Well then you are really in trouble since your university, assuming that you are an American citizen is precluded by law from releasing any information about your student records.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a United States federal law codified at 20 U.S.C. 1232g. So unless you waive all of your rights, and thereby leave your files and records open in your physical absence from the school for anyone to get access thereafter, that will be a little difficult and the school not wanting to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars are usually likely to comply with some clown from China calling them and wanting your personal information.

As for specifics, Wall Street is a well-known fly-by-night agency with low standards. They have been sued a number of times in China for not paying wages, and they have had a host of other problems to include business licensing issues. That is to say that they specifically and illegally ran centers in China without the legal authority to do so, much less hire foreigners. Their so-called "regional manager" is a brain dead idiot, who, if memory serves me right, was from India and his own command of the English language was less than stellar.

The try and sell business English programs to major foreign owned companies and the interesting part about that is, many of their "teachers" are about 25-years old. Assuming the started college at the age of 18 and earned a 4-year degree, the next question is, how much "business English" experience in real world corporate scenarios could they possibly have?

Many of their so-called "proprietary materials" are clearly copies of other C.R.A.P. from some other C.R.A.P. school just like them.

With regard to SAFETY they are one of the worst EVER in China.

EXAMPLE: The place schools in shopping malls without access to clear escape routes and they don't have in-house fire suppression systems. They use glass walls in between their "class rooms" also extremely stupid from a safety point of view, and never mind the obvious needs of creating a conducive learning environment.

EXAMPLE: I have been to two shopping malls in a nearby city where they have a school in each mall. One is on the TOP FLOOR of a shopping mall. In the event of a fire or an earthquake, how do you propose to get 100 or more students out of the building safely after getting around some 100,000 shoppers that are already CRAMMED far over capacity into a shopping mall that would clearly fail any and all ADA standards, much less globally accepted fire and safety standards? Will you take the elevators? Or will you take the BLOCKED STAIRWELLS?

Their ultra-high pressure sales pitches on the people that enter their dens of hell would make most used car salesmen run for cover.

I could go on, but I like the word C.R.A.P. to address any and all schools that are, well...C.R.A.P., since most anyone can easily understand the word C.R.A.P. and it is universal.

So you just go on with your well-educated self and leave us dumb F's that don't know squat about living, and working in China to miss all of the amazing opportunities that places like Wall Street offer. Gosh, I must be as stupid as a stump for not running to the nearest Wall Street ESL mill.

So you are seriously going to use Chinas lack of health and safety as a reason to badmouth this school!!! If that is how you feel about things then WHY THE F ARE YOU STILL IN CHINA? You live in an apartment which I doubt has better regulations and are exposed to a similar disregard for such regulations everytime you walk through a city on the mainland so do me a favour. Is your argument about WSE or about Chinas complete inability to enforce rules. Who owns the shopping centres WSE or someone else? Try talking out of the orifice on your face instead of the one you keep in your pants.

Man! This 'C.R.A.P guy really has a crappy attitude!

Appears my last post didn't go up so I will try again.

I wonder why you are so mad

Oh really, you honestly have to wonder why. I go looking for info on Wall Street of which there is very little from teachers anywhere on the web bar some pretty out of date stuff from a few years ago. I find the post by Bob in this thread on Google which is about the most up to date thing I have read so proceed to make a follow up comment asking him some questions. I come back and check if he has replied and find what? A number of people telling me nothing more than it is "crap" and I don't know what I am talking about, I should know better!!!

When I question the fact that they have not elaborated on why and to offer more detailed info only one person did to a degree and that was the same info I had read elsewhere from a number of years ago. Everyone else launches into an attack throwing abuse around. Yes I can see why you would have to wonder why they got me so riled. Being talked to in a condescending mannar and having various abuse thrown at me for no good reason should be something I welcome and relish, obviously.

Not a single person had posted a thing here until I asked Bob a few questions then within a matter of days the thread is a mile long and most of it pretty irrelevant stuff consisting of arguments and immature BS. I have a 12 year old who knows how to conduct himself better so yes I assume that these people are simply uneducated adolescents on a backpacking holiday in China. I pray for the future of education if these people are actually out there teaching anyone.

Minimal censorship is a good thing. I guess it depends on how you look at it. If you are simply here to entertain yourself by throwing around abuse and posting rubbish making the threads pages long so it becomes an impossible task to find anything of relevance which may have been posted then maybe. All I can say is most of the threads I have looked at consist of the same group of people talking about the exact same things. Telling people somewhere is crap without going into all that much more detail and then a million followup posts arguing with people and being abusive. If you consider that to be a good thing then your reasons for being here differ significantly from the reasons I asume this board was created. That being a helpful place for teachers to discuss schools and gain valuable information.

Tell me where I have got this wrong because if I have I don't see it.

Thank-you Bob for coming back and posting something worthwhile reading, even though I almost overlooked your post against the backdrop of arguments and abuse which have appeared on a daily basis.

I will leave the rest of these children to troll and abuse each other.

I've never been a fan of any of the
C.R.A.P. produced by Longman/Pearson.

So is that a fact or simply your opinion? It's nice that you really went into detail. You should be a movie critic with that level of information.

There is a reason that the
Carlyle Group SOLD their interest in Wall Street.

Yep! I notice you don't bother to give it here though. Did you know there is actually a reason for pretty much anything and everything that happens in this world.

Let me know when KFC or McDonald's buys Wall Street.

Judging by some of the irrelevant and completely uninformative BS posted by spotty backpackers here I am quite sure you have plenty of experience working in both those establishments. You certainly can't be actively teaching, everywhere is C.R.A.P. according to you people. I wager that if I made up the name of a school which doesn't exist and started a thread you people would post the same generic rubbish you post everywhere else.

Move along people. Nothing to see here.

My forgiveness CSP I overlooked this particular post. Well as for the thing with the degree I would have to give permission for them to check out the fact that I graduated. I am not American I am from the UK. The Uni would require me to send them written permission as well as conduct an interview with them for verification purposes, as I am not in the UK.

The specifics you mention about Wall Street I'd be interested to know exactly when these events occurred. I remember some stories about paying wages late but this was way back when Wall Street English and Wall Street Institute were separate entities and run by a Spanish company. Since that time one was acquired by the Carlyle group in the USA and since then both have been bought up by Longman/Pearson in the UK. Late 2010 if memory serves.

I read a particularly lengthy article about the buyout and what Pearson had planned for the entire network, not just China. This is the reason I am looking for more up to date information from people who are currently employed there since the Pearson buyout. I don't really think it is fair to allow the failings of a previous company to colour the current status, that said I take on board what you are trying to say. As I said, I read about some of these things elsewhere but the dates they were posted was many years ago.

As for the comment on safety. If you have been here as long as you say then I am pretty sure you know that kind of thing is normal here. Even if the school was in its own building you would have a complete lack of common sense in place when vacating. The Chinese do not understand the concept of many things like that which we take for granted in the West. Letting a lift empty before attempting to get in it, forming a line, paying attention when crossing the road instead of texting on your iPhone and the fact that traffic lights are there to tell trafic when to stop and go not for pretty decoration.

I think no matter where a fire occurs or what buildings were affected by a quake, if it involves the locals it will involve pandemonium, unnecessary injury and death. The only safe bet would be to open a school in the middle of a park and use a marquee.

Well then you are really in trouble since your university, assuming that you are an American citizen is precluded by law from releasing any information about your student records.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or the Buckley Amendment) is a United States federal law codified at 20 U.S.C. 1232g. So unless you waive all of your rights, and thereby leave your files and records open in your physical absence from the school for anyone to get access thereafter, that will be a little difficult and the school not wanting to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars are usually likely to comply with some clown from China calling them and wanting your personal information.

As for specifics, Wall Street is a well-known fly-by-night agency with low standards. They have been sued a number of times in China for not paying wages, and they have had a host of other problems to include business licensing issues. That is to say that they specifically and illegally ran centers in China without the legal authority to do so, much less hire foreigners. Their so-called "regional manager" is a brain dead idiot, who, if memory serves me right, was from India and his own command of the English language was less than stellar.

The try and sell business English programs to major foreign owned companies and the interesting part about that is, many of their "teachers" are about 25-years old. Assuming the started college at the age of 18 and earned a 4-year degree, the next question is, how much "business English" experience in real world corporate scenarios could they possibly have?

Many of their so-called "proprietary materials" are clearly copies of other C.R.A.P. from some other C.R.A.P. school just like them.

With regard to SAFETY they are one of the worst EVER in China.

EXAMPLE: The place schools in shopping malls without access to clear escape routes and they don't have in-house fire suppression systems. They use glass walls in between their "class rooms" also extremely stupid from a safety point of view, and never mind the obvious needs of creating a conducive learning environment.

EXAMPLE: I have been to two shopping malls in a nearby city where they have a school in each mall. One is on the TOP FLOOR of a shopping mall. In the event of a fire or an earthquake, how do you propose to get 100 or more students out of the building safely after getting around some 100,000 shoppers that are already CRAMMED far over capacity into a shopping mall that would clearly fail any and all ADA standards, much less globally accepted fire and safety standards? Will you take the elevators? Or will you take the BLOCKED STAIRWELLS?

Their ultra-high pressure sales pitches on the people that enter their dens of hell would make most used car salesmen run for cover.

I could go on, but I like the word C.R.A.P. to address any and all schools that are, well...C.R.A.P., since most anyone can easily understand the word C.R.A.P. and it is universal.

So you just go on with your well-educated self and leave us dumb F's that don't know squat about living, and working in China to miss all of the amazing opportunities that places like Wall Street offer. Gosh, I must be as stupid as a stump for not running to the nearest Wall Street ESL mill.

Well thanks for that informative and detailed explanation of why working for Wall Street would not be in my interest. C.R.A.P is such a constructive term to use, why would I need any more information than that!!

I have worked in the public sector of the education system in China, three times now to be exact. Each experience was hampered with an unprofessional hierarchy, broken promises and frustration. That does not mean I am saying there are not employers out there who would be worth my time and effort but what it does show is that the public sector is not all milk and honey, it comes with its fair share of problems just like any employer in China, especially an employer which is Chinese owned and Chinese run.

I am interested in Wall Street because I have heard some good things about them. They are owned by a very reputable UK company with a track record of producing quality materials for language learning and most of the Management are westerners and have to adhere to Pearson's work procedures. The whole business model is based on a western perspective and is what you would expect to deal with in your own country, they even have outlets in countries like the UK and the US.

Have you worked at Wall Street? Do you have any specific information which might be useful as opposed to just telling me C.R.A.P a number of times? Wall Street do deal with SAFEA. In fact the requirements for a job there include having a CELTA or Trinity approved TEFL and they also require you to have a real degree. Unlike many private schools who are happy to accept any degree mill certificate for the purposes of obtaining your Visa Wall Street require it for the job description and I am reliably informed that they will need to contact your University to verify the authenticity before employing you.

Does anyone else have anything remotely useful to add, perhaps related to the questions I asked.

No one should work for Wall Street or any other C.R.A.P. organization in China. Work for public colleges or public schools.............

I agree with what you have stated in principle as per the above. But I would add that working in the public sector is not always without its problems either. One might be unlucky enough to work for a dishonest and uncaring public educational institution. They are out there too, believe me. The board has accepted negative posts about some of them, and I think it's worth stressing in this regard that many such public sector employers that have had only a single online complaint might well turn out to be unscrupulous employers. And even some without so much as a single complaint online can turn out to be bad choices too. Unfortunately, one never knows for sure until one is actually on site and at work there. Of course, one man's meat can be another man's poison. Every person has his own breaking point, but even a worm can turn. Finally, some of our fellow foreigners will say good things about bad employers to obtain an introduction fee, so one should take care not to take all recommendations from others at face value. See quote below. I think it's best not to sign up somewhere that has given one the impression that things might not be as they have been portrayed. Life's a bitch, eh?

Dear all:

How are you doing ? First of all , thank you for your hard working in this semster,we really appreciate .In order to make our teaching smooth and easy for next new school year , we still need some teachers .So if you have some friends who are from 5 native speaking countries (US ,Uk ,Australia ,Newzealand ,Canada).you can introduce them to us and pay you (1person is 2000-3000rmb),except 5 countries , if they are from african countries and have valid visa (1year or half year), we can pay you (1000-2000rmb). so if you have any friends, please let us know .

best regards
_ _ _ _ _ _ _.

No it definitely includes the prep time and office work etc. I was able to find that out at least.