Tom
- 2009-08-27
All you say, I found to be true from my short time with them. From that experience and speaking to others with longer experience I would advise if any teacher is thinking of working for about 6000 after tax and other deductions on 8000 for a 40 hour week, just be careful of one person, a certain Candy an ageing spinster who has been rumoured to be the evil genius behind this iffy venture. She will be sickenly nice to you as she lies about everthing but can change her colors at a stroke. She is supposed to be only in charge of foreign teachers but nevertheless thought to be one of the owners. If you are looking for a warm friendly experience in China this not the place Buddy.
Jeffrey Christenson
- 2009-06-19
I didn't even get to educational merit.
The core, or mandatory lessons may be attended out of order, but this is not such a problem as they are neither progressive nor related in material.
The core plans are also often plagiarized from Cambridge textbooks, but only a few pages from on chapter, often missing the language point entirely.
The optional classes for the students called "salons", are just either a topic or a game. Either way they are neither progressive, nor related. Sometimes they have so little to do with a language point that they involve making up stories, even for beginner level students.
Some of the stated objectives of these lesson plans are to build on what the students have been learning in the text. First of all there is no text, only computer software. Second of all the teacher is not aware of what they have been learning as we don't view the software.
The objectives of the plans are often ambiguous. Some of the objectives just don't make any sense at all.
Some of the lesson plans contain errors in spelling, grammar, usage, and other errors that tell me they were not written by native English speakers.
The teachers keep the same relative schedule, but the students are never able to book exact times and days consistently. The result is that a student may have 4 classes, unrelated in material, taught by 4 different teachers, in the week or two they can pack 4 classes into.
The teacher who has a student in their class has no record or idea of what classes they've previously attended unless it was their own class.
Salon classes are scheduled randomly, and not in order. The result being that out of the 30 lesson plans per level, they are repeated again and again without ever being fully cycled through. This is bad for the students but even worse for the teacher who may need to teach the same exact lesson plan several times in the span of one week.
The VIP students have it the worst.
They pay up to 3x what regular students pay, and this guarantees them many salon classes per day. Unfortunately the school often doesn't schedule many salon classes of their level in a given day. So they end up attending classes which are one or more levels below, or above their own.
VIP students also tend to hit upon the same salon class again and again as they stay in the same level for several months, and take up to 5 classes per day.
The number of students I've spoken with who are outraged with the value of their education at Witty International English is staggering.
If you're looking for a feeling of a job well done, look elsewhere.