Re: Gallop International English School, Xi'an (CHi Cheng international English School)

N A S T Y ! ! !

Re: Gallop International English School, Xi'an (CHi Cheng international English School)

The fact is Gallop Was founded in 2006 so you saying that you have been there for 3 years IS BULL SH*T! OBVIOUSLY WRITTEN BY SOMEONE AT THE SCHOOL

2012 REVIEW
DO NOT WORK AT THIS SCHOOL ! the owners are CORRUPTED CROOKS and treat you like S**T.

THIS IS DATED 2012 And the School is the worst place you could possibly work at.DO NOT WORK AT GALLOP INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL they also call themselves CHi Cheng international English School. I have attached three photo's of the horrible evil people you would unfortunately meet The PICTURE ON THIS REPLY IS OF OUR BEDROOM full of Mould that we told them about when it was a leak and they NEVER DID ANYTHING the picture is the room when we left.The Dark patch in the corner goes all the way up to the ceiling and across the room.

The three people in the pic at the bottom:The first calls himself BBC stands for Big Boss Chen this guy is the worst one of them all he uses your visa's to buy cars illegally from South China we found documentation in their office with our names on for 7 cars from south China. He does it for tax evasion which is very illegal in China. The second guy is LBC little boss Chen. He is supposed to be your liaison between you and the boss as the boss of an English School can't speak any English! he will lie to your face and bulls**t you as much as the bosses that problems will get sorted etc.He is their front man who lies to you and manipulates you into thinking that they are helping you etc when really they couldn't care. the last one is Mrs Wong now she is the balls of this criminal operation she controls everything. Her and BBC are married though she has his balls in her purse. She is the reason why your wages are short each month with strange charges which conflicts with the contract. When you raise this with them they either shout at you or they just don't answer your questions, say ok we will get back to you in 2 days but they never do and it never gets sorted as your teaching way over the contracted hours as you will read bellow. ANY GOOD REVIEW OF THIS SCHOOL IS COMPLETE BS! WRITTEN BY THE SCHOOL! WE left the school without telling them, they constantly threatened us tht if we leave we would be arrested, charged money , be in China illegally if you want to go somewhere else. This is BS we are safe home in England working and making sure nobody works there. We left the school without telling them and the sad owner BBC told the Chinese staff that we are stuck in China because he cancelled our visas. This is a perfect example of how they lie and manipulate people. What a SAD man he is. My reply to Xian'ren has a picture of the people I mention above .

Bellow we have written about our experience at Gallop in Xi'an which we have left because of the mistreatment we received. There are foreign teachers still there right now who are thinking of doing the same thing so its not just our experience. Some maybe directed at our agency who we are furious at who set us up with this place and ripped us off £500 DO NOT PAY AN AGENCY TO GO TO CHINA you can do a TEFL for 250 or something and go their that way, PICK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO AND CONTACT THE SCHOOL DIRECTLY I've seen the same advice from someone else online.

When we were taken to our new apartment on the first day we were shocked to find that it was disgusting dump. The place had not been cleaned for months, there was dirt everywhere and a lot of things were broken. I have enclosed some pictures in this email so you can get an idea of what it was like. We opened one cupboard to find it still was filled with open packets of food, to our surprise it had fleas and insect carcasses in it. The kitchen sink had a rusty tap with a lump of hair blocking the sink lined with insect shells. The kitchen stove had left over food and grease covering the whole thing so you can imagine what we could catch from that. The last person to live in there was at least six months ago, the fridge was still full of their rotting food and cupboards full of their old shoes and clothes. The beds were stained a dark yellow colour, one mattress in the large bedroom was torn apart and smelt like urine with dog hair and crumbs on it, which we found out from the FT moving out next door they used to let their dog sleep in there which explained the torn pillows and blankets. We phoned the Chinese contact you provided to tell her we weren’t happy and it took a long time for her to understand what we were saying. Finally she said she would phone the school but we never heard from her again and we were left to deal with the school ourselves. We later discovered this apartment had not been lived in for 6 months and in this time was never cleaned or fixed for us.

We were rushed to the school by some staff who did not tell us what was going on. We were pushed into a room where all the local teachers received awards for how good they were. After this they brought out a new contract for us to sign, which confused us as we had clear instructions to sign the one sent to us in England, and had believed that that was over and done with before setting out to China. We told them we were not signing anything until they see the state of our apartment, which they then replied with if you don’t sign this now you won’t get your working Visa. So we signed a different contract which stated we will teach in outside schools and also some other things were different but without having the original handy it was difficult to find out what at the time. We signed ANOTHER contract and they said they would sort our apartment in a few days. In the mean time some teachers and reception staff came round to clean our apartment, how do you think this made us feel the very first day we arrive. We felt uncomfortable having our new work colleagues cleaning our apartment, whilst the managers stood around waiting for us to finish. When we first went round the house to show LBC and BBC where the dirt was they were acting as if they didn’t care. I remember perfectly pointing at a black patch in the bedroom out to LBC his response was QUOTE “What the Chair?, You don’t like the chair?” I pointed out the huge amount of dust and dirt to him and drew a white line through it with my finger to show him. They made it seem like we were asking for a lot with their sighing and groaning when we pointed out that we would have to live in the property for a year, and it was well below normal hygienic standards, even by Chinese standards. They would not live there themselves if they had to. Almost 2 MONTHS later of continuously asking them to sort a living space for us, again and again the reply was tomorrow, 2 days, next week or several days later. They moved us next door to another apartment of the FT who recently left when we arrived, (who also told us he had a bad time working for Gallop). We moved in and we still had an enormous amount of cleaning until the early hours of the morning throughout the following month. To be honest everyday they expected to be happy and energetic for work and teach kids with a smile, how we could do that when we have to go home to an absolute dive at the end of the day and still living out of our luggage bags, confined to certain areas of the flat that were clean and avoiding the parts which were not. To add to that we had to work for a company who argued with you that there’s nothing wrong with it. We felt like leaving from the first day, we didn’t leave our previous jobs at home to come across the world and then be treated like this. The apartment we were finally put in had a huge mould problem in one room which covers the entire back half of the room so its not just a small bit of mould that can be ignored. After settling in that room the paint work began to flake off and reveal the mould problem and we then had to up and move into the smaller spare room for health reasons. We had to buy everything from our own bins to crockery to our own cleaning products etc when the flat next door had wireless internet, electric fans for the heat rice cookers etc ready for the new FT. Completely unfair and unreasonable treatment.

Since the first month of working with Gallop we have worked more than the contracted 78hours per month, we have never had what is written in the contract at first I didn’t mind because they told us they were short staffed and we didn’t mind helping. In October an FT left, me and my partner agreed as did some other teachers to pick up his shifts telling us it will be for 2 months till they get another FT in. We agreed though I was given too many hours to cope with and it was affecting my teaching and my health it was exhausting. Elise took up couple of lessons on Friday which meant we didn’t get days off together for a long time. In November, December, on at least 5 separate occasions we had a meeting with LBC (whom we were told we could talk to if we had any problems as the boss does not speak English) about us not being happy with the amount of hours we are teaching, adding hours onto my schedule meant that I was teaching up to 125 hours a month that’s 47 hours OVER the contracted agreement. I worked some half day shifts as did another FT there. The school told us we would get these days owed back to us as time off at some point in the future however when we asked them to have those days back as nothing more was mentioned about this spare time owed to us, the school then said we are not allowed the time back. That the extra time we worked we were paid for. Rightfully so, however this was not the agreement and understanding we had about working an extra half day, shortening our delegated two days off for extra pay was at the time not our agenda as we were already working over time and did not need the extra money. We were under the impression we would sacrifice half of our day off to help out the school with their over hours in return we would get them back in the future, we certainly did not need the extra money seeing as we were getting this anyway with working extra hours throughout the week.

We made this point every time we had a meeting with them that we don’t need extra wages we can save and live on what we earn doing 78 or under which most of us had never done. When we asked politely on many occasions with the other FT’s that we did not want extra hours the school said they will sort something and get back to us, we received nothing except the same answer we will get back to you next week, tomorrow etc. Another FT left in Decemeber so we inherited yet more shifts. We were told any problems with our schedules talk to Fairy the receptionist who worked the schedules (or LBC about it). We informed Fairy we did not want to work the extra shifts she had given. When I personally asked alone to have my shifts reduced, her reply was a shout (a very unprofessional manner) “You will work whatever Gallop tells you to work!” I was furious working 125 hours of teaching which is exhausting. Had it not been for Elise who offered to take some hours from my schedule to balance the teaching hours between the FTs it was clear that nobody in managerial position was willing to listen to us about changing teaching hours to honour the contract. I'd like to make it clear that none of the FTs were asked permission if we would work extra hours despite our asking them if they would which happened not once but on many occasions. I know that this is still a continuous problem which unfortunately the FTs have to deal with every week.

On Decemeber 20th we invited a friend of an FT (who could speak fluent Chinese) into the school to speak on our behalf because every time we have asked for fewer hours nothing had been done. So we talked to the boss himself translating everything we said directly. We told him we have had enough working such great amount of hours for them with nothing in return and that we want our schedules greatly decreased in hours and also how angry we are that they have promised a return on our half days when they soon revealed it was a lie so they made us work a lot more hours under false pretences. We said in January we want 78 hours and no more, the boss said that this is the first time he had heard of our plea. He then blamed it on LBC who was not present in the room and said LBC had not been relaying these messages to him. Every Wednesday all Chinese teachers and managerial staff have a 2-3 hour meeting together regarding the FTs teaching, training and general news. We find the possibility of BBC not having a clue of our unhappiness a lie and yet again was unresolvable. The next week we were given more hours than the last.

Heating Repair
In the winter the estate heating 'broke down' and It needed to be repaired. Surely Gallop would pay this considering its their property? NO, we had to pay 300 Yuan each to have it turned back on when it was off for 2 weeks?! When we asked who would cover these costs the school replied that it is a common problem in China, however we were not informed of this before, and of course no mention of who would cover costs or reimbursements because we had already paid it ourselves. We were told all broken things in the flat would have been paid by us and not the school, despite some items handed over to us in a broken state.

Partner Sick leave
My partner took two sick days off and had to be covered by myself and another 2 FTs. In the contract it says that you will be deducted pay if you do not make up the hours missed. My partner had done 89 hours of work for the month anyway, 11 hours over time to cover the shifts, though come pay day she was deducted 668 yuan from her pay check. The reason was because they told her that she acts as the employer and she has to pay those FTs who covered her hours out of her own pay cheque. When she confronted the school about how there is no mention of this in the contract Miss Wong mentioned they were kind to her, because the other FTs who covered her also worked overtime she should have paid them 80 yuan per hour but Miss Wong calculated this as only 71 yuan per hour (the amount you get paid if you work under 78hours a month). So this was the schools answer. This is another example of how they have breached the contract. My partner told the school the reason why she had to go to hospital about two days in advance, filled out the sick leave form, found her own cover and followed all procedures of sick leave as mentioned in the contract so as to avoid a fine. Yet the school deducted a large amount of pay, despite her working over time. This also happened to another teacher who took a day off sick and unfortunately had around 700 yuan taken from his pay. The school say that we should not get paid for the work we havent done, this sounds correct. However if you work over time, reduce the hours from your overtime and its still over 78 then surely you should get the normal monthly sum of 5500 yuan, plus any extra hours left paid for. Not find a reduction in pay, taken out of it for all various excuses given to me by Miss Wong and BBC. The main reason, where in the contract does it state this? A question constantly avoided through playing 'lost in translation' when asked in the meeting between Miss Wong, BBC and local teacher Amanda (the new foreign teacher liaison). They conveniently understood and were capable of explaining other things in accordance to their benefit.

Shouting Abuse from BBC (the owner)

Before Chinese New Year we were going to collect our wages. All FTs and some chinese teachers were allocated a classroom for which we were to scrub clean before inspection by the managers. If the classroom was not clean enough (chairs scrubbed washed, floors, walls, desks, windows, fans seen to) we were told to go back and do it again. Only until this was done we were allowed to collect our pay and go home. They told us this was a traditional Chinese tradition of cleansing before the New Year, however this is a clear abuse of a tradition which not even the managers follow as they sat in the office all day waiting until the rushing around and cleaning was done for them for free. Half a day of cleaning the school is also not in the contract, we would rather be doing this at home when we do get the spare time!

When we came back from our our trip to San Ya the school made us work a seven day week. I told the boss of Gallop BBC that this is not in our contract and I don’t want to work 7 days he then took me to a separate classroom (My partner joined soon after) and very angrily shouted at me at the top of his voice! He repeatedly told me that 'This is China!' in English. He pointed at a part of the contract which states that we have to carry out all the teaching tasks Gallop ask. This was his answer to another contract term which states that we work no more than 5 days a week. Stating that one part of the contract nullifies another part of the contract surely means its on the whole not liable.

BBC's verbal abuse was followed by ABUSIVE NAMES to us in Chinese which by then we could understand. To further the insult he asked us more than once if we had ever had a job in England before. My partner and I were completely shocked because for one it was not related to what we were discussing and in turn was extremely patronising in nature. Two, it proved he did not read our C.V’s and showed us his negligence to detail before sending a contract out to us, he is the manager it is his job to decide who works at the school. Three, because we had given up very good potential careers in England to come to work in China for him...for this!

At another point one of the FTs tried to make a complaint about her flat as she had to share with two other people not just one as stated on the contract. After 10 minutes of telling the school this she was taken into the office for a meeting with the principle of the school and told that she would have to go back on to the probationary contract which meant a reduction in her pay by 500 yuan. Furthermore she was not given a date when the contract would be reviewed again so as to come off the probationary period. The most official answer was 'we will see in about two months time, and if its still not satisfactory maybe give it another month or so'! Furthermore she was told that she must write an official signed and dated letter addressing the school, stating that she is happy to go back on to the probationary contract! During this meeting she was also told that she would be unable to find work with another school if she tried to seek employment elsewhere too. Before her complaint about her apartment she had no problems with the school and her contract had already moved on from the probationary contract two months before. The school actually had not sorted out a place for the new foreign teachers who moved into a crowded flat and so one apartment between three people was their only option. This is another typical act of Gallop International school, this kind of despicable mistreatment and behaviour towards teachers is not unfamiliar in this school.

Before Chinese New Year we were given a very odd power point presentation between FTs and managers in which a camera was silently sitting in the corner filming us. (I had not realised until another FT pointed it out to us). In the presentation we were told various safety issues regarding fireworks and Chinese law. A good part of the presentation was about particular past foreign teachers leaving employment from the school and how their finding work in another part of China was illegal and that these teachers were illegally working within China and if caught would be in serious trouble by Chinese law. Also they revisited the meeting we had with them with our friend who came to help interpretate for us. They said we had threatened to leave the school if we didn't get less hours. This was not what we said and we made clear that we did not threaten to leave but that we desperately wanted to work less hours and were unhappy. They then said it was all part of mistranslation which was hard to believe as we left the meeting on agreeing terms from both sides and everybody was very clear about who said what. In fact we have been in touch with a previous FT who worked for the school and they mentioned that they were in contact with the named FTs who were supposedly working illegally in China. Actually their new contracts were legal and they were not doing anything illegal or against Chinese law. These kinds of scare factors from the school are constant, and are also mentally tiring.

Here are a list of other things to bring to your attention when considering sending any one out to Gallop International School. (Whose name is known in China as Chi Cheng International school to avoid recognition from their bad reviews online)

• The hours at this school change if they want you to do a promotional lesson on your day off (at 7pm in the evening) you have no choice.
• One of the first days I was ill during training which is not paid for. I was deducted 225 yuan for missing two hours unpaid training.
• In January they made us work 2 weeks worth of 6 days a week which once again BREECHES THE CONTRACT.
• We tried to get in touch with the supposed worth £500 fee contact in China though she never answered her phone or it was always off even leaving messages she did NOTHING to get in touch and could not understand our request.
• We think you should sever your contacts with Gallop and report it to other agencies. We have left some friends there who are thinking of leaving because they also have issues with this school. Read the online review from 2010 online, it is true.
• Lindsay who was happy with Gallop may have had a good time but since then the company do not treat people as they supposedly used to.
• The 'useful' foreign teachers contacts you gave us (in our orientation day booklet) who supposedly were working at the school are false. We know because we have worked there and none of the local teachers recognise their names and there is no evidence that they exist. That is shameful.

DON'T WORK AT THIS SCHOOL !!! THEY WILL TAKE YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE, MANIPULATE YOU INTO DOING THINGS I.E 7 days a WEEK! AND GIVING NOTHING BACK. OH BTW XI'AN is full of racist people who don't like foreigners NOT ALL we found and made some great friends there. ITS VERY POLLUTED you will have a chesty flemy cough the whole time your there, if traveling spend 4 days there MAX and you will see everything you need. Don't know if this was mentioned above two of us worked extra days and half days for the school and they told us we would get them back. When we asked them for them they said that they never agreed anything. I HOPE GALLOP CLOSES DOWN they are Crooks!

REM this is dated 2012! most recent review of Gallop and they're still as CORRUPT, MANIPULATIVE, ABUSIVE, LYING,EVIL, HORRIBLE PEOPLE you will ever have the displeasure of meeting or working for. F**K Y*U CHEN!

Gallop International English School - ESL school review

Oh look, what a surprise, they got someone to reply to my post.
And, wow, he/she is trying to make Xi'an look so attractive to potential English teachers!

Seriously, never work for this school. And avoid Xi'an at all costs.

Gallop International English School - ESL school review

WARNING: DO NOT WORK FOR THE GALLOP INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL IN XIAN, CHINA!

I am writing this as a warning to anyone that might have been considering working for this particular English school. Right off the bat, let me be as clear as possible: do not, under any circumstances, sign any sort of contract with this crooked school! They are scumbags and you will regret it. Allow me to go into detail. Hopefully my experience will dissuade you from making the same mistake I made.

After I finished my degree in December 06, I was looking for something interesting to do in my gap year, and I decided on English teaching in China. I took the Oxford Seminars TESL course in Canada, and after I completed it they put me in touch with a middlewoman named Summer, who eventually steered me towards Gallop. First little bit of wisdom: be wary of middlemen. They make commission on placing you in a school, and theyll say anything to sell a place to you. In my case, Summer told me all sorts of lies: they will provide you with a fully-furnished apartment, they will pay for the flight over, youll be a certified Foreign Expert, theyll provide weekly Mandarin lessons all of which was untrue. Do not be sucked in by such promises!

When I did show up in Xian and I saw my apartment, I was depressed. It was a dump, and I had just signed a 1-year contract to live there. Totally barren with dust everywhere, it had broken toilets, broken outlets, and no kitchen. Whats more, I was ready to tough it out until I saw some of my co-workers quarters. They looked like the Ritz-Carlton compared to mine: fully furnished, working kitchen, etc I didnt understand this injustice, so I complained to Gallops management, and thats where the real fun began.

I started as politely as possible, first by speaking to them in person and then by providing a written statement. The answer I got was a polite F*** you, this is what you get. Cool! As time went out and as I got unhappier, I complained some more, and got more of the same answer. This schools boss is a proud man who does not like losing face. Unfortunately, I realize now that as my situation became an issue around the workplace, and as management risked losing face by giving in to my demands and thus admitting they were wrong, I became less and less likely to get my way. Thats China for you.

More tidbits:
- When my boss came to inspect my kitchen (and empty, dirty room with a broken gas burner), I informed him the gas man warned me against using the gas, which he said was old and dangerous. My boss shrugged his shoulders and aggressively told me to use it anyway. I never did, and didnt cook once in three months.
- After three months, when it became clear I wanted to leave, I wanted to annul my contract peacefully. I felt that they were in breach of contract, particularly on the issue of not providing me with a working kitchen as stipulated in the contract. In the end, however, I was forced to pay the breach of contract fee myself, to the tune of $500 US dollars, which was almost a months pay.
- Also, when I declared I no longer wanted to work for them, Gallops management held my passport hostage for a week, forcing me to teach for an additional week free of charge.
- Well after I left Xian and relocated to Shanghai to do freelance work, I got a call from some Gallop co-workers. They informed me that, through his connections, my dear old boss was attempting to blacklist me with the bureau that issues work visas, purely out of vindictiveness. Can you believe that?
- I could go on with all the little things, but hopefully I have already given you an idea of how business is done at the Gallop International English School. Do not work for them! They are crooks of the first order!

Its been a few months since I left China, and my time working for Gallop was truly unpleasant. Gallops management really are snakes: at first, theyll smile at you while they screw you over, and then if you try to assert your rights things will really get nasty. Every single teacher at Gallop had an issue with our bosses and their management style, and I think I can say we were all unhappy working there. In short, it was a truly negative experience that ruined my year in China.

Its all behind me now, and it would have been easy to just forget about it and move on. But please take into consideration the fact that I took the time and effort to write this because I didnt want anyone else to make the same mistake. Good luck! - Justin

Accomodation: 5. Hit and miss. My apartment was terrible and unfair, but some co-workers got great accomodations. Complaining amounted to nothing. Go figure.
Administration: 0. Read my review above. The bosses were awful, greedy bastards who would abuse workers regularly.
General Area Info: 3. Decent area for Xi'an, I guess, but Xi'an is a dirty, depressing city that I wouldn't recommend to anyone. Don't buy the "beautiful" picture of Xi'an they'll try to sell you: the majority of English teachers I worked with hated it there, and so did I.
School Info: 4. Aside from the atrocious management, classes weren't that bad. They try to overwork you constantly, but the kids were cute and kept me sane. One of the few good things about my ESL experience.
Intangibles: I'll interpret this freely. Everything about this school is negative, so please, do not work for these people. You will regret it. Their new website makes it out to be such a great school, do not be fooled by the second-rate PR blitz.
Overall: 1. There are so few positive things I got out of this experience. I made a few good friends, I saw a different part of the world, but overall it was just an awful experience. Parting words: if you must do ESL, go to Shanghai! I had a much, MUCH better experience there.