http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sd/2012-09-06/100825113169.shtml

Some of you may have already seen the original broadcast of this story on CCTV 2 a couple of weeks ago but for those that haven't and for those that don't speak adequate Chinese here is a brief synopsis of points covered in the consumer watchdog style show 'economy and law' regarding the business practices of EF English First the self styled largest private education provider in the world.

The show starts with several complaints by former adult students mainly surrounding sales staff over promising on what students can achieve. In one case a recent university graduate is told that ef has contacts with major international companies and that the student will have the opportunity to be introduced to and even find a job with these companies. These students quickly see through such rubbish and seek to get a refund (one student had paid as much as 30,000rmb in course fees). EFs adverts and contracts clearly state that students can get a no questions asked refund within the first 14days. However, as the show goes onto demonstrate getting your money back is rather more difficult than that. I'd strongly recommend watching the part of the show where the sales girl firstly gives a brief English class by trying to define the terms 'reason' and 'conditions' and then goes onto to tell the student that his reason for wanting a refund is 'bullshit'. As the student was well within the 14 day cooling off period he was quite right to tell her he needn't provide any reason.

EFs sales methodology seems to be
1. Over promise / lie to the customer
2. Fail to deliver
3. Breach the contract
4. Insult the customer

The show then moves onto examine teaching standards and the people that ef employs as fts. An undercover camera takes us into a classroom with a ft who during a 40min class is said to have spoken at most 10 sentences to his students. fair enough you might say if he is practicing some kind of observation technique that will allow him to provide feedback at a later time. At the end of the class you then see the ft giving feedback to the undercover student and telling him that his level is good and he should attempt a higher level class. The teacher then returns to the office where he is expected to provide feedback to the student via the ef website. When the student sees that the teacher has given him a very low score on the website he returns to the school to confront the teacher who simply shrugs it off by saying that he can't remember who the student is.
Criticism is then aimed at the qualifications and nationality of foreign teachers at ef. Again a large part of the problem seems to be with sales staff telling new students lies, in this case that all teachers come from England, the USA or Canada and that they all hold Cambridge teaching certificates (CELTA, DELTA, etc). A foreign teacher at ef is kind enough (via Skype) to put that load of old #### to rest. The same informer goes onto to describe a shoddy interview process and a lack of basic training for staff.

The final part of the show goes onto suggest that two EFs in shanghai are employing foreigners without having the proper licenses to do so. There are general references to the rules, procedures and expectations for hiring foreign experts that are laid down by the SAFEA and it is clearly shown that EF is in breech of these codes.

The link for the video is at the top of the page. I'd welcome any addition or correction at my attempt to translate the basic gist of the show