| Sunlight English in Yangzhou | |
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| Sep 14, 2011 01:23 |   |
 | I have lived in China for over 1 year now. I have taught fairly exclusively at private training schools (a total of 4, including part-time and full-time), and I recently quit my job at Sunlight English in Yangzhou, JiangSu. I began working there in April, starting out as part-time because they wanted a "trial period" to see if I was suitable. This seems fine with me. During this time, we discussed the contract. I was originally told that they would provide me with a computer to prepare my classes, the salary would be 10,000, and promised an extension of my Z-Visa. Before signing the contract, they did extend my Z-Visa. I was quite surprised and happy that they did so. They seemed very kind and professional. However, when they presented me with the contract, the salary was different. Only 8,000, before tax. They also asked me to teach some classes/activities for “free,” meaning that it did not count towards my work hours, and therefore could not count towards overtime. Until August, they refused to give me any overtime, and stated that overtime was cumulative over the month and must exceed 80 lessons. However, even when I worked over 80 lessons, they changed it to 80 hours of teaching. Each lesson was only 40 minutes. That would mean over 120 lessons per month to get overtime. Within a week of working there, they told me that they would not provide me with a computer, stating that I could share the computer that the secretaries used, or purchase one by myself. More often than not, the printer did not work, which resulted in me, as well as the other teachers, either having to hand draw/write our teaching tools, or simply change our lesson. If we wished to use a computer in the class, we must give them a notice 10 days in advance of the lesson. I often did not have my full schedule for that week until half-way through the week. The other foreign teacher they had hired to teach English was from Germany. He had a strong accent and often made grammar mistakes. Many of the Chinese could not understand him, but because his skin is white, they hired him. He often exchanged contact information with the students, and even visited them at their homes. There was one 14 girl who attended the school, named Lonely, who he confessed his love to. The school did not take this very seriously. When I would take her phone away from her during a lesson, she would sometimes be chatting with him on QQ, and on one occasion, he was discussing inappropriate topics with her. I complained, but the school told me not to concern myself with other people’s private lives, even if they are my students, and scolded me for taking away her phone during class, even though I returned it to her at the end of class. |
Last edited by CRYPTATION: Sep 14, 2011 01:23 | |
| Sep 14, 2011 01:24 | #1 |
| They attempted to hire a large number of other foreign teachers, including two people from India, an England-man, an African woman, and two of my former coworkers. I never met most of them; only one of my former coworkers, and a Chinese man who was born and raised in England. My former coworker worked there for 3 days. They promised him a salary of 12,000, as he had been teaching ESL for 30 years, but lowered his salary to 8,000 on the contract. He had also requested that he be allowed to return home, as his mother was on her death bed, but they refused to allow him to return home until after she had died - if they were not too busy. He refused to sign and simply left without notice. The Chinese man from England, he came to the school and observed one of my classes. He asked me my opinion of the school, and asked about my salary. I told him that they don't really keep their word and that it had not been a very pleasant experience for me, but its easy work with decent pay. However, after I told him my salary, he was shocked, as he was only going to 5,000. The next time I met him, he had been left alone with some students and they were climbing on his back. I never saw him again after that. The German man was late to school often, and had 50-100 yuan deducted per day when he was late, and 200 for being late to a lesson. Once, he lost over half of his salary for being late to both school and to his lessons. He left the school and attempted to find other jobs, but Sunlight simply gave him bad recommendations. After one month, they “invited” him to return to their school, probably because they were unable to find any other teachers willing to work at their school, but I do not know whether he accepted it or not. Just before I resigned, they asked me to sign a paper, allowing them to lower my salary and also switch me to part-time, saying that they did not have enough work for me to work full-time. I stated that I simply would like to resign, because I want a stable, full-time job. After some talking, they agreed with my choice, but refused to give me my final salary until after I had resigned, and also threatened to blacklist me if I did not either switch to the lower salary and part-time, or quit. Tomorrow, I should be receiving my final salary. Whether I actually receive it in full is still in question. The biggest problem that I have encountered so far is that they will not give me a letter of recommendation and they also have informed other schools not to hire me. It’s as if they blacklisted me anyway, despite the fact that I went along with their bullshit ways. Do you have any advice on how to handle this type of situation? |
| Aug 26, 2012 02:44 | #2 |
| GUEST49151 | There's no such thing as a blacklist for teachers - but for "schools". |
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