Seems to be quite a big contradiction in that post Mr. Dragonized. I won't say anymore than that other than I believe it was you who mentioned alliances, I simply took what you'd written and used it against you. Sorry!

So accusing someone for using someone else's phrase as lacking wit would mean you have so much more to offer in terms of your own "intelligence"? But all I've seen from you is the "ability" to copy and paste the crap that other like minded "teachers" who carry the idea that china is a great place to grovel. How original.

To borrow a phrase from Turnoi: Why don't you cry to your mommy for a lollipop

Wow. You've really hit me hard there. Personally if I was struggling for some witty comeback and needed to borrow from turnoi I'd have used his materials on crocodiles. Now that stuff is really biting, ha ha ha!

Now you're just playing the victim and whining about how I am using my own misfortune to push some agenda that is negative in your opinion. I was not the one who has lacked the basic reading skills to actually perceive and read into what others are saying. When I criticize China I will always provide backup to my original claims. I have provided plenty of evidence ranging from personal experiences of my own to that of my friends and acquaintances as well as that of news sources that have credible, popular opinion. Ever since you've come on here you've displayed nothing but a baseless, pompous arrogance towards other posters with your "fair and balanced" views of bashing others while not actually reading the things they have written on here in the past. You've painted yourself into a corner and you are showing that you don't actually know much about the country you are working in, and you do not care about the experiences of others who do not share the bright little view of the world that you carry to protect your own fragile ego. You want to act all predatory and sniveling towards me, well as by the laws of nature so shall you be attacked as well.

To borrow a phrase from Turnoi: Why don't you cry to your mommy for a lollipop?

You didn't say you did drink in the classroom, you have stated in your posts towards me numerous times mentioning bars, beer, and drinking. Foxy who supports your views feels that it's okay to be in class drunk. You have never criticized him for saying this, so I assume you go along with this. Mancunian whom you agree with the most will post nonsense suggesting he may be fully drunk or at least half drunk, and you have failed to call him out for this behavior. To be so A okay with this shows the good possibility that you would do this as well. Better be more careful with whom you ally with if it isn't.

I have never been a grovelling weasel, and if I was caught up in a bad work situation like at a training center I would never be there for long. I can tell you due to your own naivety that working at these places will mean no personal life for you. Being overworked with teaching 30 + sometimes 40 hours a week means a 50-60 hour workweek. If you're "lucky" and end up at one of the regular privately owned places you'll "only" teach 26 hours a week on average which still means you will have little time for leisure like spending it on extra english corners that you so merrily agree to. Before you accuse others of being "minimalist", you should actually get to know them better first. I have met many teachers all over China who have said the same consistent thing about working at these places, that and my own earlier experience at these places means that any time I see someone singing the praises of them I know they are a grovelling weasel. In your case since you have so much time on your hands to talk shit to people about things you know nothing about you are a mere sniggering hyena, a name you too eagerly brought up on yourself.

You are so eager to attack a teacher who ALMOST got into a scuffle with a chinese teacher. Yet you say nothing about a real situation in Pingdingshan with the African teacher getting physically assaulted for asking something that belongs to him rightfully which in that case was his salary.[edited] In your puny little world the chinese can do no wrong, and you will defend that to the death because ignorance is your only vehicle of courage to ride on. [edited]

ASTF, you're not making life very easy for yourself with your bitchy little attitude, but I guess that is how you've lived your life. I merely chose to disagree with you and you show your true colors, again.

From your post ranging from attacking me with my personal situation to trying to call me out on my consistency from the past few months I see you are someone who does not give a shit about having an intelligent conversation on any level. You get away with being who you are in china because your own face would be a veil for people to keep themselves at a distance from you. [edited]. But you fit perfectly with the locals, that's for sure.

You have admitted to working only part time at the university, which I presume is the only job you've ever had in China. You also back in December attacked me for questioning your integrity by admitting how great China was because it let you teach hung over from excessive drinking while mocking my then unemployment situation. You are an inexperienced, part time pretend teacher [edited]. You need not worry about my situation as I have found something tenable, and I don't have to deal with [edited]. I would also like to add that anyone who is struggling but still living in the west has lived a more honest life than you. As for not working at training centers that is one of my golden rules that I abide by, and I learned this from past working experiences, if you read my posts from back in 2010 and 2009 you would've known, but you haven't have you? [edited]

This board is a support network where teachers come together and share their experiences with teaching in foreign countries mostly. Being that the ESL industry is full of dishonesty, cheat, and corruption everywhere you will find most of the posts to veer towards the negative. Since coming onto this board you have done nothing but try and attack the characters of a few of the regular posters including me without actually showing you give two shits about us or getting to know us better. Whenever there has been a post on a negative situation you immediately have jumped on the person for criticizing the status quo in China. You really are a piece of work, I mean a guy who decides to use "astf" as a pseudonym probably thinks he's above everyone and doesn't need to give other posters the proper time of the day because he already possesses the clairvoyance to see through what others talk about. If you can't find something useful to say, then [edited]

As for questioning the integrity of the African teacher who almost got into a scuffle with the chinese teacher, I can tell you this: If I had to deal with someone exactly like you in real life, I would try and minimize my business with you as much as possible due to your immaturity and inability to respect the boundaries and personal space of other teachers. If however I was put into the unfortunate situation of having someone like you as my manager and had to deal with impromptu orders from you, I wouldn't bet against getting physical with you! You're have no compassion, you are a sellout, and you think you are beyond criticism from anyone. [edited]

More ranting nonsense from a one man mental.

This ASTF poster doesn't actually care about taking in the views of others, even those who would agree with him. He just wants to run over everyone due to his point of view having NO VALIDITY whatsoever.

A "teacher" who cares so much about getting drunk in a classroom that he would use THAT as a respite when disagreeing with others probably DOES NOT CARE what interests the students have. I doubt he knows what "interesting" means anymore. [edited]

I forgot to mention, I also see I am at a disadvantage when talking to you due to you willing to lie about and twist around the words of someone else's in any way possible. What I said about private places comes from not just my dealings with them, but also from other teachers'. You don't have to have worked at a place to know about it, especially given the massive amounts of horror stories. But of course your agenda on this board is pretty damn clear, you will not stop until you've desecrated my character as well as that of other posters who wish to be frank and honest. I guess the Kevins and Londongirls of this world weren't getting the job done, so the last resort is to get a mercenary with no conscience. You hate me so much because the things I've said about certain expats working in China fit you too perfectly. Well buddy it wasn't my choice to live a crappy, good for nothing life. You want to siphon the good will of others with your own deceit, well it stopped working for you in the west and hopefully sooner rather than later it will also stop working for you in China. If China really was a good place to work at you would be too good for it, and you know it. Come to make peace with yourself that you've lived as a useless, immature, self centered piece of shit and maybe you'll start finding that road to salvation, but then again knowing you you would just hop on to the next country that would take a waste of space like you.

I sound naive? Yet you think it's ok to threaten people with physical violence because they asked you to teach a class at the last minute! Nice deep breath, count to 10 and stay calm. Haven't you noticed that the person who loses their cool in an argument is generally the one who ends up looking rather silly?

I disagree that giving students the chance to practice their English is a waste of time and i would have thought that any oral english teacher with half a brain would be able to understand that their primary role is to help provide situations to do just that. That these English corners are not organized properly or that you have trouble managing your students is the fault of the individual school and teacher. I guess when you go into a situation with the idea in your head that this is a waste of time then the result is that it generally becomes a waste of time both for you and the students. If you read my post I actually agree that some schools are misusing the term English corner. My post was a positive approach to trying to improve the situation. I don't think you have ever contributed anything positive to this board in the few months I have posted on it. As for training centres, I thought your golden rule was to never work for them in the first place. Tell me, how long did you work as a GW in one of those places?

Tell me which job you've found whereby ever single duty you might have to perform is listed within the contract or job description? You wouldn't come across as being very employable in any industry in any country if every time someone made a request of you you flopped out your contract and started reading though it to find if 'photocopying' was included as a task. Ah, but then you're not employed are you, so I guess I've just answered my own question there!

If you are happy to have them use you to further their english then that is your choice

Ha ha. Yes I'm very happy for the students to use me to further their English perhaps because that's my job! If you are not happy to do this then perhaps you shouldn't become an English teacher or at least perhaps you shouldn't complain when you are treated by your employer with distain for refusing to do the job that you are paid to do.

But I guess on this part you are correct. Students do undoubtedly come to the English corner because they see me and other FTs there. However, like I said, all we are doing is talking, we don't prepare anything, we don't do any 'activities' we just stand there for a while and then we generally hop in a cab and go to the bar for a few hours. I think that if I had taken the negative approach to students that you are suggesting and told them to sod off and stop wasting my time when they asked me to support to their English corner then they might well have decided to take the issue up with the head of the foreign languages department. Then he's going to be ringing me and trying to force me to go and I'm going to end up in the kind of confrontational situation you've described. You see if you take a defensive stance on everything at all times in the way that you and San migs have advocated dealing with the Chinese or anyone for that matter then you only invite them to use subversive tactics to get you to do things.

Teachers do need to be aware of how to deal with large class sizes if they come to china because its a reality. I'd be happy to exchange ideas on how to manage the situation if you'd like? However, going back to the topic, an English corner is (as I stated in my previous post) not an oral English class. If some students can only come and talk about what they did this morning then that's fine for them if others can discuss more high level and abstract concepts then now is the time. Because its not a class and it is without structure, English corners cater very well for differences in the levels of students.

Of course teachers needs need to be met. But based on what you said, go back in time to when you were at school and think about the teachers who made a difference to you. Do you think they just took the same minimalist attitude as you? I doubt it very much. For those of us who have taught public school in a western country one of the best things at least about teaching oral English is that you can throw that rubbishy old, printed in Beijing by some guy who has obviously never held a conversation with a native speaker in his life out the window. Be creative, enjoy teaching and you might find that you enjoy life a bit more!

ast minute requests may be acceptable in China, but acceptable to Westerners? Not for me, not now, not on my watch, not ever!

Exactly. The shameless self promoting that the locals will heap onto you without putting your time into consideration is pretty bad. Wasting so much energy on things that you did not have any say in will drain your spirit and make you lose hope, affecting your teaching quality in the meantime. In China, people are not treated as people, but merely as a disposable economic unit to be drained and used up as seen fit by the folks with status and power. Until this is corrected China will continue to be seen as backwards and rightfully so by the parts of the world that are more civilised.

Read,reread, and then read again.

I did not say me, I had to seperate the nigerian from bashing the FAO's head in. I did not lay one finger on each of them. But I could understand why the nigerian was annoyed. Last minute requests ARE impolite.

Physical violence or the threat of physical violence is hardly the solution though is it? You're right to be clear about what you might not be willing to do especially at short notice but nearly getting into a fist fight over it is a bit dramatic and is hardly likely to help your cause in the long run. They say that diplomacy is the only true art form. Perhaps something worth remembering next time you're in a similar situation in any country.

Now these 'English corners' seem to be something of a bugbear for many FTs. My definition of an English corner is that it is a student organized and student lead event that is open to anyone to attend and talk freely about any subject they wish. The ideal place for it to happen is outside on a busy corner of the campus where passers by may drop in and out as they wish. If your school is telling you (the teacher) to prepare for and organize English corners then you are probably being stitched up into teaching what is more like an extra oral english class. My advice would be to take a pro-active approach to the situation and offer to help the students get the ball rolling on setting up an English corner that takes place at a specific location at a specific time every week.

This is certainly how English corners operate at my uni. I attend about 50% of them for anywhere between 10mins and 2hours. This was at the request of students and I was happy to obilge them on the understanding that this was still 'their thing' and that I'm going along to support their efforts. The events themselves are well attended and sometimes there are some heated debates on genuinely interesting topics. They are very useful for the students oral English. It's interesting how rarely the interests of students get mentioned on this 'teachers' board.

Errrmmm... No. There has to be a balance somewhere. The odd favour is ok. What I normally do is clearly state what I can do and what I simply won’t accept.

I think this is all some kind of performance art stunt. I certainly would not do an english corner on short notice and have seen what can result of such a request. A fellow african FT was so angry at the Chinese teacher, it almost escalated into a fist fight. If the FAO/Chinese teachers used a bit more tact and timing when dealing with westerners, these things would not happen. Last minute requests may be acceptable in China, but acceptable to Westerners? Not for me, not now, not on my watch, not ever!

Loyalty bought is never loyalty from the heart. The "schools" will only see their situation go worse after some of these teachers have a change of heart and tell it like it is!

Very profound stuff indeed, Dragonised. Trouble is it is very difficult to 'tell it like it is' because we can only tell it the way we see it; and the way we see things can be wrong and can radically change according to chance experiences, or just getting a few more years under our belt. Have you never ever had a big shift of opinion on something? I know I have-it's a real character-tester I can assure you- you certainly have to be prepared to lose face to achieve a new truth. Tell you what, why don't you start afresh, return to China, and really try hard to get along with our Chinese brothers; they are quite nice once you get to know them? I can be your sort of virtual Cyrano de Bergeras...tell you what to say when you are on a date and stuff...or when the boss says you have an English Corner tonight-Instead of saying"up yours Buster, it's not in my contract" something like "Certainly, anything I can do to make your life easier and help the students" Now am I right or am I right?

GOOD EYE JOHN! YOU ARE SHARP! Yes.
Ahil English School in Ulsan buys its loyalty.
Teachers turned recruiters gain by promoting Ahil and discrediting teachers who tell it like it is.

Hi, my name is Benjamin Cain, and I’m currently working as a teacher in Ahil school of English. The management here is professional, involved and friendly. Our assistant director even took us to a theme park one weekend when she thought we needed it. They have constantly supported the foreigner teachers on both a professional and personal level, sometimes even acting against the school’s best interests. For example, a former teacher missed his connecting flight from Ulsan to Seoul. Our director and her husband drove him to Seoul – a five hour drive- out of the goodness of their hearts. The teachers, too, are supportive and friendly.
Another of the school’s great virtues is stability. Many Haegwons are transient, opening and closing without warning. Ahil has been around for twenty years, and is solid enough to last for another twenty. You will not be left stranded if you come to this school.
The school provides you with an apartment at the top of the school. These are decent places to live. Ahil is in a very convenient location: beautiful mountain walks five minutes away, a great beach within ten minutes, and the central city within forty by bus. There is so much within easy reach.
It’s not too much to say that Ahil made my experience here a pleasure. If you are thinking about working here, I really recommend it. You won’t find many schools better than this. Benjamin Cain (January 14th, 2013)