I must say what an interesting posting this is. It seems like people have finally woken up to the fact that the majority of E.F.'s are a load of tripe!
Though your posting is based on their new methods of trying to recruit teachers, I would also like to mention how (most of) thier language centres are only interested in taking their customers money every 8 weeks.
I am an ESL teacher with said company, and it annoys the hell out of me when for (all my best efforts) a student unfortunately fails a particular course. Naturally, one would assume they would be asked to re-sit that level, perhaps at a discounted rate as a sign of customer care and the like. No! Because of a fear that they will lose that customer they just take the money and put him/her up into the next level. Said customer obviously struggles even more at the higher level, but once again the management tell us to pass them through, so they keep on paying.
A prime example has happened just recently where I work. A student did a placement test and was placed at pre-intermediate level. His teacher for that level said he just scraped though, he failed the next level, but got put through to the next course, and this trend continued until the student reached the end of the upper-intermediate books. This totals about 7 or 8 courses. He then wanted to take a conversation class, because he was struggling with learning the grammar. He was asked to retake his placement test and he scored 5 points higher than when he originally had done it before, which would have placed him back in the same class for a General English course!
I am not blaming the teachers, they all highlighted early on that the student wasn't good enough, and the work was too hard for him. My gripe is with the management for just wanting to take his money. I would also like to say this is an isolated incident, but the truth is that it isn't.
Our boss even told us at a staff meeting, first and foremost you must remember 'THIS IS A BUSINESS'. Does that mean we have to compromise on quality? Shouldn't we aimed to maintain standards? These kind of questions are greeted with a snigger.
Thank you for your time, and enjoy your day.
DY