Regarding EF Academic Partnerships - Shanghai Normal University

As the current director of studies for the department, I must express grave misgivings at some of the highly erroneous opinions expressed in this thread and bring to all readers’ attentions the fact that this 'information' has seriously damaged our recent operations. During the course of the dialogue, the following allegation have been made, paraphrased for brevity, to which I feel it necessary to provide refutations:

teachers will need to work evenings and weekends

This is, and has never been the case in our department; we follow a Monday to Friday 08.00 - 16.35 timetable as prescribed, by the university schedule, at the beginning of each academic term. Terms are 17 weeks long and teachers have (unsalaried) breaks in the winter and summer in which to travel, return home or take other work as they see fit.

teachers are paid 7,000 - 10,000 RMB

Our starting salary is 11,000 RMB and end of contract bonuses are available to all staff.

teachers do not get paid on time

All teachers are paid on the 30th of every month, or the last Friday of the month, without fail.

teachers often work illegally, using temporary or business visas

This is never the case and an experienced team processes each new teacher's documents thoroughly, adhering to legal visa requirements. I am responsible for recruitment at department level and can guarantee this to be the case.

teachers are 'salesmen' for the courses and must participate in sales-orientated activities such as open classes and demonstration classes in shopping areas

We are effectively sub-contracted by the university, as qualified foreign experts, to provide courses, in university classrooms, that meet the undergraduate mandatory syllabus requirement of oral English classes. There is no requirement for us to 'sell' our classes in any way whatsoever and none of the alleged activity ever occurs.

provided accommodation is sub-standard

We provide new teachers with on-campus hotel accommodation on arrival for a short time and substantial support with finding their own accommodation, including an optional, interest-free start-up loan and local assistants for dealing with landlords and agencies.

there is no training given to teachers and no creativity is encouraged

We operate a timetabled, bonus related observation / feedback and appraisal system that is designed specifically to develop teachers' individual needs. Furthermore, two-day orientation and (approximately) four-times per term input sessions address areas such as fundamental classroom skills, aspects of learner theory and approaches and methods, for example.

Only start-of-term lessons (weeks one and possibly two) are provided and, thereafter, teachers create all plans and materials themselves. Teachers plan classes individually and in groups and are, more than encouraged, actually required to exercise creativity with providing options and extensions to activities in order to respond to the varying needs of our students.

DoS's are under-educated, unqualified and inexperienced

I can only speak for myself here; I have a degree in English language and literature, a CELTA teaching certificate and a Trinity TESOL diploma. I subscribe to EFL journals, regularly participate in online EFL discussions, follow leading industry professionals online and undertake voluntary personal development studies. In total, I have nearly twenty years teaching and management experience.

I am extremely proud of the high quality of the classes that our department has been providing in the two years that I have been there and glad to report that many of our staff regularly sign for second or third-year contracts, out-performing the general TEFL industry trend for staff turnover. Teachers enter our team at all sorts of developmental levels and we endeavour to provide a working environment that supports them personally and progresses them professionally. The department generates an environment of thoughtfulness and discussion about language and teaching that is genuinely invigorating for those who enjoy the challenges of EFL work. A teacher who has moved on to another country emailed me this week, in fact, to say that he has been successful in a recent interview due, largely, to training and conversations that we undertook last academic year.

As a direct consequence of this thread, and from participating in it, I strongly suspect that a new recruit to our team dropped out of the recruitment process at the last minute, causing us serious inconvenience with respect to visa administration and so forth. Furthermore, the discussion has caused anxiety within other new teachers and I am now spending valuable time allaying their fears. I would strongly urge any future contributors, therefore, to make sure that they are certain of their facts before posting and thank you for taking the time to read this.

Michael