Let me tell you today February 16th 2014 I went to another ESL school in Binzhou City and they mentioned to me that Huamei Foreign Language School that is owned by Mr. Mon is not really good, They mentioned to me at ASTON that Mr. Mon only focuses on his Kindergarten the old one and the new one when it pretains to making money and the condition of the facilities.. Comparing to the old kindergarten and the training center that is very old and disgusting, actually his new kindergarten is okay and clean..

Huamei foreign language school in Binzhou City is not a school that anyone should work at unless that you want to be compared to anyone like other teachers in general which its not good... and also remember folks when you go and teach in a training center like that, you should remember that you came to China for only one purpose is to work and make a living so you can support your family in your home country and do make sure that no one pulls you down to their level... today I was evaluated by LI our HR manager for my evaluation and it was just shocking out of the blue and she told me that its good that you made your class fun and everything is going well but she wanted me to download some kiddie songs for 12 years old omg.... that is mostly for kindergarten students... Remember just do your job thats about it...

Let me tell you in Huamei they provide all of the teachers badly used books that are lacking so many pages and ripped so badly that is not good and also the classrooms are very cold the heating in the school doesnot work...plus the structure of the school is very old just like my apartment with no heat... My contract is a total of 8 months more left and I decide that I will go to another city in 2015 coz I know that Huamei will not pay me more in Salary and that its better elsewhere by that time.. Until next time

I will have to say that Cn Staff who work at TC's have an even more unstable working life than backpacking expat types sometimes! I knew a friend who worked at a TC who commented on how the classroom TC assistants would just disappear and be replaced from time to time every few months.

Ah, the talent shows... I told them that I’d happily give them higher scores, if they gave me students that aren’t shit.

One time we had a native speaker from the UK and the chinese staff at Huamei had a problem with his hair because it was curly but in others view point it looks okay but at a chinese point of view they were being rude to him and it was not nice.

This training center is totally disorganized they make all of the teachers pass out flyers in the freezing cold for more than one hour until all of the flyers are gone and tell the students at the public, primary and middle schools to enroll in Huamei.. That type of advertising usually back fires and Huamei overcharges alot of parents who brings in their children to that school.

Well, I can definitely tell you that I will never get a perm simply in order to get a job... And I'm one of those who get rather self-conscious about my self-image in regards to hairstyles, due to the fact that when I cut my short rather short in the summer months ( and you actually need to here because it gets really bloody hot, I tell you), I start to look like a bit of a neo-Nazi thug according to one of my piss taking German friends.

As for the flyering, I remembering witnessing this kind of shit kind of directly. I actually felt a little sad yet slightly amused at the same time. When I saw it, I was enjoying a coffee in a Starbucks in a more central part of town, it was on the 2nd floor I think, on a coldish autumn day. I was sat near the window, enjoying my coffee, looking at the crowds below when I saw a load of EF guys in branded, if I remember correctly bright orange sweatshirts, desperately trying to give all these flyers out. I sat back, smiled and thought "f**k that for a laugh."

When I worked at a TC, it wasn't quite so bad. They had a separate marketing team, but from what I could see, they were young, lazy and sometimes a little stupid, they handed me one of their flyers when I was walking past on the street, do I look like the kind of person that would need to go to a TC to LEARN how to speak English? Worst of all, none of these guys could actually speak English, which was not actually a great advertisement for a product. Believe it or not, we actually had a few parents that would enquire who already spoke good English, I can't begin to imagine how much of a bad impression that this marketing team was giving out to them.

From a purely business point of view, showing off your dancing white monkeys initially appears to make sense, but when they are performing a job that they did not originally come for and effectively doing a job that others could be recruited to do (they don't give out working visas for fly-posters for a reason), it turns out that it does not make sense. Not to mention that it will demoralise the teachers no end.

As for the farming out to other schools, I've already explained a thing or two. It is actually such a shitty practice that many foreign teachers will view it as a licence to teach to teach not quite so professionally. After all, if that classroom is full of irritating little shits, would you really want them to enrol at your centre? You never see these bonuses that get promised to you as some TA will find a way to claim that they personally recruited the student.

Gossiping is low mentalitaty, and staff at TCs normally are low-lives. They are the scum of the earth and as a rule they are not educated at all. Useless people to get rid off!

In my experience, they are English major graduates that weren't exactly the most successful job hunter, or spoilt rich kids that just dicked around when they studied abroad and then got the job through parental connections.

Hi Everyone,
Let me tell you more about Huamei Foreign Language School located here at 509 Huanghe five road Binzhou City Located in Shandong Providence. The most shocking thing is that when I first came to the school everything was pretty good in the begining, and no problems at all at first when I got here on December 4th 2013. After I started teaching here is where the problems and concerns have started from the staff gossiping behind the backs of the native speakers for absolutely no reason and telling the native speakers not to speak freely about the country where they came from or if they are married to a spouse that came from that country, only when someone asks a question where does your spouse come from? you have to be honest with them and tell the truth, you cannot lie about it and at Huamei Foreign Language School the staff their are telling all foreign teachers not to even say much about that. I think that its not right thing to do.

Another thing is that they have a marketing plan to send teachers to other primary, middle and public schools by sending their teachers over their to get some students to come over to Huamei. Plus, the facilities of Huamei Foreign Language School is very dirty, not clean, not organized in the office with the office staff most of the time is not present most of the time and there is no Academic Director that works at the school. Our overtime salary there are times that it is not paid correctly, there are times that there are mistakes done to the salary in the beginning and terms in the contract is not honored at all times hours are not made up at all.

The chinese staff usually gossip about the foreign native teachers at this school saying that one to another is better than each other which its not good thing to say, racism and racial profiling is a big problem, plus phone calls at the last minute to foreign teachers to come in and work and the office staff didnot tell them exactly what to prepare...

that is it for today and i'll give you more info later

Sadly, I have been there and suffered that kind of thing at a TC myself in the past, I feel your pain. The farming out to recruit students tactic is of questionable legality and I wish that the PSB would wake up to it and make a defining statement, as although corporate training is legal, using another company to provide teachers if you do not have a license to recruit foreign teachers is probably not.

With the whole getting farmed out by the TC thing, the way that I dealt with this situation was to look at the facts: You are not their regular teacher, you will not get respected by the students to the same degree and Chinese teachers at those external schools will feel jealous about the fact that you may be able to get the job, despite not being quite as qualified or experienced as them (or jealous that you do not speak Chinglish). Also, I'm sorry to tell you that those Chinese teachers at the public schools, know that you work for a shitty TC rather than a real school (I do not mean to diss you personally, I'm just telling it, how it is). As far as they are concerned, you are just there to give them a 1 hour break from teaching.

I found that TCs marketing exercise backfired even from a marketing point of view, never mind an education point of view. I will tell you this: Not only are TCs just businesses rather than real academic institutions, they often aren't actually even that good at being a business anyway, that's why they have to cut corners in every way possible.

In my experience, it was impossible for even the best teachers to give an accurate representation of the lessons at the TC (the product that we were supposed to be advertising) as teaching 50 students for a period of 45 minutes, is completely different to teaching smaller numbers such as 4 to 10 for 55 minutes like you might do at a TC. There is a significant reduction in time personally dedicated to each individual student. Some of the shittier teachers struggled to teach their classes properly, the better ones adapted their lesson plans accordingly. I can't help thinking that some of the teachers that were farmed out actually deterred students from enrolling at the TC, rather than attracting them.

Chinese schools, whether private or public can be really disorganised. Although one may give face and avoid making people lose face, you have got to be firm and stand your ground or your will be used as a quiet obedient doormat. When I get last minute phone calls or instructions, I will directly tell people to get f**ked. Start doing the same.

My advice is whilst you can, quit this TC job, there are public universities that are recruiting teachers right now. Apparently, Shandong is not a great part of China to teach in either, consider switching cities.