foxy
- 2012-11-14
Sorry guys for being late to respond but I very rarely check out forums like this.
So, pal - pray reveal what kinda forums you check out.
Maybe it's some of the other ESL/EFL boards that are moderated in favor of their patrons. You can't trust them either.
I suppose a grain of salt is needed when reading ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING posted online.
So, in the circumstances, I reckon your post seems to be RATHER POINTLESS!
Individual
- 2012-11-14
Sorry guys for being late to respond but I very rarely check out forums like this. I appreciate the words of the respected contributors and treat every post like it might be genuine, but lets face it, anyone can write anything at anytime......don't you agree? After all my cousin Bob shot JFK.
For all the lies written by people pretending to be extremely satisified, loved-up employees, don't you suppose there can be an equal number of people pretending to be mistreated and manipulated. For example:
'I have worked here for a few years and generally things are good, the school is very supportive, the boss a good guy and the pay fantastic compared to everywhere else,'.........or
'I worked there for a short time and got out as fast as possible, things were terrible, the school was awful, the management only cared about money and I felt like a slave,'............
can you guess the time difference in the typing of the two different opinions above? About four seconds because I blew my nose.
Do we as teachers have accountability on here? We should have.......I'm not proposing to know a cure for either illness but lets face it, complaints travel faster than compliments, I think and believe we should all read what we read with a pinch of salt and think for ourselves. If you're applying for a job, ask every question under the sun in different forms and check consistency. There isn't much you can do, I could walk into a job interview anywhere in the world and take the boss for his/her word only to find I was misled, I could also pass down a job anywhere in the world only to learn through future colleagues that the job was great.
Again, apologies for being late, but I wish that the world was perfect, nobody would lie and I wouldn't be weeks late with replies :) Best wishes to you all
Dragonized
- 2012-10-26
I'll tell ya, the last time I worked at a training center, I was stuck in a rut where the boss (who had been trying for months to lower my pay since she thought I was getting too much) decided to dock my pay due to some made up reason. I was in low finances, did not have enough money to pay for my own airfare back, and really needed a job even if it was working in china. I had a studio apartment, made a few friends, and finally felt a bit settled in the city I was living in at the time.
I decided to walk into the office the next day to tell them I was going to quit, and that was that.
There are some things more important in life than money. I found that the more training centers or international schools I went to, the less I liked working at these places and the sooner I would quit. The shortest time I was ever at one was 1 week, and I regret going there in the first place to work, should've just gone there for vacation.
Honestly, even at the best job I had in china which was at a public school I felt that in china there was nothing left for me, and it was sucking the life force out of me. I will stop at nothing to share the 5 years experience I have had working overseas and to tell the truth on everything I know about.
The foreign expats who make extra money simply for looking the part and kissing up to their bosses including writing lies on discussion forums like this can kiss my @$$. You can fool me once or twice, but writing nonsense eventually exposes all of you for the lowlifes that you all really are.
It's good that other posters have reminded everyone of the puppet show that GW's run, whatever they say about places like EF cannot change the fact that they willingly worked for them and are to be distrusted completely.
Magister
- 2012-10-26
Which school/location was it that your friend was posting fake reviews for?
In regards issues of censorship, this board is freely available in China so just post everything here. As far as I'm aware blogspot is banned altogether in china so unless like me teachers have a VPN then yes it will be inaccessible.
From fake wine, grades, certificates to fake reviews!
BKC Moscow, China, Dave's ESL Cafe, China ESL, ESL Teachers Board, Disney English, EF, English First, English First Employment Scam, EF Hangzhou, EF Hangzhou Blacklist�
I recently spoke a colleague in China, and he told me the boss just paid him 1000rmb to do some extra work and I thought it was very dodgy. He did not want to tell me, and he told me was doing some online promotion for the company.
I was under the assumption that maybe, perhaps for once this will be legitimate. He asked me if I had heard of Dave's ESL cafe, China ESL and ESL Teachers Board. I said of course, as I've seen them online and I have posted on some of these sites myself.
I asked him why is he getting so much extra to do marketing, he told me he just needs to post jobs on these websites. A few days ago, I saw his nickname that he uses for Skype on one of these boards and it was a review about the school he is working for. I told him that someone is using his name and that it's a huge coincidence that they have the same name as his Skype name. I caught him out and demanded he started telling me the truth. He finally told me, that he is getting 1000rmb extra per month to post fake positive reviews on websites to counteract any negative impacts and that it was the owner's idea.
He told me that he needed the money and he knows it's bad, but it's easy money and good money to be made easily.
EF and certain other companies are actually doing this. They would normally like to employ foreign teachers to do this, but cannot do so, therefore they are choosing teachers with a good level of native English. The reviews online are blocked in China, but they know and understand that many of the applicants have access to a vast scope of information from their home countries which cannot be hidden or deleted. They are also unable to sue.
As a result, they have decided that this is the best option. He told me that the DOS is also doing it and normally gets paid for this, but the DOS doesn't have time. So in this instance, they have employed him.
See full story here: http://ef-hangzhou-china.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/from-fake-wine-to-fake-reviews.html