I have been out of this type of work for years but decided to take a look at comments about places. It is so sad that these guys who should be restricted to selling used cars are still hurting education in Far Eastern countries. Tiger Tiger is a brat and you will see that if you talk to him. I had a great resume and record and he even agreed. I have all good recommendations. Then when I turned him down, Tiger Tiger went into full salesman lying mode. He said he called all my employers and they said they gave me good recs but did not mean it. I called a couple and they said Tiger Tiger never called them up. Yes, I am sorry to say that there are such con-artists in China. You are wary of sales people in America and other places you may come from. Believe me these Chinese job agents are the worst sales people you will ever meet. Eventually I found a job at a top university and the best places never work with job agents. You just have to approach them yourselves. And it can be done. Go to the international dean or some other high person, from the start. Let the Tiger Tigers wallow in their self-pity
Chinese schools always pay on time. In Thailand that is a different matter - up to 6 months late!
As a teacher for languagelink last year I can say I only had good experiences at the schools! Actually, as many of the management are foreigners I found it a lot easier to deal with than many of the schools i have worked for in china.
I have been teaching english for 8 years and have worked in 4 different countries, I've been in china 2 years already, I can definitely say that the management have been some of the easiest i've had to deal with! Many are foreigners which has made it much easier to deal with any issues. Although i speak intermediate level chinese there is still a big difference in management styles between foreigners and chinese, and i'm sad to say it does take some getting used to for many people! :-P Having the foreign study directors has helped a lot to smooth things over between a western and chinese style of working.
As the poster says - no problem with payment on time, which is a big plus in china! They never try to cheat you and have a western attitude of honesty to management which is a breath of fresh air in china. It's true we werent provided with laptops but i have NEVER been provided with a laptop by a school before! in 8 years! The materials at the schools are actually really good, much better than most other schools here. And although we were contracted for 40 office hours a week our study directors are very relaxed about this and we were never made to keep this up - this is completely different to most schools with office hours that i've worked for here who have always had me sitting in the office doing nothing just to make-up the hours! At languagelink they have always been understanding if i've had no classes and want to go home early.
I'm honestly really confused by this post and can only assume this must be a single disgruntled teacher with a chip on their shoulder! This was not my experience at all! Hopefully some other ex-languagelink school teachers will also put their reviews here.
These TEFL school blacklists are really useful and should be for schools that are really bad! (believe me there are plenty of them in china!) Using this forum to vent your personal vendettas is selfish and misleading for people trying to find jobs in china.
Im gonna have an interview with them next week. Is there anyone else out there that can share their stories? Turnoi, have you worked for them too?