Abstract;

I am really sorry for your lousy experience. I'm sure all of us here are sympathetic with you. You are not the only one, as you can see! Boycott Yuming in TianJin and other crap schools!

What you said about the way they make the students "rate" you as a teacher through feedback forms strikes a bell. This is exactly what is done at Omeida College and Oral College in Yangshuo. The bosses there (and at other "schools" like it) know exactly that Westerners care more about teaching quality than cheesy and superficial socializing with all those feeble yuppies and spoiled early 20's brats of the new rich (corruption) class.

What happens at Omeida/Oral college is that student's complaints are used as an excuse to sack you and not pay your airfare bonus. The complaints never have any substance to them, which is confirmed when you speak to them face-to-face or go to see the boss.

The strategy is :

1) Lecture the FT on teaching basics in a condescending way to make the FT feel degraded and make out that it is all the FT's fault.

2) Exploit foreigner's good nature, or naviety about Chinese "culture". Frustrate attempts at personal mediation with a barrage of excuses to cause the FT to just walk out in frustration.

To try and make the FT quit on the spot.

One on occasion, all the students in my advanced class all wrote a letter to the DOS full of pointless complaints that other foreign teachers asked me to photocopy as it would have been a good laugh. I was called into the bosses office for 1 and 2.

I later found out that this was all because one of the girls (the strongest one with most manipulative power in the social group) fancied me but was very upset when I refused her (as I was already in a relationship) so they ganged up on me for no reason. When I went to class later (after the bell) to ask them why they had all signed and submitted the letter, they were all silent. The main protagonator was almost in tears. A couple came to apologise later. I only said "think before you do".

I could go on.....

Oral college is exactly the same. I helped with Wonderful's (the boss) summer camp. It was a mess with children aged from 4-18 all in the same class. A joke.

In conclusion, don't work at these two places, be ultra careful or just dismissive of offers of employment from all Chinese training centers.

An Ex-TC Teacher. Now very happy and respected at a university.