Turnoi and Silverboy, you must realize you are expressing a lot of prejudices, and while I have a lot of problems with how private schools are run in China, I find your descriptions simply are so overstated that they are out of sync with reality.

Before I address your specific points, let me bring up a big argument for private language schools. They produce results. Whatever you may say, I've worked in both environments, and some of my 15 year old private school students are better than all but the very best seniors at the university. Why? Because of the small classes in private schools in which students are actually able to engage with the teacher and interact meaningfully in English.

Silverboy stated:

What is taught at places like Aston, EF, New Oriental etc is a standardized teaching "formula". The "Aston way" or the "EF way".

Probably all of those schools loosely subscribe to the "communicative approach" or something similar, which is the same one will learn when getting a teaching certificate such as a TEFL/TESOL/CELTA. The schools I worked for didn't have their own systems. To say otherwise is just fantasy.

Silverboy argued:

FT's are expected to teach in a certain way, which is often detrimental to the needs of various different classes of students. These students have different needs and different skill sets. There is no flexibilty, the teacher can't deviate at all, they will be reprimanded or "fined" if they do. One size fits all, like I have said before.

That would be a problem if it were true. I've worked at three private schools and always had the freedom to teach in which ever manner I felt appropriate. I've NEVER heard of anyone being fine for deviating from a set system or curriculum. Because private schools will have many different levels, and students can be placed at appropriate levels for their ability. This is actually one of the advantages of private schools. They aren't just automatically arranged in the same class by grade level irrespective of ability.

Silverboy:

Another problem with chain/private schools is that Chinese parents and students decide who is a "good teacher". This means that only the "entertainers" will be the "good teachers". Good teaching = entertainment at TC's, a situatation that would never be tolerated in the UK or Australia for instance.

If just so happens that the most effective methods of teaching English as a foreign language are, as compared to rote learning techniques, markedly more entertaining. Rather than "entertaining" I'd say "engaging" or "captivating." Yes, if one is a boring teacher who doesn't know how to capture or maintain students interest and get them to participate meaningfully, that teacher will not be considered good by his or her students or their parents. I definitely have NOT seen instances of the bad teachers, who are mere entertainers, being seen as superior to hard-working genuine teachers. Appreciation of teacher ability seemed to correspond closely to the teacher's actual ability as far as I saw. So, your statements don't seem to fit with reality.

Silverboy:

Considering that most Chinese adults have poor knowledge of both spoken and written English, and do not understand even basic principles of English grammar, they are in no way qualified to judge the abilties of any FT.

I could judge how well a Russian teacher teaches me and I don't speak a word of Russian. Knowledge of English language, grammar, linguistics, literature, what have you does not make a good teacher.

Silverboy:

A small class is not a guarantee of "motivated students". The more likely scenario is that a majority of the students at the TC will be spolit brats from upper middle class Chinese families.

This is more overstatement that just belongs in the category of prejudice or fantasy. Most my students in China have been very nice and well-behaved regardless of their wealth or lack thereof. I prefer teaching the less privileged college students, but most my rich kids were also lovely students.

A good teacher should know how teach classes of between 60 up to 130 students in a lecture hall environment. In the West it is done all the time with quality results, why should it be more difficult in China?

Lecture halls are for (drum roll please ) lectures. During a lecture students are very passive, and should not be talking. You can't teach oral English that way, but you could give effective lectures on literature or history or economics. But, that's not one's job in a private school and most often not in a university either.

I would rather teach a class of natural public uni students, then some bunch of conceited, spoilt, and selfish young smart arse TC students anyday!

Finally, my sense of the problem is that you and Turnoi MAY not subscribe to contemporary theory and practice of teaching English as a foreign language, which, being the most effective method over the last half century, is generally the one adopted by private schools. Turnoi dismisses TEFL courses, but why? Why are they so "crappy"? I'm just guessing, that he doesn't agree with the teaching theory.

However, in my own teaching experience, I find it works quite well and much better than more traditional methods, which is probably why the private school students have much better English skills in general that do the university students.

The problem with private schools isn't the books, curriculum or preferred style of teaching, it's the business end. It's the corruption. The overworking and underpaying of teachers. The favoring green teachers over qualified and superior teachers because the green teachers can be taken advantage of. The business end just sucks, but the methodology is sound.