A buddy of mine ended up trying his hand at working under a Korean owned English language school despite my repeated warnings. Before he went there I told him to avoid that and generally as a rule of thumb, to avoid any and all Korean managed or Korean owned schools. But he trusted the "recruiter" and the online Web site and the photos that he saw.

Soabout 6-months into a 12-month contract the students slowly started to fade. Then the Korean interns started to fade away with a new face appearing on the scene each month until they got wise. The photocopier was never repaired after it broke. Then the school ran out of pens, markers, pencils, writing paper, and all of the books were photocopied off campus to save money on purchasing new books. Then the school housekeeper quit or was fired to save money and the owner started cleaning toilets and mopping floors. Then the receptionist vanished and the replacement receptionist somehow never showed up. An average evening at the school has 5 students in attendance. The writing was clearly on the wall in my opinion. Later on my buddy found out that the apartment that he had been living in that was of course leased by the school owner, had back rent due for 1.5 months and recently the cable TV stopped working and he discovered that it was because the bill was not paid. The school has 3 branches and like many Korean owned schools illegally operating in China, they cannot legally employ foreigners and moreover they are not licensed as schools. They function under the radar operating out of ex-pat communities serving only Koreans and so the Chinese government more or less could care less. Lastly, when it came time to collect his payroll

Two nights ago my buddy called me in need of a shower and a bed for himself, his wife, and their child. My wife and I of course put them up and I am somewhat certain that I have managed to land him a job locally since he is a licensed teacher for K12 out of the USA. Most teachers are usually trusting souls and they believe or they want to believe in goodness when it comes to education. Sadly most ESL operations have one goal in mind. M.O.N.E.Y. This is true regardless of who owns or runs the ESL mill, but in my own personal opinion, Koreans are the worst of the worst in this regard.

Friends dont left friends work for Korean owned or managed ESL schools.