I have been reading the on going stories about Aston English Schools with mild amusement. I have worked at three different schools over the past four years. I took a break and traveled for a year. I worked in Jinan, Xian and one of the "franchise schools" like you outside of Xian Blake. I saw and experienced a huge difference of treatment in all of these schools. The only school I would recommend is Jinan. Xian is a bad as the posts that I have read here and on their own web site. I never knew Dana as I worked there at a different time than she did.

Blake I hope that you are at a school there that has a better franchise than the one that I had. These franchises are giving Aston a real bad name and many teachers are finding this out. They are no different than any other Chinese run or managed school. The yuan is more important and many franchises only want to use the Aston name. Logo and rep to make as much money as they can. They ignore the class numbers, teachers are told to pass failing students, your are expected to be puppets on a string like the Chinese staff are when it comes to social outings with the franchise Head Master and their friends. I stopped going out to eat with my Head Master as I am not one who likes to drink beer and the rotten "bi jo" and I soon found myself disliked by the Head Master and he wanted a new teacher to replace me. I only had a six month contract and rode it out as the Head Office was not going to send a replacement.

I will say that I had no problems in Jinan but I too had similar problems as Dana and other teachers had in Xian. Yes Xian is not a smoothly run school. Many of the same problems happen there as in the franchise schools. I could go into detail but I will not at this time. Some of us Blake did complain to Dalian, the Head Office but it did no good.

People if you are going to work with Aston English I would only go to Jinan and do not go to a franchise school because they are profit driven like any other Chinese type school. Aston has lost a lot of the good name we worked