It's amusing, yet also annoying, to see people with chips on their shoulders posting here for years to claim that EF is a bad school to work for, and that anyone who stays the distance must be a moron.

I've worked in China since 2007, and previously avoided EF due to negative postings; including Shenyang. I've now been working for EF Suzhou for over two years, and may stay a third. If I leave, it'll be because I want to leave China.

EF is a private language school. It therefore takes students outside of the school hours, which means evenings and weekends. If you don't like to work evenings and weekends, don't apply.
Saying that, with two consecutive days off a week and the other three often free until 5pm, it's not bad. Weekends start at 08:45 until as late as 6:30, depending on your classes. Still time for a social evening, if not too tired!
Do we work 40 hours a week! No! Standard 20 teaching hours, with workshops and occasional meetings on the schedule. Teachers plan the rest of their admin time themselves.
We have teachers who are happy to work here, despite not being tied to Suzhou, for over three years.

Teaching methods? Not bad. A bit overbearing when you first look and the books do have some errors, but so have "Cutting Edge", "New Headway" Etc.
The effort put into new material is pretty impressive, but time will tell how effective.

Is EF perfect? I doubt it. It's a Franchise business and as such the franchisee can 'go rogue' and abuse the system. It happens. It also takes EF a while to extract from a legally enforceable contract with the franchisee, by which time the damage is done and that school gives the company a bad name. Chinese investors take time to change their business model to suit how a school should work. It's a business, that needs profit to survive, but so do all businesses.

Interested in TEFL teaching? Look around, and ask questions. There are people on here who post about EF, perhaps even under more than one nickname, and maybe had a genuinely bad experience. They could also hold a grudge because they been dismissed, as I've had to do twice. The first time because the teacher was hungover once too often and the second time because he arrived late too often with no lesson plan or objectives, resulting in poor quality teaching. TEFL teaching is real teaching, just focused. It's not for everybody. In fact, if you intend pursuing a career outside of TEFl teaching, then don't stay too long as it's not a useful addition to most peoples résumé.

Personally, a poster on the internet posting over a period of years and blanketing a whole company (whatever company) in such a negative light seems a bit obsessive, and perhaps out of touch with reality. If you have a Mercedes Benz, your local service agent can be a bit of a lottery, as most dealers are similarly franchised. To say that Mercedes Benz are all rubbish is a bit of a stretch. Times change, people change, companies change. The same goes for EF.

Anyone having the audacity to suggest they are happy and work for a good EF school, and there are many, is said to work in a "Shangri-La". Unfortunately, like Trolls elsewhere on the internet, certain posters are sure to call me a "GW", moron, patsy or similar. Judge their contribution as you will. They can infer or state outright that they are fully qualified teachers much in the same way that I can say I'm a qualified barrister. I'm not, but one of our teachers is, and another does in fact have a degree in teaching, has worked in education all his life, latterly as principal, has planned and opened International schools in Asia, and is about to open another in China at a salary we regular teachers can only dream of. (BTW - in his humble and well-educated opinion, EF material is actually rather good.)

Post away. If you're going to insult me, or the other teachers who work here, please do come to Suzhou and say it to our faces. We're a nice bunch really: perhaps we can go for a beer!

David.