Hello everyone,

Despite several requests for this recruiter to stop contacting me (due to a previously disingenuous approach) this email has given me the opportunity to strongly discourage candidates from applying for the role at Suzhou Dongwu Foreign Language Teachers College (Jiangsu Province). All of the following can be substantiated with email, text message and picture evidence which I will be detailing on various ESL teaching websites.

A brief overview –

1) Late wage payments on more than one occasion.

2) The school / recruiter may send you pictures of an apartment they claim you will be living in – you will actually be in a badly converted dormitory room on site. During the holiday periods your utilities will be cut off or heavily reduced. A leaky roof went completely unrepaired for five months which meant that the room temperature plummeted during the winter. Despite repeated requests, nothing was done about it. Extremely unhygienic external kitchen facilities (not in the apartment itself). Large periods without hot water, including the first eight days upon arrival at the school.

3) You will likely be sent pictures of another school on the site – they are different entities. The Dongwu facilities are much worse – students have no access to electricity outside of their classrooms, despite the students boarding on-site. No internet access for teachers in the classroom.

4) ‘Foreign Language Teachers College’ is a misnomer. Only a very low percentage of the students in this school go on to become teachers. The students in this school have failed their jongkao and will not even be attempting their gaokao examination. This unfortunately leads to a large number of disinterested students having to study a full curriculum right up until the ages of 21-22, without the usual freedoms of their peers from the nearby universities. Absolutely no curriculum or guidance from senior management. There will be either no exam for your classes, or it will be handled by a different member of staff.

5) If you are teaching the oldest year group at the school in the Winter Semester, you will not be teaching them in the New Year as they ‘graduate’ (sic). Your hours will be made up in a Primary School nearby (30 minutes by car each way). I was informed by the Primary School that the school receives a substantial sum of money for this, but you will not be recompensed in any way.

6) The School tried to claim that they were not liable for refunding a return airfare ticket – despite it being standard ESL practice and written into the contract. It took a meeting outside of the Foreign Affairs department with more senior members of staff to get this resolved.

7) Unfortunately, it seems that someone has already signed a contract for one of the two open positions – but true to Dongwu form, that contract is for 5,500 yuan – a full 500 yuan a month less than we were contracted for. There is a current incumbent who will be on the better contract. This School is by no means struggling for money.

8) All immigration issues will need to be resolved by the Foreign Teacher – even basic issues such as short term extensions of a Visa, which if the School chose to involve itself would be a fairly complicated process. Beyond the first week, you will have little or no contact with the Foreign Affairs department, so if you are a first-timer in China you may require significant start-up help from outside parties.

There are number of other serious issues that we will be detailing elsewhere – some potentially libellous therefore omitted here. All the above can be substantiated.

Sorry for joining in the spam – but I would discourage anyone in the clearest possible terms to avoid this role.

Kind regards