Hello!

It seems April 10th was not a good day for you. Sorry to hear that. Just noticed that the only recent negative feedback about BSK/Pacican I could find were two articles, both posted April 10th. When that much effort is put into it, you gotta figure it was a bad day. No worries. I've been there. But, contrary to your experience, BSK/Pacican has not given me any such horrid experiences.

I'm not really posting a reply to you, but a warning to others out there. Mainland China is not America. It's not the U.K. It's not Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain, or even Hong Kong... it's different. And depending on your personality and ability to adjust, it may not be the place for you.

I was working with them before Christmas until they fired me a couple of days after the first semester with no notice, no holiday pay, no bonus and no real reason except for not smiling enough during lessons. I will admit I wasn't smiling every second but how much is not enough?

I'm sorry, but it seems a little odd that they would fire someone for no reason with no notice. I had a coordinator who came and watched my class every couple of weeks and gave me feedback. She was wonderful. Sometimes I had to remind her to give me feedback, but I attribute that to the fact that she was quite busy. Nonetheless, she was happy to give it when I asked.

Pacican English is taught to young children. You need to have a personality that is suitable for that sort of environment. I certainly don't smile all the time in the classroom, but I certainly try to have fun.

From my experience I don't really have any positives to talk about except the kids who aren't controlled by pacican.

That's a very negative statement, which I may have misinterpreted (if I have, I apologize), in general.

Pacican has about 100 teachers, teaching (each) about 100 students (minimum) per semester. That's 10,000 students! That's a lot of children that you have "nothing positive" to say about. And, in fact, this semester our school was so happy with Pacican that they expanded the classes, so we had more students taking the course. The only problem we found right away was the level of English of the new students was far below the level of experienced "Pacican" students.

It sounds, to me, like you don't really like children. That's fine, but maybe choosing a job in teaching English was not the best decision.

If you go to experience Shanghai you're most likely to be disappointed. Pacican say they're in Shanghai, what they mean is their office is in the centre and you live on the outskirts about an hour and a half away, so every month for the mandatory workshops you have to travel there arriving just in time to sign your name and leave again.

One particular case, I guess. I don't live in the "downtown" Shanghai (which I actually prefer) but Shanghai boasts the largest subway system in the world (Google it "largest subway system in the world") and I live close enough to get around and see all there is to see. There's so much to do in Shanghai, the subway is huge, and taxis are cheap. I don't think you'll find many arguments to this.

I travelled 3 hours a day to get to my 3 different schools in the north and south of pudong. I can honestly say I hated every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

Sounds like you were just hating everything, sorry to hear that. I'm trying to think of my travel time. I do quite a bit of travelling, as I teach at 2 schools (one has 2 campuses, so it's like 3 schools) but I have this cheap little tablet computer I bought (about 500rmb) that I can prepare lesson plans, watch a movie, listen to music, or play Angry Birds... I'm an addict.

I guess I traveled about 2 hours a day. Thinking back to the last jobs I've had, I traveled anywhere from 2 - 4 hours a day. Unfortunately transporter technology is not yet available, but soon Scotty will be beaming us to work :)

very happy to be fired until I realised they weren't going to pay me.

I think this is a little intentionally poorly written (this sentence)... pay you a bonus, no, they did not. Typically, in most jobs I have worked, bonuses are usually given to the employed. From my understanding, unemployed people who asked employed people for their "bonus" have a name... beggars. Holiday pay, I can't comment on that. I have no idea the conditions of your contract.

You will be observed every other week by your coordinator who will have started a month before you and has no prior experience teaching or in any educational field, giving you feedback such as "be more happy", "play more games" or "play less games".

The coordinators are trained by the central teaching department. Although they're not as seasoned and experienced as you (they're all, minimum requirements, Chinese university grads that are fluent in two languages) they do have some idea what they're talking about.

If they say "be more happy", then why not try to be more happy?
If they say "play more games", then why not try to play more games?
If they say "play less games", then why not try to play less games?

I had a similar experience with games, but it sounds like I approached it differently than you did. At a workshop, I stayed behind, spoke with Mandy about it, and kept in touch via email about how to use games effectively in the classroom. She gave wonderful advice, as did another seasoned teacher she recommended me to speak to... whose name I can't remember. Taught me a bunch of songs.

Wait a second... I thought you said there was no warning?

The other staff’ are very friendly until you ask them for help or information for something at which point they will stop answering emails and tell you to email them if you call them. William the apparent boss is no different to the rest of the staff in his professionalism and ability.

Poor William. It is his job to do the hiring... and the firing... I'm guessing on why you're hating here...

I don't want to complain too much but I do regret working for them and being gullible enough to think that because I signed a contract they would stick to it. If you do choose to work for them good luck and I probably am slightly biased but only because they haven't paid me yet.

A) There was a lot of complaining, almost to the point of name calling. You single handedly stereotyped 10000 kids, everyone in the office, and William... poor William...
B) No idea about the contract, you're the first of many I know that has made such a claim, but it seems there's more to this than meets the eye
C) Paying you. For those of you reading, they pay every teacher, every month through a bank deposit. If you look around the internet at jobs paying 5000RMB a month, 7000RMB a month (heck, I just met a guy working for 2000RMB a month)... take into consideration BSK pays minimum 11000RMB a month, more than enough to survive on.

It sounds like you really just wanted to live in the downtown, enjoy the nightlife, have an easy job, and it didn't work out for you. I'm making a pretty heavy observation there, but so did you, especially to the coordinators, whom many I consider friends for life.

As my dad says, If it looks funny, it smells funny, and it tastes funny... for God sakes don't eat it! Your story just sounds a little funny...