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| In defence of EF English First | ||
| Well, the place seems to get a bad enough rep on pretty much every place I've stumbled across online. To try to tip the balance back a little bit, I'm going to stop being so lazy & post this. Right. Obviously I can only really speak for the EF I worked at last summer, in Dongying, Shandong province. Dongying's one of those dirty 'little' industrial cities with about 2 million people living in it. I fell completely in love with the city & the people there though, it was such an experience. There were probably no more than a dozen Westerners in the entire city at the time, it was literally incredible. I'd wager that Dongying's a lot more of the "real China" to me than Qingdao, as fun as it was, will ever really be. So. Onto the school, eh? In general, it was all pretty well-run. Obviously there were a couple of annoying times or issues caused by the "Chinese way" of running everything, but have you ever worked in any school or company where there aren't occassional little workplace dramas? We never really had anything more serious than that. One of the main criticisms of EF that I've read ad nauseum is bitching about the amount of hours you have to work; on average, I was teaching about 36 academic hours per week. Shock horror, I'm being paid to be a teacher & I actually have to teach a fair amount of classes? Someone go fetch me a doctor… Ah, and before I forget it, yeah, I had to wear a tie all the time, too. I can't believe some people seem to think this is a valid criticism of a school; when I worked checkouts at my local supermarket aged 16, I had to wear a tie. Maybe I'm just being all old-fashioned & English & stuff, but I don't have a problem with teachers (authority figures, supposedly smart & respectable professionals, right?) having to dress smartly. I can't really picture teaching in my jeans & a footie shirt, as comfortable as they might be. Um… what else? They generally organised decent stuff for the teachers to do on our weekly day off, and were never bothered if we decided we were happier spending the day hungover in bed instead (happened a fair bit… can't beat cheap beer & loads of freebies everytime you go out!). I dunno what the other franchises are like, but my DOS always encouraged us to just go home when we had half-days off at weekends too, instead of making us adhere to the contract which said we technically had to hang around. The apartment was by FAR the best place I've ever lived in my life, incredibly modern, stylish, roomy & well-fitted. I managed to break the air-conditioner in my bedroom, but that was my fault. Oh! Minor gripe, there weren't any towels when I first moved in, so I had to drip-dry for the first couple of days until we went to the supermarket. Otherwise it's a million miles above the squalour I've spent my student existence in. The pay was easily enough to pay for a wonderful lifestyle and a couple of weekend trips too. And, get this, they paid my entire return airfare. On a two-month summer contract for a 20-year old only halfway through his degree back home. Half the places you see advertising don't even pay full airfare on 6-month contracts. So how'd I sum it up? I had the time of my life last summer, absolutely wonderful & I'm still in touch with a couple of 'my kids' from the smarter classes. I definitely think there's something to be said for heading to as backwater a part of China as you can manage. In terms of EF; I won't claim they're the world's best-ever school, but I don't think they're anywhere close to the worst, either. I was really well-treated by the entire staff, the centre manager even gave me a little bonus to cover my bus fare to Beijing & taxi to the airport when I changed my travel plans for getting home. The school was generally decently-organised & run, and everything about the contract was fine and honoured well on time. For anyone heading out East to start out on the teaching ladder,or for just a summer contract to sample the country, I'd definitely recommend EF from my experiences. Odds are I'm heading back with the company this summer, so they can't really be that much of a demon, eh? Steve Crooks (scrooks12@hotmail.com) London, England, 2. March 2004 |