Oh thanks for that "KEFK"! No surprises there then coming from the Manager of the Foreign Staff Recruitment at King's. Oh dear me. Everybody who has ever worked at king's will know that the man who posted as KEFK is a compulsive liar and is basically just a salesman who gets paid 5,000 dollars per month and never does any real work apart from tricking foreign ESL job hunters into working for king's.

Well the first thing to say about your post is that you are twisting the truth big time, if not out and out lying about the facts.

1. Demo classes are very regular at King's and as he admits you will be forced to stand in front of adults and children that you have never met before and try to 'sell the product'. This means that you go through a glorified slide show for 30 minutes and try to get a group of 2 year olds to shout out words like apple and banana, then sing some songs with your TA in front of the crowd of parents who are mostly just there to see a white monkey show. And also it is not true that these demo classes ever end! Every foreign teacher at king's has to do demo classes, it is just as much part of the job there as teaching the classes. If you go and work for them, you will see for yourself.

2. I am certainly not racist, infact my ex girlfriend is Chinese and I have many Chinese friends. The point I was making about the management being clueless and useless is completely true and applies to the Chinese and Foreign staff. Yes 99% of the management at King's english for kids are Chinese and I pointed that out because when people come to work for the company they are led to believe that there will be a big network of friendly foreign managers waiting to help them and be there for them on a daily basis, which is 100% false.

The statement that the Chinese staff all have a CELTA is more than laughable! Do you really think that you can fool anybody into believing that a company which is on the borderline of bankruptcy will pay 20,000 RMB per manager to complete the CELTA course. I can say from my experience that the academic supervisors and center managers are all Chinese with poor english, no idea about how to teach english and most of them have really bad communication skills and are unable to get on well with foreign staff or solve their problems.

Oh right so non of the foreign managers have the right to 'screw' staff over with pay. That's funny, the rules must have changed then because it was happening all the time. The pay scheme at king's is very badly managed and people who work there shouldn't expect to get rewarded for being experienced or for being a great teacher.

The Head of the Academic Department is a really nice chap and I don't want to put anything personal about him but I'm sorry to say that he doesn't have an MA or Masters of Education. He isn't even a native english speaker either!

3. Resources: There are some really bad lesson plans and slide shows which they call 'FLPs' that are provided but none of the foreign teachers use them because they are absolutely awful and none of the content can be implemented into a real classroom environment. There is only one level of the curriculum that was produced by a qualified foreign teacher but because nobody else in the school was qualified all the other levels were made by unqualified Chinese office bureaucrats.

Notice that the previous post doesn't deny the use of "Jingle" and outrageous songs which have no language value at all! The worst course that king's offer is what they call "Maths and Science" or LWTE. Speaking as a qualified teacher in these areas I can honestly say that the king's set up is an absolute joke, or at least it would be if hundreds of parents in Tianjin weren't wasting their money on it. Part of the so called maths course involves making the 7-10 year old students do a workbook that is imported from America and is used there to teach 3-5 year old kindergarten pupils how to count by colouring shapes.

Oh and about the staff at king's. I heard that the most long standing member of the teaching team is leaving next month so now it is actually only the three Foreign Managers who have been there for 3 years or more. Also it is really not the case that all teachers at king's have at least 1 year of teaching experience. Not that I am having a go at anybody in a personal way here but some people at king's went there straight out of school and some of them, including T[edited] who posted a nice message defending the school, don't even have degrees and are working in China illegally on fake documentation.

4. Money. Again anybody who has been reading the last post by KEFK will notice that there is no denial of the money trouble, just some sugar coating of the truth by saying that the company was "restructuring". The truth is that the Chinese staff have had all their pay delayed and the overall amount of their salary reduced for the last 6 months. I still keep in touch with several of my TAs and other colleagues at king's so I know this is a fact.

There are not 9 king's centers at all that I know of! There are 4 in Tianjin, 1 in Qingdao and 1 in Beijing (which I heard is closing down anyway). The overall company is called Compass English and that is an adult school and there is another one called Xcell or something like that which teaches teenagers, but they are separate from king's.

5 and 6: As I said in my previous post I and other people have firsthand experience of king's negligence and failure to look after foreign staff. Anybody can claim to have all the medical insurance etc but whether they help you out in practice is another matter. With overtime, king's may occasionally ask foreign staff to switch shift or do extra tasks like curriculum development and will promise to pay well for it but never give the pay rise when it comes to it. I also have firsthand experience of this happening!

7. Actually I think it is important that people use sites like Youtube to find visual information and an insight into Tianjin life! If people choose to express their feelings towards their life in Tianjin or elsewhere through music they are more than free to do so. KEFK ought to agree with this seen as he claims to be a fully qualified music teacher and a former professional singer himself!

I too do not want to get into a slanging match. Quite honestly I have much better things to do with my time than go back and forth pointing out things that are already concrete facts. I had an overall decent year in Tianjin but king's spoilt my and my friends' experience of China so I think it is only fair that ESL job seekers know the truth about the school before they get into a trap!

Oh yeah of course the school will give you people to contact before you go there, but most likely it will either be one of the chosen team of special foreign employees or it will be a teacher who has been there for 1 month or so. If you really want to know the truth about King's English for Kids Tianjin why don't you request to speak to teachers who have been with the company for a year or more and ask them to respond to the issues I have pointed out in my posts. You will see who is telling the truth!

Quote: "King's English isn't perfect, and there are many things that should be improved, but for most staff who work here the time is productive and enjoyable."

Notice the clear admission of how poor the company is AND the statement of "most staff" finding it to be a productive and enjoyable place to work. If it is such a good company, why don't ALL the staff love it so much? This quote tells potential job seekers all they need to know!