smiler
- 2010-08-05
Has anyone been reading the threads on this link ?
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=877230
Seems like there is one person defending hampson.
during my short time with hampson, I did get to know a few so called hampson teachers whom I soon found out were
not the sort of people most decent folk would wish to befriend BACK STABBERS.!! where I come from, we call them ARSE HOLE LICKERS.
they are the types who would sell their own mother down the river. they know what hampson are like, and are happy to defend and make a false impression to please their masters.
maybe they are after promotion, or have connections within the company
the posting below is certainly the biggest load of bullshit I have yet read on these forums,
I wonder why this person has not posted on THIS forum, after all it has the biggest thread regarding Hampson English school.
I certainly smell a RAT, and I'm very sure if one digs deeper, then much more will surface.
tianjinrobbie
Joined: 31 Jul 2010
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 2:58 am Post subject: Reply with quote
I have to disagree with the statements made about Hampson to be honest.
I have worked here for just over a year now, I am employed as a full time teacher not part time. I enjoy paid national holidays as well as 2 weeks paid holiday for travel. I get sick pay, unless I cancel classes on the day. I get paid my salary regardless of any time spent not teaching and also enjoy 3 bonuses a year. They applied for and got my visa to which they absorb the cost too.
The staff at Hampson are very good, or at least in my experience working else where are anyway. The schedule is pretty good, I work 40 hours a week and have 2 days off.
It is true that being a training centre, you do have to give demos in order to get students, but I think its fair to say that is true of any training centre at the end of the day. If you do not like the way training centres operate then I think the old saying 'Horses For Courses' applies here, you should be thinking about working in a school instead.
It is also true that they take a deposit from you initial salary as security, I do not have an issue with that. They will pay that back if you decide to leave and the reason they have to take one is because on many occasions there have been teachers who have just disappeared without giving them any warning, leaving them in the position of having annoyed students turning up for classes without teachers which can and often does result in loosing the business, personally I think the deposit is fair and justified.
As for the bit about refunds, that is technically not correct. If a teacher basically takes the p@@s and does not teach the classes properly, keeps talking on their mobile phone during the lesson, spends the vast majority of the lesson watching movies with the student or whatever then the student has the right to complain they are not happy, and rightly so, and the teacher has to teach the class again free of charge. So the bottom line is if you are a competent teacher and do your job properly you have nothing to worry about. Hampson are not stupid, they know there is the possibility that students may try to manipulate that clause. Everything you do during the lesson you record notes in a teaching book which each student has so they can see what you have been doing during the lesson. Also the classrooms are glass so people can see what you are doing and the SA's at Hampson keep an eye out for things too. Plus there is your overall track record, if all bar one of your students is very happy and one makes a complaint like that.......o_O I have yet to see anyone working here be put in the situation of having to repeat any classes at all.
And they also do not 'expect' teachers to be on site for prearranged blocks of time as such either, if they have a demo for you they will call you and ask if you can come in to do it, they will try their best to arrange your demos within the same time period, however some things are beyond their control, so if a student cannot come in at a particular time, and you do not want to hang around they will give the demo to someone else instead, theres no rules saying you have to sit twiddling your thumbs all day.
It doesn't take most teachers long to build up a schedule and they will often give you demos when they know you are in. In general, it tends to be teachers who come in dressed like they are going to a rave or festival that tend to find it difficult to get students and/or demos because they project the wrong image to the students. Hampson does not enforce a shirt and tie policy like for example Wall Street English do, but they do expect, again quite rightly so, that teachers at least dress sensibly and project the right kind of look, they are a business in the education sector after all, not a nightclub.
Another inaccuracy posted here is the timeframe for the demo, demos usually last for around 10 to 15 minutes, or at least the time spent with the teacher is around 10 to 15 minutes at least. The SA will discuss things with the student before and after the teacher has done their part and the demo is about working out the students requirements, their strengths and weaknesses and making a few suggestions, not really about 'teaching a class' How can someone just sit down and start teaching a class to someone they no nothing about!!!
As for the part time salary being false advertising, again, completely inaccurate. There are part time teachers at the Tianjin outlet who easily make that kind of money. Hampson open at 10am and close at 9:30pm.
Now granted to earn that kind of money you have to be there for a long day but that is your choice, you can teach as many or as few classes as you wish here. My god, people work in the UK, as I am sure they do in the states too, and on top of their general working day, do overtime to earn extra money. Same kind of thing really, you want to earn more money you work longer hours.
As for visas being fictitious, anyone that wishes to pop in to Hampson and ask about the visas, I will be happy to show you mine. Granted not ALL staff at Hampson know the ins and outs for visas, but thats not their job. Beijing deal with the visa process and have staff there that specifically deal with that aspect of things, for example Michelle in Beijing.
I would recommend Hampson to anyone. I am very happy there and they give me no reasons to want to think about changing employment at all. Given the sheer amount of back street, cut throat setups there are in China and your chances of getting screwed over when teaching in this country, Hampson are pretty damn good at what they do. You cannot expect everything to be just like working for a company back home but Hampson come pretty close in my opinion. QED
Imperial Historian
- 2010-08-03
I am the Imperial Historian of the crappy Hamster English Dynasty in China, and in that capacity I have done a lot of profound research on the past history of crappy Hamster English.
The real story behind that history made me travel to the seaside in the North Eastern part of China. I even traveled along the coast and learned more about the tides - you know, that means the sea coming and going - and how that phenomenon of nature relates to the great history of our great crappy Hamster English Dynasty. I have recorded it in the Historical Court Annals for everyone before and after us to see and read about.
The origins of our great Hamster English Dynasty go back as far as 150 B.C., and everything began with a small building erected near the seaside at the coast in a fishers' village by the name of Hamster English. There was a strange reaction to that by the sea....
The coast is a piece of land encircled by lots of waters you commonly call "sea". And this is where the tides - low and high tide - both come in: When the founders of that Hamster English Dynasty erected their first building at the coast, the sea was very much afraid of them, and so the sea decided to withdraw and went back. And since the sea was really anxious to see this crappy Hamster English Dynasty disappear from what it regarded its very own land, the sea now came back twice a day to look if those people of the crappy Hamster English Dynasty were still there.
Somehow, strangely enough, crappy Hamster English managed to survive for millenia and centuries but the first emperors of crappy Hamster English dynasty in China were eager to expand their empire from the coast to the inner part of China. That is why the moved to places like Beijing.
This had an impact on further Chinese history: It is because of crappy Hamster English why there are low and high tides with the sea coming and going at the Chinese coast. And it was because the sea was afraid of those aliens from Mars planet that the sea went but came back to see whether these aliens are still there.
These days, the sea will come back again to look if they still are there....
Howgh, I have spoken!
By the Imperial Historian, quoted from the "Historical Records of Crappy Hamster English", Vol. III, Chapter 12.
American Teacher
- 2010-08-03
I cannot completely confirm that story about wearing stickers at Hamster English.
That is because some of the higher ups there also wear badges made of toilette paper with "I am so important, and our toilette paper contracts are the best in China" written on them.
But in principle, you are right, they also wear those stickers and the meanings associated with them as you and the smiler poster have rightly pointed out....
Crappy Hampson
- 2010-08-03
Your interpretation of the stickers they wear is actually much better than mine, and yours has many more details....Very good post!
For a PhD, they ask their students to write "I am so intelligent and a genius" 4000times on toilette paper which will be their PhD thesis submitted to the illiterate bosses of Hamster English. PhD candidates at Hamster English are also required to take an oral exam which they call "disputation". In this disputation, students are required to whisper like a horse with the bosses responding in grunting like a pig. The secretary then makes a chicken, and the door guardian responds like a cow. The PhD candidate has passed the disputation when he was able to respond in all these animal languages.
That's the difference between Hamsters and (real reputable) Hampson English, the latter of which does not exist yet and may never come.
Now you know why they only teach Chinglish, horse and cow and other animals' languages at Hamster English but no real English!
Hamster English is really the place to study and to work for, so please do not "slander name of this great schoollllll"!...LOL
smiler
- 2010-08-03
You forgot to state what colour stickers, not that it really matters, they change things so often !
wearing a black sticker warns others to keep well away, it means this person is completly brain dead! KNOWS NOTHING !
A white sticker means, this person has just started working for Hampson, it also means they failed at University, and of course they are best suited working for crappy Hampson.
someone wearing a blue sticker means they have had the highest training and come from Beijing. THEY KNOW just enough English to
say simple sentences, like. how much money to you have, how big is it.. can I see it later. please sign this toilet paper contract.
Yes, the bosses do wear three stickers, but this is sometimes four or even five. for four stickers it means, I have a B,A degree, in illiterate English, B.A also means Brainless. Arsehole.
five stickers means , I have a P.H.D, I am a little more stupid than the person below me! P.H.D means. Professional.Head.Dummy.
The bosses like to have bright colours usually yellow,red and orange, THEY LOVE TO BE NOTICED. Look at me, I'm a caveman in a suite. I should be transported via time machine,back to the stone age
To obtain a B.A or P.H.D . one has first to meet the right person, take out for a meal. if it is a woman, then be expected to be invited back to her place for some tender loving, you know what. then it's just a matter of handing over some money, and your quids in !!
it is custom for them to change colours, rules and almost anything else, when it pleases them, without notice to others !!!!
Crappy Hampson
- 2010-08-02
Hampson English seem to have a strange etiquette regarding corporate identity - their employees are forced to wear stickers while at work:
Wearing one sticker means that it is a person who can write but cannot read.
Wearing two stickers means that it is a person who can read but cannot write.
And for the bosses wearing three stickers, it means they only know somebody who can read and write but they can't do it themselves.
This is something I know from hearsay only. Are you, American Teacher, able to confirm that?
And what are your experiences, smiler, in this respect?