Many years ago, Owen, when I had first decided to find a job in China, EF was one of the first organizations I contacted. When I was finally told by a representative at their New York City office what the pay would be for 40 teaching hours, I immediately declined their offer. By the way, there was no mention that those 40 hours would be broken down in the manner you've described. Now, I don't doubt that you weren't required to actually teach that many hours -meaning, I have no reason to disbelieve you; nevertheless, regardless of how many actual teaching hours there are, the fact remains that they expect you to be on site, or at their beck and call for that long. That's excessive. Especially for such low pay.

You've done a pretty good job of unemotionally supporting EF in Changchun, but you've also made it clear that you no longer work there. Things may have changed. I would still, therefore, advise anyone, especially newbies, to consider their options carefully before working for an EF school anywhere in the world.

I disagree with your assertion that I need to have worked for EF in order to advise others to stay clear of them. I've been in this profession for a long time and your support of them is the first I've come across. A professional franchise of any kind would take serious steps to clean up their act, but it's obvious that EF has not. It's pretty easy to understand their mindset; the money's still rolling in, so why rock the boat?

I do, however, agree with what you've written regarding the generally low quality of EFL teachers in China. Sooner or later the Ministry of Education will wake up to that fact and something will be done about it. Hopefully, though, at the same time, something will be done about the mess created by private training centers as well. That definitely includes franchise schools such as EF who have been very successful at marketing their brand but not so successful at providing quality English training or fair working conditions for FTs in their employ.