englishgibson
- 2010-08-13
Any anger, especially that of a foreigner on mainland, is not jusfifiable to locals and their authorities. Then, any criticizm of local employers or their system is a suicide for a foreigner on mainland. The SAFEA is a piece of work. It counts on the local culture and the fact that it has been established to regulate the industry. Amazingly, foreigners are to believe they are being served on mainland. I really hope that the international community is following the current situation on mainland and foreign consulates around China are taking notes.
Cheers and beers to the internet that still allows us to share what we experience here
Another disgruntled employee
- 2010-08-12
Taught at BNOFLS in Yangzhou this year and won't go back. They posted our passport numbers on the internet. The foreign affairs department was a nightmare to deal with. We were constantly lied to and rules changed without warning or logical explanation. If a kid is injured in your class, you have to pay for their medical bills. You will be taken advantage of and you will leave angry. Don't waste your time.
I wouldn't recommend this job to a homeless person.
Mahoma Iza
- 2010-04-21
That makes no sense for the standards in here. I know New Oriental is the biggest school in Beijing, but that's twice the money you would get in a very good job. Now, you would have to check what the schedule is, cause they might have you work also twice the time or more, and I still wouldn't believe such a good deal.
ESL4Life
- 2010-04-19
Thought I would bring this topic back from the dead. Recently I saw a job posting from Bejing New Oriental School for a summer camp esl program. 5 Camps, each 8 days long. 6000rmb for each "camp"
Too good to be true? Is this school still the dumps?
micky
- 2009-05-23
Never paid much attention to threads by former employees with a bad teaching experience in China... until I got to hear about this company. Turned down an offer of work and walked away. Never met a foreign teacher yet who had anything good to say about this place. Long hours, lousy pay, lousy management, lousy classes. Gonna be giving this place a wide berth. Suggest you do too.
English Teacher in China
- 2008-03-06
New Oriental in China is the worst company to work for. Don't get involved with this pitiful excuse for a company.
They have, or will ever, deliver on any promise they make to you.
An unhealthy interest in students by some foreign teaching staff and managers is also sickening.
Anon
- 2007-02-04
The 'penitentiary' with this web address:
Eagle
- 2007-01-31
Anon,
Sp sorry to read of your terrible experince. I don't doubt your sincerity or misery for a minute. I have been teaching in China for almost four years, and while I love my students, most schools and "administrators/managers" are complete nightmares!
Could you PLEASE offer more specific information about the place: location, etc., so readers can have a better understanding of the place. A school name like "Beijing New Oriental" is very generic in China, so that name does not tell readers enough.
Thanks! Sorry to learn about your serious unhappiness. I hope you can provide more information, and help future victims.
Best wishes to you...
Eagle
Anon
- 2007-01-30
I've been stuck at this school since August and hated every minute of it.
This company is useless. They don't have a clue. And as for the way they treat their foreign teachers is sickening with the amount of hours or the expected level of commitment to the job - its just not worth it.
Don't go near this place - its the leper colony of schools in China. Stay away.
Cabochon
- 2006-11-15
The simple answer is DON"T WORK FOR BEIJING NEW ORIENTAL !!!!
This company is a joke!
I was actually told the other day by one administrator my TEFL isn't really necessary for this school! Can you believe that??????
So I'm stuck here singing songs everyday or watching movies. Everyone's bitching about how @@@@ it is here. Don't believe the sugar-coated words of recruiters - they'll lie about how great it is here.
I'm waiting for the day the Chinese government closes this place down. Then we'd all be free.
Nick
- 2006-06-08
If this school had just one brain cell it would die of loneliness.
dah
- 2006-06-05
Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School is now officially blacklisted.
Came across an article recently exposing the possible contributing causes of why this should be so. The name of the author and the date was withheld, but I think it was written by someone well connected with the BNOFLS organization itself. This article, and others like it, have appeared in a number of newspapers in China and the U.S., and expose the unethical and immoral practices of BNOFLS.
Allow me to quote the more interesting lines from this article detailing why the E.T.S. is now forced to (rather unfairly) scrutinize the exam results of all Chinese students entering U.S. universities, especially those from BNOFLS which it has a major problem with.
"Mr [--] rewrites an application for a Chinese student seeking admission to an American university, he gets 1,000 yuan, or $120."
"Mr [---] and about 20 other writers are paid by the New Oriental School, a private Chinese institution, which in turn charges students $500 to $1,000 -- a substantial sum in China -- to have their personal statements, resumes, and letters of recommendation doctored."
"... with its no holds-barred approach to getting students placed abroad, the New Oriental School, which is most famous here for its test-preparation courses, seems to epitomize a countrywide pattern of practices that clash with Western educational values."
"... the use of stand-ins, even students who try to play by the rules, are likely to have taken graduate test-preparation courses at the New Oriental School."
"Every day, several messages appear on the New Oriental School's electronic bulletin board with titles like "searching for a male TOEFL gunner [someone who is paid to take an entrance exam in place of the real candidate]." One recent message from a person identified only as "[---]" inquired about a "female GMAT expert" and offered payment of $1,200 for a score above 750 -- well above the average at the top American business schools."
"Three of the biggest companies in the ghostwriting business, including the New Oriental School, rewrote about 1,000 applications this admissions season."
"New Oriental doesn't care too much about its teachers' English-speaking ability. "The most important quality is not substance," says [---], "but communication: the ability to teach, the ability to entertain, and the ability to inspire." [...] "That is why we don't have native speakers as instructors," [---] says.
"The most significant thing New Oriental does, says [---], a student at Peking University, is distribute sample tests. For years New Oriental, like other Chinese test-preparation schools, has been pirating and selling Educational Testing Service publications."
"Some Chinese students get scores on the verbal section of the exam that are wildly out of proportion to their command of English, as measured by anything other than a multiple-choice test."
"New Oriental seems like a strange gateway to the West. On the one hand, it preaches the value of study abroad; on the other, it sends people to the United States who may not be able to communicate once they arrive."
__________________________________
These quotes lifted directly from the original article pose many more questions than answers. However, the most interesting point seems to be the one made about New Oriental not caring too much about its English teachers' English-speaking ability [because] "we don't have native speakers as instructors".
Confirms all doubts that cloud the job description of a BNOFLS foreign teacher; specifically, why a BNOFLS foreign teacher is NOT employed to be an instructor. Then again, with exam results doctored as a matter of routine, perhaps its entirely unnecessary to employ a foreign teacher when the there's such a lucrative business of falsifying results that will guarantee places at U.S. universities providing BNOFLS can continue to fool the E.T.S.
Perhaps it doesn't matter that a native speaker is better equipped to teach pronunciation or can help with building listening or vocabulary skills? Perhaps the skills genuinely essential to good English communication provided by good native speakers is not required of a BNOFLS foreign teacher? Or will this threaten to bring to an end the lucrative 'results for cash' business? Perhaps 'entertainers' or 'performing puppets' would be a more appropriate job description for a BNOFLS native English teacher? It would make the visa application process easier and much cheaper too.
And as for the methods BNOFLS uses to have students' exam results 'wildly out of proportion to their command of English', confirms all the personal accounts of doctoring exam results I've heard from past and present BNOFLS's teachers who are ashamed to be a contributing part of this process.
ST
- 2006-04-18
Re: Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School-WARNING!!!
I was curious to see what other people are saying about BNOFLS after I came across a similar (same?) posting on another web-site. This has just caught my eye, so I'll respond to this one too...
I used to work at the BNOFLS in Yangzhou... or Camp X-Ray as I called it. This school disgusted me and I was sickened at what went on there. I was lucky enough, however, to negotiate an early termination of my contract that enabled me to begin the next job I had already lined-up. (I actually started job-hunting and secured a new post at another institution within several weeks of arriving at BNOFLS when I realised I'd been taken in by a sales pitch that did not mirror the realities of working there, let alone being able to deliver the goods).
This means I had to stomach this school for only one term while I formulated an exit strategy, but I made up for the distinct lack of job satisfaction during that one term by undertaking (non-paid volunteer) teaching jobs off-campus that were far more gratifying than anything BNOFLS was ever capable of producing. These include giving up most of my weekends to teach a student who entered (and won!) the regional English Speaking Competition, as well as having the pleasure to receive one-off invites from various not-so fortunate schools further afield to be a 'guest teacher', to which, I was more than happy to volunteer my services.
What I'm saying, is that only when I was away from BNOFLS did I regain a sense of direction to engage in what anyone can confidently call 'teaching'. When at last, I was mercifully free of BNOFLS I was surprised at how many more opportunities came my way to expand upon my existing activities without feeling like I'm stuck inside a glass box all the time. I had the chance to do cross-cultural seminars (an interesting departure from English teaching), participate in more energetic English clubs, help other schools with preparation and administering examinations, and even help out in classes teaching a language other than English. Being one of two foreign teachers from Yangzhou selected to meet a visiting delegation from the sister city programme was also an honour.
It was great experiences such as these mentioned above that made China such a wonderful country to live and work in and I would recommend it to anyone. Do not be put off by my bad experience of one institution that anyone reading this would probably now want to avoid. China is an amazing country with thousands other great schools!
But if you want to avoid feeling embarrassed every time someone asks you where you work, as I often did, it pays to do a bit of checking beforehand so as to avoid making these types of 'wrong turns'.
ST.
______________________________________
Note: I have deliberately avoided the use of terms that may constitute slander against BNOFLS. Any opinions or impressions formed from reading this post belong entirely the reader. What is written here are my own thoughts based on actual experience.
shanghai-bee
- 2006-04-07
Re: -Warning! Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School
although I have no personal experience with these schools, I've never heard a positive word about it from anyone I've met (I'm based in shanghai).
i don't know why but there seems to be a lot of very unhappy people working at these schools. I wish I had an insight into what is going on there and why the same kind of complaints made by "dah216k" always seem to crop up.
last month I took on some new students in my classes whose parents withdrew their kids from here. I've had to set aside some extra classes just so they can play catch up to the other kids as their english did not develop at all during their two years there. my boss told me the school was more interested in their money than providing a high standard of teaching from -what he called- "backpacker teachers who wander round china".
the few FTs i've met said they treat this school as a 'jumping off point' before entering the teaching market in china/taiwan. if thats the case then ok.
dah216k
- 2006-03-31
Maybe I've never worked at BNOFLS.... you have no way of knowing!
ESL INSTRUCTOR AT BNOFLS
- 2006-02-20
WOW! Here's an example of how a disgruntled employee gets revenge! I guess "venting" is healthy so I hope this guy, who was forced to resign last school year, feels better.
I've worked at BNOFLS for 3 years and I can tell you from personal experience that it's a great place to work. The 20 international teachers of English are well looked after and do a great job of teaching English as a foreign language. So my advice to you all is to disregard "disgruntled's" rage warning and come and join our team here at BNOFLS....you won't regret it!
WARNING~ Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School ~WARNING!
(Do not confuse this with similar-sounding 'New Oriental')
This is a warning for anyone thinking of applying to Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language School, based on personal accounts of present and past foreign teachers. This is a group of schools located in many of China's major cities, but should not be confused with the similar sounding "New Oriental" which is an entirely different operation (Beijing-based New Oriental were sued over the use of the name).
Don't expect your TEFL/TSOL qualification to be of much use here as BNOFLS does not employ foreign teachers to actually 'teach'. While such qualifications are not an important requirement for foreign teachers at many schools around China, this may suit BNOFLS where foreign 'teachers' are not involved in anything that could be reasonably termed as 'teaching' or 'instruction'. English-speaking Chinese instructors assume sole responsibility of the actual teaching role in classes separate from foreign 'teachers'.
Note: they are "instructors", you are not.
Foreign 'teachers' tout BNOFLS's so-called 'new philosophy' for English teaching that is nothing more than a 'gimmick'. Parents demand something more from a school that employes foreign teachers at great expense than playing basic games and songs. OK.., we all do this with our students, but does nothing to develop basic skills. Perhaps BNOFLS, like many schools around China, uses the presence of foreign teachers as 'marketing tools' to enhance 'reputation'. This may explain why foreign teachers have only a subordinate role to play with 'repercussions' for any who dare to move beyond 'established boundaries' that may involve teaching something 'useful' (i.e. 'English teaching'). This, BNOFLS lays down with a myriad of very ambiguous rules and regulations and not a few foreign teachers I speak to complain of intimidation and unsubstantiated warnings issued against them.
There is no credible English teaching program in place for foreign teachers to promote or enhance the language skill of students. Very little emphasis is placed on this, in spite of various so-called 'teacher training' sessions. Although responses to this posting will contradict this, several (off-duty) foreign teachers I speak to say they are actually discouraged from using textbooks in class or from conducting listening exercises as one of many methods to build vocab, develop pronunciation, or as novel way to learn new expressions and phrases.
For any would-be foreign teacher roaming the internet in search of a pathetic job to just 'get by' in China, then maybe this is the ideal school for you. All you have to do is turn up to a class and fill the time with anything you like. But for the rest of us (and I hope that includes the great majority!) who genuinely care about making something of themselves and of their students, BNOFLS is not a great start!
I meet with parents occasionally too, quite a few express grave doubts as to why BNOFLS is not making more effective use of their foreign teachers (i.e. why aren't the foreign teachers actually teaching!!) Again, this comes back to the point made above about English-speaking Chinese teachers who assume the primary English teaching role. This is a particular concern to parents who shell out vast sums of money to send their kids to BNOFLS, having been under some misguided impression that their kids are gonna be taught conversational english by a foreign teacher; check out their advertisement for the most self-contradicting assurance that BNOFLS employs 'quality' foreign teaching staff.
But advertising is one way in which the school maintains a superficial reputation of 'success'. The other, according to not a few foreign teachers, is being told to fabricate exam results as if this is somehow gonna improve future prospects; although this is not necessarily an issue confined to BNOFLS, but is unethical. Pass rates in exams are still higher in state-run schools where the quality of english teaching is generally much higher.
Even though the kids are under great pressure to perform (eight exams in one day towards the end of term) the atmosphere around campus is rigid and inflexible enough to drive some kids and teachers to the point of a breakdown. The workload confines most foreign and Chinese teachers to campus for most of the week, and sometimes with pointless classes during the evenings and weekends too, that achieves nothing for those involved. Complaints of exhaustion and symptoms of depression seem common among teachers here, and for the students, incidents of bullying are becoming more common with reports of verbal and physical attacks against teaching staff (foreign included) too. Needless to say, out of all the (foreign and domestic) BNOFLS teachers I speak to, most are looking forward to the end of their term of contract, leaving BNOFLS to forever advertise for more teachers.
There are thousands of great schools in China where the whole teaching experience is more rewarding and worthwhile. Nobody needs me to tell them that they should shop around for good schools. Things like a credible and practical teaching program that evolves to meet the changing goals of the school as well as being faithful to the expectations of students and parents is one careful consideration.
And while you're at it, make sure its a school that will not switch off the electric or the water in the dead of winter in a vain effort to save money forcing you to wash out of a bucket of cold water !!! Or, a pitiful excuse for a school where foreign teachers 'held hostage' under a harsh regime demands 'fines' and/or other 'penalties' for fabricated 'misdemeanors'.