Couldn't agree with you more in your last post TEFL professional. The problem for me is that I took up employment with the company.

I was very forgiving during the interview process and wished I hand been a lot more probing. Sadly, I took the job only to discover that many details had been "twisted" during the interview.

For example, being told that your pay "includes" lesson planning, holiday time, system updating and travel time might make your ears perk up during an interview. However, discovering when you travel to begin working at the school that you only get paid for the time you teach - i.e. your pay "excludes" lesson planning, holiday time and travel - would come as a real blow. Especially if you have made a massive effort to reorganize your life and paid for your flights and transport.

How this is presented to you when you arrive is that YOU have somehow misunderstood the difference in the meaning of "include" and "exclude". These are of course latin worlds and I'd imagine Spanish speakers would know the fundamental difference in meaning? Nevertheless, the meaning is somehow "lost in translation" and its only you, the native English speaker, whose got it all distorted and misunderstood.

The story goes on: you discover the "5 minute walk to the office" actually takes 15 minutes. 20€ car rental per weekend, is per day of the weekend, with a maximum travel distance of 100KM. "You can afford to eat comfortably for 5€ every day," actually means, you can live on bread and water if you try your hardest. The list goes on, and on.

Basically, what is said during the Skype interview is anything that will get you to go there. Once getting there, the guilt trips are put on you: "we all work 12HR days, don't start thinking your above us in some way?" (I can't remember the mention of 6AM starts and 8AM finishes during the interview either).

To conclude on KOMAlingua, the company is organized by people who take short cuts to hit their quotas and targets without giving a toss about how it affects the lives of teachers who get there only to discover they have been duped by a bunch of tricksters; students are dissatisfied by the high turnover of (especially, native speaking) English teachers.

I've more to add: after working for EF I can't help but wonder if this poor treatment of teachers is a particularly "Swiss" business model since KOMA and EF are both swiss and adopt very similar standardized business models. The goal is quick profit and rapid "global" expansion and marketing and sales departments seem to be the bread winners rather than the teachers who are treated like morons, bossed around, demanded upon and sacked if they can't keep every student happy and clapping.

What keeps good teachers working in such positions of employment? That's the problem! A good teacher cares about their students, makes sure they prepare well, worries about their students learning - normally putting job satisfaction before payment and benefits - these companies recognize this and I honestly believe that this "empathetic" factor is somehow designed into their business models that are more focused on what happens outside the classroom than inside of it.

What we need is more websites that can work as a watchdog for shark-like companies out there. With a rating system that takes into account length of employment, facilities for teachers, companies attitudes and general treatment of employees, healthcare, wages and additional benefits.

(If you cleaver enough to be search for advice on working for KOMA before taking up a position of employment, my advice would to be to keep on searching).