Wow, I find the tone of this thread to be quite unfriendly. I had no idea that making a post here would result in me having to speak in my defense. Basically, what I was offering was my experience which seems to be different than some of those I read here. I doubted that Silverboy and/or Choatle have personall worked for Aston, Interlingual, or any of the colleges I have, so I wanted to offer those who do not dominate these pages a different perspective.

I have been living in China for several years now and I came here, and still am, a teacher. I value my personal development in my field and I value employers who care about education. What I have found in the universities I have taught at (I do not claim any knowledge of places I haven't personally worked, and am trying very hard to avoid the gross generalizations that seem to be prominent around here)were that almost no effort or energy was put into education. I came to China with a Master's in Education and several years classroom experience, but I did expect (and still do) my employer to show an interest in what is going on in my classroom. Certainly if I were running a school I would care that my teachers were professional and doing a good job.

in regards to my experience with Aston, I did not find their methods to be constraining at all. I was asked to meet certain lesson objectives, but how I did that was entirely up to me. They actually provided me with sample lesson plans for every lesson which I did use sometimes because I thought were quite good, but often I developed my own plans derived from my own sucess in the classroom. I quite often worked together with the manager and teacher trainer in Yinchuan Aston on developing our own individual lesson plans together, which was quite fun and rewarding.

I can't really understand why anyone reading this would feel the need to respond negatively. These are the facts of my experience in almost 10 years being involved in education. If someone has a personal experience with Aston (or any other place I have worked in China) that is similiar or different I would love to hear it.

I also encourage those few here who continually post negative and attacking posts to tell us a little bit about their own history teaching in China. What is your personal experience with Aston or the other schools you have taught at? it would be nice to put some of your biter ranting into context.