I taught at Jinan-Aston in their five week summer program in 2006. After teaching there for one day, I knew I had made a bad decision. Aston is NOT the place for an experienced professional career ESL teacher.

This reply on the discussion forum regarding Aston dated October 2009 is still relevant.

Re: Aston
By:courselite
Date: 13 October 2009
In Response To: Re: Aston (Bud Wisner)

Maybe there's a glass ceiling to the lucrative TEFL industry and short-term profits are all there really is to make, so a shrewd businessman would get as much as he could while the goings are good. And how could a chain school rely on the quality of teachers to uphold the business even if they were willing to pay top dollar for them? Who really wants to be a career English teacher for kiddies in China or elsewhere in Asia anyway? Most folks with anything going on would probably get out of it after a few years, at which point theyve experienced living overseas in exotic Asia, and theyve got what non-financial rewards theyre going to get from being a teacher/babysitter.

Given the reality of the situation, schools like Aston may just be taking the most direct and wise course. Theres no need to coddle more talented teachers when fresh recruits are queuing up for a chance to teach, and Aston has taken steps to insure that an average person without any serious personality disorders should be able to do a passable job of teaching using their structured curriculum, syllabus, and teaching materials.

On the other hand, schools like Aston have everything in place to change their course and provide a better quality of life for their teachers and hence better instruction for their students while still making a sound profit. They havent raised their teachers salaries in over four years, but the tuition for students has more than doubled in that time, which means theres a lot of profit to reallocate into teacher pay and benefits. The result would be a happier workforce and more satisfied students/customers, and the improvement in the quality of education Aston offers would help to sustain it a bit longer when the TEFL bubble bursts.

Two ways to make money here: strategies for maximal profit which sideline quality of teaching (like a fast food restaurant that starts serving crappy food assuming its not as important as their mascot, interior design, and advertising jingles); strategies for profit based on insuring and improving quality of teaching in conjunction with improved curriculum and having something to advertise in the first place other than a foreign carbon-based unit in front of a chalk board. Astons put too much money and effort into the packaging and is short shrifting the contents.

If I were on their board Id suggest investing more money into the teachers. Now Aston is like a ball team that pays its players squat, and thinks it doesnt matter if they lose every game as long as theyre out there in their positions in uniforms. But how can it not matter? Teaching is a service industry, and the service is in the class and its the most important thing.

Lastly, schools like Aston can offer a humanitarian service all around, providing needed English education and thus creating all sorts of opportunities for Chinese students, while also providing decent jobs and opportunities for squadrons of would be teachers. Instead, the teachers are overworked and come out of it breaking even, and the students get jokers for teachers. And all that needs to be done is tweaking a screw to fix the problem.