about who foots the visa costs, flights and raise questions about the omissions brought up in the analysis.