As a current ESL teacher at Web, I implore anyone considering a job at Web to read this. I know it's long, but there are is a lot of important information in it--

I also want to stress that I've had a great time in China. I'm not just writing because I couldn't adapt.

With that said--NEVER WORK AT WEB!!

LOCATION: They told us we would be working in Nantong. We actually work in Rugao, OVER AN HOUR AWAY from Nantong. It took me 3 days just to figure out the name of our town or where we were. There is almost nothing to do in Rugao, and only 2 other foreigners. Since they don't give Chinese lessons and there isn't much of a bar scene, it can be boring and lonely. I actually don't mind it here, but I was lied to about where I would be. And for any foreign teachers who want to be in a big city with lots of foreigners, this could have been devastating.

Foreign Expert Certificate: Many other reviews talked about this problem: they refuse to give it to you, even though by Chinese law it belongs to you (and says so inside the cert!) and it's totally illegal for them to keep it. They flat-out refused to give it to me and couldn't even offer me an explanation because we all knew it was illegal.

VISA: In two separate Skype interviews, They ASSURED me the Z VISA was covered, which is standard in China. When I arrived they said they actually covered the work permit (NOT THE VISA). The contract still used the word "VISA." They finally agreed to give us a small salary raise, which would cover the cost of the visa over the time we worked here, but it took a solid two months to get it all worked out. The dumb thing about it: We still had to pay for the physicals and associated expenses to get the work permit/foreign expert certificate. One of the reasons why they keep the Foreign Expert Cert. is because they get a deposit back when they return it after we leave-- so what exactly is Web paying for when it says it covers the "visa?"

LEGAL WORK: We came to find out that our center in Rugao isn't legally certified to hire foreigners so on paper we really did work in Nantong.

POLICE ISSUES: One day a policewoman followed us home, asked to see our passports, and started inviting strangers (who were also police, I think) into our home. She didn't speak English and made no effort to tell us what she wanted as she photographed out passports. (This is when we found out we weren't legally registered to live in Rugao, nor was Web legally employing us). Also, we didn't have our fucking Foreign Expert Certificates, which they said we would never need.

AGE levels:Web is affiliated with Happy Goal, right next door. My girlfriend works in Happy Goal with 3-12 students-- except that in China they start counting age at 1, not 0. That means that my gf is actually working with 2 year olds. And then they let in younger students-- like 15 month olds.

Chinese Lessons: They said they would give us lessons. They never did.

Communication: they talk about me all the time in Chinese, while I am in the room. They don't think I can understand them, but I pick up a lot from context. They also never tell me anything: one time they told me the night before that I would be teaching a two-hour class outside in the square (which was full of food carts, people flying kites, selling things, and walking dogs). I had to come up with a 2 hour lesson plan to keep a huge group of kids entertained. I was supposed to work with a Chinese teacher, but he didn't tell me about it and then just wanted to know my "plan." When I didn't have one, he refused to work with me and dumped it on someone else, who had even less idea what was going on. I'm here 5 days a week, but no one bothers to tell me anything. They have made ZERO effort to make me feel like part of the team or make friends. Much of the information I need, I find out from my students in class.

Sales pitch: They want a white person like me to make their business look good. All the classrooms have glass walls and my desk is also behind a glass wall. You are treated like a zoo animal (which is why they sometimes have you do these ridiculous "classes" outside Web-- so you can drum up business). It's also definitely racist. Native speakers who aren't white will not get the same amount of respect as I do, being a white person.

Business English: is taught as part of the curriculum, not as a separate elective. That means that any student who reaches a certain level of fluency has to do business English. I have a number of 14 year olds in my class who speak great English but have no connection/understanding of the business world. Most of them won't have their first job for another 8 years or so.

The lessons: are incredibly repetitive, out of date, boring, and worthless. Most of them just rip stuff off of the computer courseware that the student's have already done. Web only cares about making money.

The schedule: We were told it would be NO problem to give my girlfriend and I the same two days off in a row. As it turns out, there was no way they could do that because there is only 1 other foreign teacher between the two businesses. So we have one day off together, and we do NOT have two days off consecutively. That means it's impossible to go somewhere fun for a day or two. Also, my girlfriend's sister wanted to come visit us since she was on vacation, so we wanted to rearrange the schedule A LITTLE so we could see her and visit Beijing: we discussed this with Web and were told this was "no problem." We arranged it so that we wouldn't miss any work, and requested the days off a month in advance, after the plane tickets had already been booked. Suddenly, "it was impossible" to get the time off. I flipped shit, and they finally gave it to us, but then they acted like they were doing us a big favor.

English corner: I was told all lessons were pre-planned, and I would only have to do 1 or 2 English corner lessons (that I plan) each week. On average, I do 4 because there are no other ESL teachers. One week I did 6!! It means I spend a lot of unpaid free time planning activities. They don't have any sort of arts and crafts materials, ideas, suggestions, or supplementary materials to help me.

They pay is not very good: there are two other English schools on the same street and they both pay A LOT more.

Other lies: They gave us the impression that they were desperate for us to get there as soon as possible. We paid extra money for a flight to get out early. We paid extra to expedite both of our Z VISAs (which we thought they were paying for) and raced to China. We got here, and our center supervisor said she wanted to give us time to adjust, so we could have a day off, PAID, then work for a half day, PAID, then have another day off because it was a holiday (also PAID). We didn't officially sign the contract until we'd been here for almost a week, during which time we worked and did training-- When we did sign the contract, the "start date" was changed to the current day, meaning we lost a week of pay, EACH (about $500).

I really love my students, Most people are very nice here (just standoffish in my office). I did make some friends. I don't mind living in Rugao (although it wasn't where I thought I'd be working). When I came here, I was determined to have a good experience, so I was prepared for some of this-- But I would never work here again. I am more than happy to discuss any other questions you might have, so you can email me at Fojam 12 @ gmail dot com. I really want to warn people away from this terrible business.