Hello out there. I am ESL fresh meat, and I wondered if any of you veterans might have any information on a company called "Best English Academy" in Pusan, Gangneung or Sokcho. I havent found it on any blacklists or message board, but I have no information on the place.

Any thoughts? Help?!?

Steve.

Yes, I agree with you Chuck regarding the tasteless post by "Yi," whomever she or he may be. Actually, I wrote a somewhat lengthy post a few days ago regarding the same thing, but apparently it got lost in the shuffle.

One would expect that our fellow teachers in China would have the sensitivity and/or maturity to maintain a sense of decorum here in the forum regardless of whether or not they are in agreement.
Well so be it. Best not to "cast pearls before swine" I guess. At any rate, though your posts do tend to lean toward giving schools the benefit of the doubt, I still admire your attempts to suggest a position of neutrality while the jury is still out. Furthermore, I appreciate your obvious experience as a teacher abroad. And so I hope you don't quit posting here.

And Frank I also appreciate that your posts lately regarding Chuck have become less acidic and acusative and seem to be leaning more toward the inquisitive.

But Yi? I have only one comment/suggestion for you. Grow up! Want to take me on in the "ring of rhetoric?" Bring it on. But remember, inquiries are a better path toward understanding than are acusations. For example: "Am I correct in my assumption that you.....?" or "Are you saying that.........?" or "Am I to believe that you........" and one more just to be sure you get the idea "Could you clarify or re-word what you said about.......?"

Wow, Chuck! Not only are you presumptuous, you're psychic!

You state: "But I'm sure Phil has learned a lesson from his experiences, both in China and at the summer camp. Next time he's faced with a contract, he'll look at it closely and have a list of questions that need to be answered satisfactorily. He knows to look at the big picture of the job, not just net gain. He'll also have some ideas of how to handle difficult situations, better than what happened before. These are all things that will help him all throughout his life, and he's become a better teacher, a better work mate and a better man for it. That's called growing up, and its something that all of us must do all of our lives..."

Amazing how you understand the workings of Phil's mind! Did you read the same post from Phil that the rest of us read? It's called "Response to Frank and Chuck"??? I got a VERY different impression from his post than you obviously did!

You go on: "At two years of experience, Phil is just getting the hang of it, and now it sounds like he's leaving soon."

"Getting the hang of it"??? You're talking about career, and I believe Phil is talking about tolerance. After two years of typical working-in-China BS, he's had enough! Gaining experience as a teacher and how much one wants to accept the high level of unprofessional/unethical practices in Chinese schools and summer camps are two entirely different issues.

I hope Phil will respond and confer as to whether or not your version of his feelings, revelations, and now-found maturity are at all accurate.

Something tells me... not!

I thought the OPs original post was colorful and enlightening. People like chuck who have lots of time to waste venting their frustrated life out on boards like this have no real purpose in life other than to breed more republican fundamentalist offspring.. Oh chuck.. Do the world a favor and try to find out how many turns you can do off the top of a three story building before the ground breaks your fall..

Phil, I wasn't the one that accused you of hitting a child; it was the people at the summer camp. I just wondered why they accused you of it. (Generally its best to come nowhere near touching children at all, not even shaking their hands or patting them on their backs. Even staying out of schoolyard games. Take your cue on this from local teachers. There are just too many things that can be read into our body language, their body language, and perceived notions!)
Summer camps can be pretty tough duty; they can really make you earn that money. But nobody ever really takes them too seriously. For the parents, its getting the kids out for a while and the status and bragging rights of spending money on their kids. For the managers, its advertising and a way of getting more customers. Remember, its a business first for the managers and owners, just like selling cars, real estate, or pots and pans. But English is the product, and you and I and Frank and Tom, Dick and Harry are the real sales staff. Really, if you truly want that good feeling that we all want from doing this, you'd probably find it best as a volunteer teacher somewhere in adjunct to your regular job.
Often, managers and teachers and staff can be utterly clueless about how to get things organized in something like that. Thats why they have so many meetings. And meetings really are a way of life for all of us, like them or not!
Don't let the problems become so insurmountable that you feel forced into a corner and feel pressured to do something rash or regrettable. None of it is worth it.

Frank, after spending the last 29 and 3/4 years teaching on four different continents, I think I've seen a lot. A lot of good teachers and bad, a lot of good situations and bad. A lot of good managers, business people, and politicians, and a lot of bad. I learned a long time ago that the accuracy and truth lies somewhere in the middle between the two sides. And its usually nowhere to be found in emotionally charged situations.
Just because somebody is a foreign teacher, and just because he's said he's been done wrong by somebody, doesn't mean he's right. Its not an "us vs. them" thing. As soon as it does become an us vs. them issue, the whole thing falls apart, and diplomacy and recovery may be lost.

Both of you might want to review some history of China of the last 50 years, in depth. Not the Chinese propaganda versions, nor the western propaganda versions, but some autobiographical versions. A book called China Blues by Jan Wong (a Canadian woman, one of only two foreign students in China in 1972) can be quite enlightening. (You will need somebdy to send it to you.) You may begin to understand why so many of their business practices are so corrupt and backward, and develop some ways of coping with them.

And if anybody thinks that business practices in China are any more corrupt than anywhere else, you may want to step out of teaching for a while and step into the world of business and politics.

Chuck, what's with you???

Your opening reply to Phil is:

"Phil, I'm surprized that after two years in China you were still caught off guard by some of these antics."

After that, you seem to blame PHIL (in rather condescending tones) for the "antics" of other people!?!?! Huh?

He states clearly that he's had previous experience in China, but that this situation near Dongguan was exceptionably bad. I'm able to buy that.

4000RMB for two weeks' worth of 8-hour working days with little or no down time is horrible. That works out to about 35-50RMB per hour. Remember, these summer camps are FOR-PROFIT ventures. Other people are making plenty of yuan off Phil's efforts (and misery).

I LOVE China (mainly because of my wonderful students and friends), and of course, I've find to find my own ways of coping (three years here as of TODAY!), but I can't stand this notion that we (foreigners) should be so forgiving of almost anything that's thrown our way.

In my mind, China seems to want it both ways. They yearn for rapid development, but at the same time, they want to hang to inefficient, unethical, and deceptive business practices. When we question why things are blundered, mismanaged, etc., it's out with the old "China is a developing country" song-and dance! It's just an excuse to sluff off most of the responsibility off on the foreigner who has ventured here often with good will and an open (and vulnerable) heart. (It ain't for the money!)

Chuck, I fear you're falling into what I call the "Kill The Messenger" category of posters.

I choose to believe Phil. I can well imagine that the "managers" at the summer camp would completely fabricate a story of physical abuse in order to justify ridding themselves of someone who was questioning their every decision and next move.

Good luck to you, Phil!

I've been in China for 2 years and worked with some difficult people, but i've never posted their details on this website on the basis that, even if i did, somebody would still go and work there. However, i did a few days of a summer camp for a company and school whose details i have decided to provide because they really were Grade A shysters. When you work for a guy that quite happily calls himself Dick without any trace of irony, then you know that you are dealing with quality people. Basically, If you are a native speaker with any pride in yourself and your work then do not work for either. Here's why:

1) Location
The course was located in a dump called Qiaotou (about 1 hour from Dongguan). The nearest shops were a 15 minute walk away up a dirt track and there was no other entertainment for foreign teachers that i saw apart from a table tennis table. The food was indescribably bad.

2) Organistion:
The course orientation involved an afternoon of throwing eggs out of a window wrapped in straws and paper, to attempt to prevent them from breaking. Our introduction to the students was a poor man's version of the Eurovision song contest, with a Chinese version of Terry Wogan compering. We were stuck on a stage with a load of flashing lights with music blaring out and asked to perform like chimpanzees. Things rapidly went downhill from there. I was the only person in the classroom that had a copy of the coursebook that i was supposed to be using with the students, and most of them didn't even have pens! Consequently, i was having to make up all the teaching myself with very little to guide me. The highlight though was being told by the course director, after i complained to him about the farcical organisation:
"teach them anything, even a,b,c, it doesn't matter".
According to my contract, i was only supposed to work for 5 hours a day but on most days i was doing up to 8 hours. The course director had disappeared by the third day of the course!.

3) Chinese teachers:
The Chinese teachers who were supposed to be our helpers weren't even being paid for the course (!!!), as they were employees of the school. Consequently, they were about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I was teaching 13 year old's - some of whom couldn't even say "what's your name" - but my co-teacher refused to do any translation for me, explaining this bizarre attitude in her broken English, thus:
"you must them make understand you with your hands".
One teacher also refused to do any translation and justified this in the daily waste of time of a meeting by saying that he thought this was the best way to help the students!!!

I was dismissed/left this company without even being told directly (i overheard one of the many Filipino teachers on the course telephoning one of her mates, to invite her in from Hong Kong to replace me). The reason used to get me to leave: an argument with a Chinese teacher about a student who i had asked the day before to have removed from my class because his English was non-existent. The idiot assistant of the course director then claimed that i had tried to hit/grab her head (i couldn't understand fully due to his splendid use of the English language), despite the fact that he had not even witnessed the incident and the girl was walking around perfectly happily without a mark on her. I know this is China, the land of ridiculous stories about foreigners, but this one really was too much. After my dismissal, i was dumped at the nearest coach station, where i was left to find my own way home.

This lot are a complete bunch of cowboys who are about as qualified to run an English training camp as i am to perform open heart surgery. As the situation stood when i left, i was only going to get paid 4000 for working mostly 8 hour days (3 hours per day in excess of that stated in the contract) for 2 weeks, with no days off.

Steer clear.

Philip