I want to start by saying that teaching English in China, or other parts of Asia is a wonderful thing. Do it if you can.

Just don't teach at EF Dongguan. Here are a few reasons why:

1) If you wish to see China while working here, think again! You are required to work a "40 hour work week" as a foreign teacher at EF Dongguan, and they hold you to it! Funny thing is that most foreign teachers in China average 20 working hours per week with plenty of time off for travel. Thats why so many people do it. Not at EF Dongguan. Even if you aren't teaching because they don't have enough students, they have time-waisting duties like Duty Interviewer (usually a 10 hour shift waiting for prospective students to come in, then you can interview them for 5 minutes. It is a regular occurrence to have only one or two interviews the WHOLE DAY! What a waist.) and Duty teacher. You are required to work 5 days per week for 7 months of the year, then 6 days per week the other 5 months! Additionally, when you "only" have to work 5 days per week, you will RARELY (I say rarely because it only happened for me twice in nearly an entire year) have two days off, meaning that you usually have split days off. This leads me to my next point;

2) THEY have the control - The Center Manager, Gary, and the Director of Studies, Wesley [deleted], will NOT under any circumstances do the right thing FOR THE TEACHER. A common saying at the end of my time was that it didn't matter if it was my day off or not, if they wanted me to work, I had to come in. No questions asked. If you become ill, they require a doctors note, or you are nicked two days salary. No questions. The schedule is set up where you have a class in the afternoon, maybe for an hour or two, then another class 2 hours later for two hours. They count that as "only" 3 hours, I count it as 7 hours that I can't do anything else.

3) The managers aren't truth tellers. They WILL tell you ANYTHING to get you to teach there. Right now, I'm told, many of the teachers are either leaving, or about to leave. These managers manipulate others, and I believe take advantage of blokes who don't have a college education. They will tell you that you HAVE to have this Visa, or that you must come now! Not true. The Visa that they obtain is the preferred Visa, but you can, and most do, teach in China without it. Don't let them fool you. I have, and many of my friends have taught using other visas.

4) I will not include this, since it is more feeling and personality disputes between myself and four other former FT's with Wes and Gary, however, if you want further information, you can email me. I will get you teachers information that are there now. i guarantee when they see this, they will sit each of the teachers currently there and tell them they will detain or deport them if they say bad things about EF Dongguan. I GUARANTEE IT!

There were three good things about EF Dongguan:
The visa was very good. No problems with it. That said, I've been, and know many others with different visa's that work just fine.
They paid on-time every month, albeit some mystery fees and the requirement to get a bank account that they had access to (kindof weird)
and last, was that I don't work there anymore.

I'm still teaching English in Asia, but will do whatever I can to help others to not make the mistake I made by working at EF Dongguan. The most manipulative school in all of China.