Guilin Expat
- 2013-07-08
In the semester that I have worked for Treville Foreign Language School Kristy has always paid me on time and in full so I am not sure what happened to this poster.
Kristy Wang
- 2013-07-01
Dear Ms. Mona [name edited]
In its decade-long existence, Treville has cooperated with dozens of educational institutions and hundreds of foreign teachers across the country and we have yet to experience either party say a negative thing about our corporation and our internal policies.
While I regret that our professional relationship ended on a bad note, the reasons why we decided not to sign a contract for the next term was due to a series of irreconcilable professional and personal differences.
The main reason for the school’s decision to opt out of signing a contract is because you have neither a TEFL certificate nor high school diploma: both are required for teaching English in China and the absence of either, much less both of them, makes it difficult for us to obtain the proper paperwork to ensure the legality and safety of your time in the country.
These requirements are plainly visible on our website.
Furthermore, the misrepresentation regarding your nationality—you claimed Canadian nationality, a demonstrable untruth—is damaging for a number of reasons, namely to our reputation with both our satellite schools, our clients and our connections within the local government and law enforcement agencies, the latter of whom we have informed about your libelous and illegal behavior.
They are pending further action.
On a professional level, your insubordinate was also grounds for termination. Your teaching style, to name one example, was in stark contrast from our method. When I tried to correct you and offer professional criticism, your response was unwarranted and again, unprofessional.
In terms of compensation, your paycheck was derived according to the contract that Vivian sent to you earlier. In the event that a mistake was made—it’s true that sometimes mistakes are made after miscalculation—the opportunity exists to correct in a civil and courteous manner.
Your solution, to yell at everyone and refuse to work, was unprofessional and factored into our decision to dissolve our professional relationship.
There are other professional considerations, as well, including visa issue and your personal conduct, both towards myself and other staff members.
All of this being said, I regret that our relationship ended on such an unpleasant note.
To protect the school’s professional reputation, I will be forced to enter your name into a publicly available blacklist designed to warn other schools in the country about your behavior.
Inclusion on this list may also result in a lifetime ban from entering the People’s Republic of China again as well as a large fine and/or possible jail time.
I look forward to reaching a conclusion to this issue that will be beneficially for both of us.
Best regards,
Kristy Wang
EnglishTeacher
- 2013-06-22
Came across this today - I had exactly the same experience working for Kristy, keep reading for more details.
I was really excited to work in Guilin and thought I had found a good job with a good salary. Unfortunately this was not the case. The owner of the “school”, Kristy, was a nightmare to work with and has a terrible reputation in town. Upon arrival I had multiple other foreign teachers tell me how sorry they were that I got mixed up with her. They were right. I was never paid on time or correctly, we were always paid less and had endless fights to try to get the money we were owed. The housing assistance consisted of being shown one or two horrible apartments in questionable areas of town, then being told that was all there was so we had to pick one. There is no teaching support. The materials used in kindergarten were terrible. Terrible. Most of the time though you are yelled at by the owner and told what a horrible teacher you are and what a mistake it was to hire you. That is if you even have a job when you arrive, two teachers arrived in Guilin only to be told they did not actually have a job and had to leave.
The one bright side was the Chinese assistants who were nice and usually made an attempt to help in class. However, they are paid so little and treated so poorly most of them don’t stay more than a semester anyway. They are manipulated and threatened just like the foreign teachers.
Also, be aware, there is not an actual school. You will work in multiple schools throughout the city (usually 3) and some of them are good and some of them are not. You can spend up to 3 hours a day commuting between schools. There are so many other opportunities to work in China, I would suggest trying one of those.
A Former Al-Ghanim Bilingual School Teacher
- 2013-01-15
Dear H.L.:
Your review is very helpful. If you can, submit your review to internationalschoolsreview.com. There are many other bad schools reviewed on the site which have similar issues, and teachers need to be warned about them. Reviews are anonymous and may be submitted for free. You only have to pay to read reviews.
Take care.
Everything about this job offer was perfect for me. Located in Guilin, fair salary (for the region), full visa services. I guess it should have hit me in the beginning where I had to ask several times for a contract to sign. Or perhaps when the school just hired me - with no interview. Nevertheless, I ignored it.
The problems began shortly after I had arrived. I met the infamous "Kristy" a few days in. She took me out for a fancy meal and laughed and joked with me. She seemed nice and like she was going to be the kind of employer who would take care of her employees well. When I asked the other teachers about her however, they would all give me warnings and say "you will see".
And that is exactly what I did. Not only does she take chunks out of our salaries by giving us rather sneaky working hours, but also fails to remember to pay for things promised in the contract, such as apartment allowance & transportation fees, forcing me to pay out of my own savings. I never did get that money back. Visas were another hassle, we argued regularly on this issue and she didn't seem very interested to help me. Every company has problems, but how is the employer going to handle these problems? In "Kristy's" case, you will be blamed, pushed, and put down. For a while I thought I was the only one having these problems and that she just didn't like me, but then I found out that 80% of the other teachers are facing similar, if not, the same struggles.
My colleagues and I would always say that we wish there were warnings or reviews about Treville on the internet. I hope this is not the last one. I am writing this not to be mean or hateful, just a warning to other teachers before even thinking of taking on this "dream offer".
PS - There is no "Treville Foreign Language School", there is however, you running around town from one school to another.