I did part time work at Meten--I would never attach myself to them via a Z visa.

The Good:

--Unlike many training schools, Meten paid reliably. The salary was laughably meagre, but it came in the promised amount, on the promised date. It's funny how I would never have considered this as a 'pro' for any job before traveling abroad (they paid me! They really paid me!)...but this is actually a remarkable level of professionalism for a Chinese owned & operated organization.

--They can and do sponsor Z visas. You probably have to twist their arms to get one, though. I refer you to my earlier comment.

--The books are, from a pedagogical standpoint, 'okay.' It's not EF. You do not just click through an idiot-proofed PPT.

The Bad:

--So. Freaking. Cheap. What do I mean by cheap? On my first day, I sat down, looked up my classes, found the corresponding book lessons, and decided that I would mix in a filler involving improvised activity cards. Off I went to the printer to grab some scrap paper. Alas, there was no paper in the bin, so I asked a staff member where the paper was kept.

'You have to ask Trisha for it,' she answered. I assumed Trisha was in charge of inventory...so off I went to find her. She smiled, reached into her desk, and produced a key. I followed her to some cabinets, where reams and reams of paper were locked up like gold bars in Fort Knox. The following conversation took place:

'How much do you need?'
'Excuse me?'
'Papers. How many pieces of paper do you need?'
'Um, four, maybe.'

She then slowly counted out four pieces of paper, no more and no less, and handed them to me.

That is what happened within my first 15 minutes as a Meten employee. I later learned that 2 black markers are entrusted to every Meten teacher every month (usually, neither of them has much ink), and that my students and I would freeze our butts off in the winter because no one was allowed to switch on the heat until about mid-January. This is a company that charges students 400RMB or more for a class with a white monkey, and the management is meticulously doling out every piece of paper the teachers get to use in their lessons. It's not as if there isn't a hilarious BS 'line of reasoning' for it, though:

It is all to save the environment. Meten really does care about Mother Earth.

--To go along with the cheap comment, the salary isn't even peanuts. Also, you work 'office hours', so you will end up sitting around all day just to kill time.

--Unprofessional sales staff. This is pretty much true for any training school in China, so its probably not entirely fair to throw this barb at Meten. I really did want to strangle a bunch of them, though. Imagine being halfway through a 50-minute lesson with 4 beginner-level high school students. Now, imagine the damn door opening, and your idiot 'colleague' from the sales department marching into the tiny room with two people, announcing that they will sit in the class. No, she didn't think to bring in chairs for them (durrr), so there is at least 5 minutes of people running in and out of the room while chairs are collected, followed by the shuffling of your class (who's parents are, again, paying 400RMB+ for the lesson) in order to fit everyone into the TINY classroom. Oh, yeah, and the 2 observers have advanced-level English, so (a)they glean nothing meaningful at all from crashing your lesson and (b)
ruin it for your students by shouting out the answer to every question you ask ('You can conjugate 'to have!' I am so freaking proud of you!!!!').

Excluding one-on-one courses, I can count the lessons I taught at Meten where this DIDN'T happen on one hand. Also, expect those stupid fishbowl classrooms.

--I met one ESL teacher who flew to Meten from the US to work for them full time. They first flew her into Shenzhen for training, then had her fly--at her own expense--to the city where she would teach. She had to pay for her own accommodations while in Shenzhen, and was given no allowance for hotel stay in the city where she relocated. As Meten also lied to her about how much her start up costs in China would be (3-6 months rent up front, agent fee, deposit), made her pay for her medical check, did not tell her that she would be responsible for FUNDING HER RELOCATION ON BEHALF OF THE COMPANY, and did not give her the first paycheck until she had been in China for 6 weeks...well, she ran up some real credit card debt. I would be POed if that happened to me. I might also add that her residence permit was illegal (she was registered in Shenzhen, and worked in another city. This is a common tactic among ESL franchise schools, but that doesn't make it legal, and it doesn't mitigate the potential risks to YOU if the authorities crack down on it.

Meten isn't the worst training school in China, but it is a pass.