Jobs of the Week 12 May 2013

GOOD

English First (EF) Academic Partnerships - English Teacher at University in Shanghai

Good salary working for a university in a great location. Low hours and the opportunity to earn extra income during holidays make this a job to apply for.

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RAY English Recruitment- TEACH IN CHINA!!

Comprehensive post with all questions answered but one: how many teaching hours per week?

Accommodation is provided, but will you be sharing with another teacher?

Salary is quite low. If you do have a TEFL/ CELTA cert, negotiate for at least 12, 000 RMB.

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Becamex – Vietnam

A very high salary and severance on offer here in a beautiful spot in SE Asia. Accommodation provided and decent vacation time (30 days inclusive of public holidays), opportunities for IELTS examiner training. But no mention of contact hours, or if you have to work on Saturday.

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BAD

Aston Business Consulting - High School English and/or US history teacher needed for semi-tropical Quanzhou, China

I’m surprised the salary is so low for content teachers. If you have Literature/ History experience in the US, that usually means you are certified to teach in High School, which garners more money, at least for other schools in China.

11 month contract means they will not pay for your holidays. That is a shiesty way to treat teachers who have worked their ass of for upwards of 30 students in each class, for 25 hours per week.

At least they provide you with accommodation and foot the visa costs.

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Istra School - EFL Teacher – Russia

Not a bad package. $1,500 / month, shared accommodation. Contact hours? Holidays? Not mentioned...and you’re an hour away from Moscow.

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TLTP Teach Global - English Teachers – Saudi Arabia

No mention of salary, contact hours. Because the required qualifications are only a CELTA/ TEFL certificate, they will rape you on the salary. Expect $1,800 – 2,500 at best. You’ve been warned.

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NOT WORTH IT

European Centre - Corporate English Language Instructors – Saudi Arabia

No mention of anything helpful for a candidate to make a decision to submit a resume.

Nothing about contact hours, accommodation, flights, visas...in short if they don’t take the time to post the necessary information about the job, I don’t want to waste my time with them.

Keep looking.

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ISUS - Online Language Teachers

This company always has a job post on TEFL.com. I applied a few years ago, just to see what the process was. Not a single word from them. Why wouldn’t they entertain a Ph. D. in Education fluent in three languages?

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Jobs Week of April 28, 2013

Good

 Language Link Vietnam

Good, straight forward post with all the pertinent information you need to make a reasoned decision to send your CV. Pay is average range for school in Vietnam. I like how they guarantee you a minimum number of contact hours.

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Bad

Brainsmart Training & Development 

The pay is low, even by Malaysian standards. Usually the range for jobs is between 5-7,000 MYR, which is about 1,600 – 2,300 USD. No mention of a website for you to conduct your own research. I did find a short company bio here. No mention of contact hours. I’m wary of the gmail address. As you know, if the company was legit, or not a start-up, they would've provided a company email address, like someone@brainsmart.com. Just an example.... Not a good post, but maybe it is worth your time to get some answers to your questions.

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International House – San Diego

No mention of pay. No website. Still worthwhile to email your CV if you’re around San Diego.
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Not Worth It

TeachingChile

TeachingChile is a pay service. You should never pay anyone to secure a job. Even for recruiters in Korea, China, or other countries, the applicant is not responsible to pay the recruiter fee. That is the obligation of the school or institute.

 Job details 

English-and-Skype

You can read my previous post about this company here. They’re obviously hurting for teachers, because this is their 7^th post just for the month of April alone. 

In a nut shell, the application is lengthy. They schedule a phone interview to ask you inane grammar questions, some of which you already answered in their online application form. Then they schedule a teaching demonstration via Skype. Then they make a decision on you as a candidate. Why can’t they interview you via Skype and ask you questions about your education and work experience and some hypothetical ‘What would you do if...’ type questions to see how you as a teacher would respond. That’s a normal job interview. Instead of screening applicants with stages, I wish the heads of EAS would just use their head and discern the truth. 

This company is not Cambridge or Oxford. It’s an online company. Stop the bullshit. Change your marketing, interview and hiring tactics. If you want to develop a good relationship with teachers, sincerely listen to them during the interview, make your decision based on what you hear.

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Teacha Language School

The pay is low, but typical for Thai schools seeking candidates with 0-1 year of experience. The kicker is they don’t provide accommodation or a subsidy to help offset the costs. You will be breaking even if you continue to have a western life style. You might save a few dollars if you immerse yourself in Thai culture, living and eating as they do. This job is not worth your time because the post provides no details about the students. Will you be teaching young learners only? Adults? How many in a class? There are better jobs in Thailand that offer better pay, lower contact hours and provide accommodation allowance. Keep looking...

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E-Communication online teaching in Japan

Similar to English-and-Skype. Their application process puts you through the ringer. This company constantly has a job advert on TEFL.com website. They must have a high turnover rate of teachers leaving and/ or quitting. Caution: if you are not Caucasian, this company will not hire you.
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Why I hate the forums on Dave’s ESL Café

I was doing some research about writing a blog posting about BKC-International House (IH) Moscow, when I came across this retarded forum on Dave’s ESL Café.

For what started out as a straight forward post about this noob chronicling her honeymoon period at the said organization, the other members quickly lambasted her, and the forum became nothing more than a back-and-forth that was the equivalent of ‘You’re a liar!’ ‘No, YOU'RE a liar!’ for 6 goddamned pages that spanned 2 f&^king years.

Someone glued my hands to my face and it hurts!

Mysteriously enough, at the beginning of the post there was a mention of a lawsuit filed by the member against BKC IH Moscow. When I clicked on the link to the blog where I could read more about the context of the lawsuit, I saw the following picture.

This is why I hate the job forums on Dave’s crap website. Not only does he let any crap employer post any crap job advert that may prove to be misleading or downright false, the members to the site do not know how to control their emotions. Rather than getting ticky-tacky, remember you are there to share information. 

Other than the pettiness, I was struck by the candidness the member expressed in detailing information about her first impression at BKC-IH Moscow. Usually members only get specific in private messages (PM), which leaves other members who might have the same questions in the dark. Transparency people, it’s what’s for dinner…every goddamned night of the week. And that’s a good thing. 

No one likes pettiness for dinner every night

BKC International House (IH) Moscow

I’m not one for cold weather, but hey, it’s Moscow. It’s Mother Russia. It’s shit money, but a helluva cultural experience nonetheless. Visiting on vacation is one thing; living there is quite another.

You can read the entirety of this job post here, at Dave’s ESL Café. You can also read another post here that through my research brought about my own understanding of why I hate Dave and his nipple-twisting-annoyance-of-a-café.

Anyways, not all International Houses – despite being part of the same franchise – are not created equal. Director of Studies (DOS) have different personalities; some are curmudgeonly, others are as happy as Richard Simmons. 

Bedazzler will do that to people

What I cannot say is that this BKC-IH is not great and not bad; I can only lay claim to what I know. And that only comes by analyzing the job posting.

The things that scare me, yet I can live with: the salary, the shared accommodation, the contact hours and the contract length.

I researched the cost-of-living index for Moscow on the website Numbeo. I was floored with how expensive the city is. When I researched the BKC-IH website, I found this nice, little tidbit that charmed the panties right off of me.

This pleases me outright as a manager of an educational institution. This organization is addressing the critiques head-on and offering another interpretation to the perception of the expensive European city. It all depends on life style. Frugality allows one to save; luxury…well, you get the picture.

I need your address Jonny to send you my panties.

The shared accommodation? Well, it is Russia – land of extremes where you get beautiful people and those who suffered a tremendous beat down via the Ugly Stick. You could get lucky and get a roommate that looks like this.

Learn me English cowboy!

Or this guy.

This could be your roommate and your DOS. 

Either way, you’ve got to share your living space with her/ him. I’m not a fan of sharing anything…not even with my husband or child. Are you like me? Then flee from this job possibility…look elsewhere.

The contact hours and the contract length are not generous by any means. 30 hours for $1150 and only for 9 months? No paid summer vacation? Trick, please… Ditto for the 24 hours and 6 months...

However…

I would gravitate to this job either as a fresh noob teacher, or someone who wants to experience the Russian culture. If you need to pay off student loans, look to Japan/ Korea. 

For 6 months, maybe saving a few hundred dollars each month, or simply drinking my money at the club, then yeah, I would go for it. If you're just starting out, be poor. It will teach you the value of hard work. You will appreciate the money you slaved for. At the end of the contract, you can always find another job to stock-up on the cash flow. Who knows you might actually enjoy working at an International House school. You could get transferred to another country that’s not as godforsakenly cold as Russia in the winter time. 

Maybe I’m partial because Russia has always transfixed me with its perceptive writers, natural beauty, frigid weather, communism and its bad-ass Kalashnikovs. After all this guy comes from Russia...

And he beat up this giant Korean...

Respect...

English and Skype Online Teaching (Russia)

This posting is already displayed in its entirety, but if you want to check, you can read it here at Dave's ESL Café.

 

 

I hate these types of job postings. No, I'm not being a cranky new mom because some little baby was keeping me up all hours of the night. Let me explain…

The name of the company just grates on my nerves. 'English and Skype?' This screams to me, 'Me and my friend started this company who know nothing about ESL or education. We wanted to maximize profit by using an already established program that is free. Whoopee for us! We're super smart.'

However, if you were a teacher who had bad experiences teaching online with Skype, then you would know there is no Whiteboard option on Skype, where a teacher can write notes that are also visible to the student on his/ her screen. Also, Skype does not allow you to record the lessons, which is invaluable for students who want to review the lesson on his/ her own time. Skype is good for talkie-talk with friends, relatives or significant others, but not worthwhile for conducting online English lessons.

If this company was as exclusive as they tout themselves to be, they would've developed, or at least purchased, software conducive for teaching.

Also they want teachers to work a lot of hours which translates to they don't have teachers...most likely any teachers. Requesting upwards of 20 hours screams it is a start-up company.

This is what chaps my…kisser. The exclusivity of this crap company is evident in this posting. They think their … don't stink. But their posting has the opposite effect. You obviously can tell (you're a discerning prospective employee) that the presentation of the job posting is utter garbage.
 

They don't hire non-native English speaking teachers. Fine, whatever,  a company can require that.

The pay is dismal $10-13. 45 minutes....I could get a better hourly wage working for a Chinese company.

Personal experience...

The application process is just as retarded as this company's name. 

You click on the link here and you are brought to this application form which has a laundry list of questions related to grammar and your teaching expertise. So I wrote more than the word limit to answer the question items comprehensively. I attached my resume, and a few days later was granted a phone interview. 

The kicker...

The phone interview was nothing more than a grammar quiz! I thought I had already answered those retarded questions on the online application.  Even if you are an inexperienced teacher, you would've felt disrespected because the interviewer was speaking in this sing-songy pre-school teacher voice.

'Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay,' she said. 'What is the verb tense of this sentence: John goes to school.'

'Are you kidding me?' I asked. 'I thought I already answered this on the application!'

Their response: 'Well, we get a lot of applicants who lie on their resume. So we have to double-check.'

If this company is worth their salt, they would be able to weed out the liars from the pack by examining CVs. And if your company's name is English and Skype, why didn't they conduct the interview on Skype rather than via a phone call?

 

Don't waste your time. Don't even 'dare' to send your resume. Even if you do get hired, this company, which is so retardedly named, will not be around long enough to get and retain students when there are numerous other companies in Russia that provide a better, more quality online learning experience.

Crap! Crap! Crap!