Certainly there are other ESL schools who are culprits but......who is going to listen if you make an example of Joe Blow ESL school in Humbledink, Timbaktu?

This is more than an axe.

EF INDONESIA spends ton's of money marketing themselves as the INTERNATIONAL choice for ESL. They are a self-elected example of themselves being the model ESL school for students and future employees to believe and follow. So...they should be the leader of excellence in the world. Not the leaders of lies and deceiving.

THERE IS NOONE MONITORING OR ASSESSING ESL SCHOOLS ANYWHERE AND EMBASSIES TAKE A "HANDS OFF" APPROACH IN INSURING THAT TEACHERS ARE NOT MISLED OR MISTREATED.

SOOOOOOOOO................

WHAT DO WE DO?

Here is a start for ALL potential employees:

Bad English Language Schools Can Happen to Good Teachers

By Diana Campbell

If you want to teach English abroad but you want to avoid those bad English language teaching schools, how can you find out which ones to avoid? Unfortunately, options for gathering information on particular schools is limited. There are a few blacklists (see below) but those largely cover the major Asian countries. There is virtually nothing comprehensive available for teachers working anywhere else.

Alarmingly, many prospective teachers appear to believe that ELT jobs sites exist to help language teachersposting only reputable job offersbecause they also offer links to cheaper health insurance, provide extensive country information or cost of living tips, or give away free lesson plans. Dont be deluded. These sites are businesses first and foremost. Nothing they do can reasonably be considered to be in the teachers best interest.

These sites forward hundreds and possibly thousands of applications on to schools every week, and some of the applicants do find jobs, sign contracts or make a verbal agreement and then fly off to a TEFL adventure. Yet, how many have done the critical work of researching the schools before putting themselves at the mercy of the people hiring them? Probably not many and certainly not enough.

In an unacceptable number of cases, the teachers dont get the job they bargained for. Upon arrival they may be told that the contract provisions or verbal agreements have been changed and theyre now required to teach double the amount of hours, or do office tasks in their spare timeall for the same money. And the promised teaching support doesnt materialize. Or maybe the teacher is placed into accommodations that are unsafe or unhealthy. Perhaps theyve even worked a month or two but havent been paid.

Attempts to get the school to abide by the original contract or to find more suitable accommodations may elicit threats of being turned over to the authorities, having pay withheld, or possibly other means of intimidation will be used. If the teacher continues to complain, demands pay, or refuses to abide by an amended contract, then he or she may be fired from the job without warning or even a notice period. This can mean being immediately turned out of ones lodging and not getting paid for completed work.

Teachers have found themselves homeless in foreign countries, unable to speak the language, penniless after having spent all their money for plane fare and other preparatory expenses, having no place to go and no idea of how to get anywhere safe. Getting out of a mess like that can be financially and emotionally costly. Doing careful and thorough research before leaving home is crucial and might save you from a similar fate.

Avoid Being Victimized

Here are a few things that prospective English language teachers can do to avoid becoming victims of bad or unscrupulous schools.

Find ELT discussion boards by using a search engine. Once youve found a few, post your questions about a particular school on each one and ask for private e-mailed responses. In my experience simply asking for information about a particular school and requesting private responses wont get posts deleted from even those discussion boards on sites that depend on schools for advertising revenue.

Include an e-mail address, which you have created on a free, Web-based service like Yahoo! or Hotmail specifically for this purpose and dont use your real name anywhere. Maintaining your privacy is essential because you dont know who will be answering your queries. Read any repliespro or conwith a critical eye.

Carefully read all of the job advertisements for several months before you even apply for any openings. The reason for this is that you will want to see patterns established by certain schools. Do they advertise frequently? Why might they need to? Why do they need that many new teachers that often? If you see job openings on a monthly or bi-monthly basis, you should have alarm bells going off in your head.

Read the job advertisements several times with a critical eye. Ask yourself if the listed job requirements or benefits could be read in two different ways. Read job advertisements defensively!

If a DoS (Director of Studies), school owner or recruiter requires any deposits of money, documents like passportsoriginals or copiesoriginals of certificates or diplomas, pass those schools by and dont look back. Never send money or original documents to someone advertising for teachers! You will likely never see your money or your documents again and there will surely be no job waiting for you. You might even become a victim of identity theft.

If the owner or DoS requires that, along with your application, you send lesson plans or other things for which you would normally be paid after you are hired, or requires more than a bachelors degree, walk away. The pay offered by language schools never warrants anything above a bachelors degree and this is only because some countries require a university degree to obtain a work permit. Sending in lesson plans or other teaching-related material is simply a way for a school to steal your work.

Asking for a TEFL qualification if the teacher has no teaching experience is certainly reasonable; specifying that this must be a CELTAand only a CELTAis highly questionable. Having a TEFL or TESOL qualification from a reputable school, which is externally moderated and has an observed teaching component is equal to having a CELTA.

Lastly, remember that no promises made about any jobs are really enforceable, not even if they are in writing. You might pursue those bad schools through their countrys courts but the likelihood of receiving anything but a huge bill for the lawyer and translator youve had to hire is slim. If you accept a job at a bad language school you will have to absorb any financial losses yourself. Plan for the worst and hope for the best!

Plan for the Worst

What this means in practice is that you should have a return airline ticket usable for up to 90 days in your possession when you leave your home country for that new TEFL job. If you plan to buy a 1-way ticket you should have enough readily available money to buy a return ticket.

You should also have enough money to rent a hotel room, eat, and get local transport in an emergency. In the event that you are fired or the lodging never materializes or is so awful a rat wouldnt consider living there youll need money. You should have enough to handle all potential emergency expenses until you can get out of the country or find another job. How much youll need to cover emergency expenses in a particular country is something you should research before leaving home.

Take good care of yourself. Even if the school is a good one, you should plan for what youll need to be on your own in a foreign land. In the sad event the school turns out to be one of those language schools from hell, you will be able to bounce back more easily if youve looked after yourself properly from the start.

For More Info

Related Articles

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Dont Be a Victim
Selecting Reputable TEFL Schools Abroad

ELT Bulletin Boards

Daves ESL Cafe Forums: www.eslcafe.com/forums/job
TESall: www.tesall.com/international/index.php
Ajarn: www.ajarn.com
China School Review: www.chinaschoolreview.net
ESL Junction (with greylist): tefltesljobs.com/index.php

Blacklists and School Ratings

ESL Teachers Board: www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/review/index.pl
ESL Job Find: www.esljobfind.com/main_bw.php?action=7
Nates China School Review: www.chinaschoolreview.net
Job Information Journal: www.tesall.com/international/viewforum.php?f=40
English School Watch: englishschoolwatch.org
Marks ESL Blacklist: marksesl.com/forum_center.htm
Hagwon Blacklist: www.geocities.com/hagwonblacklist
Buxiban: www.buxiban.com

FROM: www.transitionsabroad.com
_____________________________________________________

There is no magic key to fixing this problem at this point because teachers are not in a collective union that has political power. We are at the mercy of local laws and enforcment of those laws.

IF 100 future teachers see these postings and refuse to sign contracts with EF Indonesia than I have achieved my goal. If future teachers read about EF INDONESIA and are more selective in their overall job searches, than I have achieved my goal.

Being an ESL teacher is a respectable and honorable job. If ESL schools cannot see that than they can suffer the loss on their own. They have shown no willingness to change and could care less which "WHITE" person stands in their classrooms.

If a potential ESL teacher wants to travel 1,000's of miles from home based on tropical dreams and foreign adventure than they should clearly understand that a large majority of schools will sell OUR culture with no moral or ethical delivery while requesting that the potential teacher respects their culture everyday.

YOU DECIDE. What is your culture worth to you? Worth being manipulated and low balled in pay and time? Worth being treated like a moron because you disagree with the way your school is delivering your culture and language to students? Worth living in an area that you will always be the oddity or minority and never accepted as a person who gives to that community?

Teachers who choose not to protect themselves before traveling should not be teachers in the first place. But.....schools that sell english don't need to manipulate us to bring us to work.

Honesty in hiring will create a much better working atmosphere, relationship and will quell the nasty taste most ESL teachers have in their mouths because they have to LEARN LESSONS, SWITCH JOBS DUE TO LIES, ETC.

ONE SHOULD NEVER FORGET.......ESL SCHOOLS HAVE NO ENROLLMENT OR RETENTION RATES WITHOUT TEACHERS.

If they are so nieve and stupid to think they do than God be rid of them.

If they do understand that than ESL Teachers will have an enjoyable experience and will be treated with the respect they deserve.