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11/19/2008 11:56:01 PM
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topic:
Starting a Restaurant
Matty
Posts 2
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Hi, this is a little off topic, but I'm not sure where else here I'd post it.
If I want to start a small restaurant with a Chinese friend, does anyone know the legal implications and how this would work?
How this ties in with Visas and what I should expect?
Any comments are very appreciated.
Thanks,
Matty
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11/19/2008 11:55:17 PM
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topic:
Off Topic Area
Matty
Posts 2
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I was wondering if we could add an Off-Topic area or maybe a general business area?
I have a questions on opening a business and it just doesn't fit in, though I like what I've
seen from the friendliness and quality of posts here.
Thanks,
Matty
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11/17/2008 2:48:20 PM
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topic:
Yuming Education and CoachDevelop?
Keith
Posts 13
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Below is the information provided by whois.sc
ICANN Registrar: XIN NET TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
Created: 2007-01-05
Expires: 2009-01-05
Updated: 2007-09-15
IP Location - Zhejiang - Hangzhou - Hangzhou Silk Road Information Technologies Co. Ltd
Looks like they are a very new Chinese company setup to recruit foreigners for teaching positions in China.
I would avoid. Stick with local organizations or deal directly with the schools.
.
edited by Keith on 11/17/2008
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11/17/2008 7:58:28 AM
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topic:
Yuming Education and CoachDevelop?
Guest
Posts 121
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Yuming Education and CoachDevelop?
Has anyone heard about Yuming Education and/or coach develop? They've been doing alot of marketing - spamming across the internet. Are they legit, new, something worth looking into?
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11/16/2008 5:55:59 PM
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topic:
Noah School, Harbin China
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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Noah School, Harbin China
02 NEGATIVE REVIEWS (2008)
07 NEGATIVE REVIEWS (2007)
COMMENTS :
..Be careful of Noah School in Harbin, notorious for not paying teachers correct salaries. I was sick for a few days in October and missed a few classes, my gf called the school but they just decided to halve my salary. 37 Hours and got paid 1850 RMB. Pretty disgusting and no protection from a labour inspector as in developed countries.
THESE PEOPLE ARE JUST RACIST THIEVES! I have heard they go through many new teachers a month. I was not the first to have wages stolen in this manner.
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11/16/2008 10:35:06 AM
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topic:
New Jordan International Education, Wuhan China
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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New Jordan International Education Group Wuhan China
Website
02 NEGATIVE REVIEWS (2007)
COMMENTS:
..They didn't come through on any promises, never got a legal visa and conditions were not what I was told. Promised 18 classes a week. Got there and told because they were short teachers I had to do 24. I argued about what the contract said and they said I MUST work extra classes.
.. had to live in a hotel the whole time I was there - and not a decent hotel but a fleabag hotel. No apartment provided as promised me.
..Worked illegally on a tourist visa. Many excuses as to why I was never made a legal worker as promised. They paid me 2 weeks late. I left and was never paid for flight as promised and lost much salary. They asked for my passport to get me a visa. Two weeks later I asked for the passport and got a run a round. They kept saying it was being processed.
..two policemen and me and my friend went to the school in a police car. We went to the director's office and the policeman started talking to him. The director looked pretty shaken and then the 3 of them went to another office and the director said something to the financial lady and she opened the safe and gave the police my passport. Lots of Chinese talking and the passport is handed back to me by the police. No visa! My passport is the same as when I gave it to them.
..I was paid on the 14th instead of the 10th. I was there for 6 weeks then ,and once they paid me I quit telling them I could not trust them.
..They threatened to have me deported for - no joke - working illegally on a tourist visa. They yelled at me and cursed me and told me I would be blacklisted and everything else. Lucky for me the girl I was friends with had her own apartment and I had moved my bags into her rooms the night before. So I left.
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11/16/2008 10:26:12 AM
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topic:
When is the best time to start applying for jobs?
Guest
Posts 121
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When is the best time to start applying for jobs?
My girlfriend and I were thinking about taking a year off from school and going to China to teach English. When is the best time to begin contacting schools?
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11/10/2008 9:46:09 AM
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topic:
Advertising & Spam
7095
Posts 87
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Website Owners and Non-Affiliated Programs
You are welcome to participate in the ESL Forum. However, spam is not allowed.
You may however advertise for free by placing a web banner in your "Signature" area with a link pointing to your site.
If your content and contributions to the cafe peak our users interest, they will visit your site.
The trade off is that you contribute content to our site and you get free advertising using a banner in your signature area.
The more you contribute to the forums, the greater exposure your website will receive.
If you wish to advertise with us you should contact kcurran@journeyeast.org for rates.
Please feel free to browse the forum and contribute advise and content to our other patrons.
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11/10/2008 9:31:19 AM
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topic:
International Scam Warning
Guest
Posts 121
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Global Crossroads also works in cooperation with Jeff Sya (Gao is his real name), who will very likely attempt to place you in a International Korean school that has one of the worst reps in China.
The contract he offers is with his company, (Sya Edu) not the school. The salary and benefits are very substandard. Additionaly, he garnishes a third of your salary on top of the commission he earns. Jeff Gao (Sya) is merely a English teacher with some web skills.
I forgot to mention, he also recruits from MySpace and Facebook and has profiles on both sites.
..
edited by Guest on 11/10/2008
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11/10/2008 12:18:39 AM
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topic:
International Scam Warning
moidixmois08
Posts 1
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That was a close one for me...
So..Jeff Gao/Sya was an alias, hm. I've spoken to him on the phone before.
"Rustic Volunteer and Travel" works with this Jeff Sya.
Thanks for the warnings. I almost followed through with this.
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11/8/2008 10:16:54 AM
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topic:
Foreign Expert Certificate Now Blue
Keith
Posts 13
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Mine is red.
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11/3/2008 11:27:05 PM
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topic:
LTI INTERNATIONAL TEFL, BEIJING
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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LTI TEFL International Beijing
02 POSITIVE REVIEWS (2007)
COMMENTS: (SPIDERED)
I attended the 1 month version of this course from Oct 22 to Nov 16 and completed my TEFL certificate.
Firstly I want to say for those that don't know - THAT THESE GUYS ARE NOT FUNNELING PEOPLE TO RECRUITERS. In fact they don't recommend working with recruiters. They are also honest about bigger chain schools and pay scales. If anything they tend to recommend the bigger schools that pay good. But they don't pressure you into taking any jobs whatsoever.
Now that's out of the way... I'll give my review in chunks as I remember the course.
First up each day you will have the instructor named Jimmy. He primarily teaches phonology and grammar but you will also get a bit of teaching methodology. As he is Chinese you will get his impressions of the difficulties Chinese people face in learning English. He will teach you from 8 or 9 to 11 or 12.
For the first 3 days of the course Jimmy will teach you Chinese in Chinese. This will make you feel like one of your future English students will feel. You will get frustrated or a headache like me. The Chinese is useful for your first few weeks in China though. He goes through the phonological alphabet which I promptly forgot and I'm relearning it from my roommates. Try to remember the section on bargaining at the market, I found it quite useful! Some of your first assignments in the course revolve around these Chinese lessons, not the Chinese itself but how it was to be a foreign language student taught in that foreign language.
The last 3 weeks of the course Jimmy teaches phonology and grammar. He hit the grammar particularly heavy and I will admit it gets quite boring for us native speakers but you will find you need the refresher. I made the comment to Jimmy that "this stuff is natural for us I don't need to learn it again" and Jimmy's reply was "yes but how will you explain it to your students". He is 100% right and I found this out in my 2nd day teaching my 13yr olds! Jimmy is a great teacher. He goes off on story tangents about teaching or Chinese culture which breaks the class up and keep it interesting enough even for us native speakers who are good at grammar (like us writers!).
Jimmy does assign some phonology homework and it was not hard but does take up some time even with a good dictionary.
Second you will be taught by Greg an American whose traveled the length of the world teaching English. (OK not the WHOLE length but a good chunk of it!) He will be teaching you methodology, activities, TEFL philosophy, theory, and teaching exercises. Even though his section only runs about 1 hour he can pack a lot in there in between his great stories about teaching. Greg is a great teacher, actually I'll go farther and say I think he's a natural teacher and I found him the best of the 2 by far. He also talks about jobs, contract and pay scales. He goes over most of the major school chains; Dell, English First, and a few others and most of the schools based in Beijing. He also teaches you how to prepare lessons plans and goes through examples of each. TEFL philosophy is that the students speak ALL English in every class and the students speak 80% and the teacher speaks only 20% (this is unattainable I know but you should strive for it by our philosophy).
Then you get a lunch break.
The last part of each day is practical teaching. From the second day of the course until the final day you will do practical teaching for 40 minutes to 1 hour with about 4 to 8 students each day. This was immensely useful for people like me who had no prior teaching experience. The second day Greg provides you with a 30 minute lesson to teach and you just do it. From the third day on you must prepare you own lesson plans for each class.
I was extremely nervous before and during my first lesson, yes even us kung fu folks get nervous sometimes. I remember my hands trembling slightly on the first day. For my second lesson I was only slightly nervous and a few deep breaths fixed that before I got up to teach. After that I was good to go and in fact now I enjoy getting up in front of my classes and teaching.
During your practice teaching you will be monitored by Jimmy or another instructor named Chris. The other TEFL students in your class will also be watching you. After all the TEFL students have taught your monitor will go over how you did pointing out good things and things you need to work on. The other students will also be asked to comment on how you did. Don't worry you get to talk about how they did also! Chris is a great instructor as well and while it may not appear that he is paying attention to your teaching he is in fact getting every word you say and his review of your teaching will show that. I preferred him as my monitor over Jimmy because he lightens up the class with some jokes which seems to get the students more into the class. I also shot one class totally from the hip with no lesson plan with Chris and he said it was probably my best lesson. Jimmy had a more clinical approach to reviewing my teaching. But it was good to get both points of view from a native and non-native speaker.
I found this to be the most useful part of the course as you are up there actually doing it with real live students. I was able to quickly learn to be animated and active to keep their attention which has served me well teaching my 13 yr olds.
You will spend 2 weeks teaching lower level students and 2 weeks teaching advanced level students. The students are there for the free English class. THEY ARE NOT CHARGED ANYTHING BY LTI TEFL. Greg will be very specific about this and in fact the students will also tell you that inside and outside of class. In point of fact Greg looks down on training schools that do charge "practice" students.
You will need to spend time outside of class preparing your lesson plans and you must provide copies of them everyday. Many students in my course used our lunchtimes or early mornings to prepare our lessons. I used some resources from the internet for ideas which helped me a lot. I had a problem finding a base idea to teach around but once I had an idea developing a lesson plan was easy. I recommend if you are going to take this course don't do lessons on pollution, Olympics or bad things in China, the students have been beat to death with them already. Some of my best lessons were on better topics like the space program in Tianjin (we're going to the moon, how cool is that?), fake goods (everyone has pirate DVDs!), and my debate on Yao Ming vs Yi JianLian vs Wong Jer Jer.
Practice teaching constitutes 50% of your grade.
The biggest project you must complete is to locate a student (most of us used someone from our teaching practice) and do a level assessment and 3 1-on-1 tutoring sessions. After completing this you must submit a 500 word paper on the process and achievements of these sessions. This also gets your feet wet for the tutoring world and I found this quite handy very quickly as I picked up 2 students to tutor via a friend.
Final Thoughts
It may not seem that there is a lot to this course but I deliberately left out some things.
For those who have not taught I highly recommend this TEFL course.
I talked to some English teachers who took the TEFL course after having taught for a few years and they all rated this course highly as well.
I know many people in this forum express their opinions that a TEFL/ESL certificate is not required to teach and I agree - TO A POINT. But I feel that having one puts me ahead of the teachers that only have a university degree like I do. It also equipped me to properly teach in the classroom.
Some in the forum have said that new teachers fresh from TEFL/ESL classes show up in their school and find their teaching legs in their 1st or 2nd week, I find this to be accurate in my case. I've been able to tell which teachers in my school have had TEFL/ESL training by things they do in the classroom. I don't make the same mistakes that non-cert'd teachers I've seen make. My primary employer does observe my classes at random intervals and I have always received good or great reviews, I directly attribute those to the instruction I received at LTI TEFL from Greg, Chris and Jimmy.
I also find that I do get paid more per hour than other teachers who don't have a cert do. At least the ones I've talked to that I felt were honest admitted that I was paid more and normally they were the ones asking me what I was getting paid. At least this seems to be my case here in Beijing. I am paid more than some teachers I know who work at Dell and EF. (Your mileage may vary.)
I also want to note that I was in no way paid or asked to do this review. If you check the threads you will see I started to post one before I even attended the course. I am not receiving any monetary compensation for this or bird dog fees.
Yes I agree the cost was high but when I looked at what it got me and where I am now it was well worth it vs doing an ESL class back in the USA.
I did not review the accommodations or other ancillary things related to course because they aren't important. You are there for the class. I will say the apartment they placed me in was ok by my standards and probably on the good side for Chinese standards. The other staff at the school - Henry and Gary are both great and helpful.
PS - I talked to one student who started the TEFL in Zhuhai and said they were very strict and were charging their practice students for English class. She transfered up here to Beijing at the end of the 2nd week and finished up here and was much happier with LTI Beijing.
Forgive any errors as I tried to finish this quickly because I noticed some newbs needing this information. I reserve the right to edit my work for spelling and grammar!!!
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11/3/2008 11:18:56 PM
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topic:
Aston English, Educational Group, Suzhou China
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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Aston English Schools, Aston Educational Group, Suzhou China 
03 NEGATIVE REVIEWS (2008)
COMMENTS: (SPIDERED)
..Most teachers were given horrendous schedules, consisting mostly or entirely of completely out-of-control children's classes, in return for mediocre-at-best salaries and a definite mixed bag of apartments.
..the franchise system has been greatly expanded, with the alleged schools now being run much more directly by corrupt, incompetent, baijiu-swilling-butthead local owners. Of course, this has greatly increased the odds of abuse at such schools, in which case you can apparently absolutely 100% count on the alleged corporate management to back up the local owner all the way and do nothing whatsoever.
..I personally was badly burned by this chain. I was treated pretty brutally and un-contractually ripped off of a non-trivial amount of money. I'll freely admit a blind spot here...I hate these people with a passion that still burns white-hot all these many years later.
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11/3/2008 11:03:07 PM
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topic:
Hunan City College, Yiyang City
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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Hunan City College, Yiyang
03 NEGATIVE REVIEWS
COMMENTS: (SPIDERED)
The only lady in the Foreign Exchange Department who spoke English (besides the Director) left the same day I arrived last August. The replacement is the daughter of two teachers who lost her job in Southern China for some "unknown" reason (I was told it was none of my business) and speaks very poor English and understands less. The other person (who is responsible for apt. maint. and generally getting things done) speaks or understands no English. So much for communication! The pictures of the apartment sent me were of a nice, good looking and modern facility at their new campus site on the other side of the city. Imagine my utter surprise upon arrival to be housed in a 50 year old teacher apartment building with so many coats of paint the windows will not close. I understand (and did before I arrived) that the Chinese idea and concept of "clean" is quite different than that of Americans. However, the apartment had been slightly cleaned from the previous tenant who must have been a real HOG !! Dirt and filth everywhere....
..The ability to communicate with the office staff is almost impossible. I have been told to "get a student to help you" more times than I can remember.....but they are not in college to help Americans, they are there to get an education (or whatever they do)!! I've been told to send the office an email so they can read it and translate it to Chinese when I need/want something...I thought they were supposesd to be the people to whom we could ask questions??? The only person who is interested in providing any assistance at all is the Director of the Dept....who is having difficulty getting the 12 or so American teachers the University wants. He has provids me with much outside work every month with extra pay....nice addition to the salary...which is not bad for this Province. Oh, almost forgot...those promised Chinese lessons???.....sorry, but we don't have the funds to do that anymore.
Sorry folks, but I would not recommend this school to anyone..
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11/3/2008 10:57:51 PM
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topic:
Tian Shao Recruiting Company, Changchun
ESLSCHOOLREVIEW.COM
Posts 249
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Tian Shao Recruiting Company, Changchun
06 NEGATIVE REVIEWS
COMMENTS: (SPIDERED)
..a night mare. In my 1st day, the company brought me to a terrible apartment where I was supposed to live!I don't want to describe the apartment but I hope u can guess how it was. I rejected to live there of course and the other day they brought me to a better one. I thought ok, it is just for 6 months, I will stay.But it was not the end. At the end of the month, they didn't make the payment, they told I am new so they should see if I am good or not! After 45 days I was paid but just 700 Yuan! We sat on the table and an officer called Kiki made many reductions and had many reasons for that which were not any reason for me. Than I knew from the other teachers that they always find reasons(funny reasons)to make reductions and you should discuss with them, threat them and so on to be able to get your salary. I wait again to see what happens next. After 1 week, they called me and told me to move out of my apartment in 2 hours.
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11/1/2008 6:25:19 PM
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topic:
TEFL INTERNATIONAL BEIJING
7095
Posts 87
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TEFL INTERNATIONAL
The TEFL INTL. Posts were removed.
For the original poster, and respondees if you want to comment on their business practice of employing individuals in China using tourist visas, please illustrate your experience in the visa forum.
edited by 7095 on 11/1/2008
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10/31/2008 4:24:19 PM
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topic:
Visa for an unmarried, opposite sex partner?
JourneyEast.org
Posts 36
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Hi Baron,
If you have the z visa already, then it would be alot of work and trouble for the school to prepare a new invitation letter for your partner if she or he wasnt going to be teaching there. If the school new about it well enough in advance, usually it is not a problem - they can easily add her passport and other information to the invitation documents and illustrate the relationship there. The relationship could also be a problem for non working girlfriends or BFs.. For example, married couples doing our program have to have a notarized, authenticated marriage certificate in order to apply for the residence permit. This is especially true of non-working spouses.
The only way to accomplish your goal, would be if your partner were to apply for a job at your school, or if you both get a job at the same school.
If your departure horizon is in the near future.. Then its not likely to happen. When we place couples we usually need a couple of months for placement and processing all of the paperwork, nevermind finding suitable placement.
Wish you both luck!
.
edited by JourneyEast.org on 10/31/2008
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10/30/2008 11:42:21 PM
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topic:
Visa for an unmarried, opposite sex partner?
BaronKas
Posts 1
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Hi, I've got a Z visa and I'm going to apply for a residence permit once I get to China. My problem is that I have an opposite sex partner (we are not married) who I want to live with me when we are in China. The plan is for her to maintain her teaching position in the US, doing e-learning work, but live in China with me during my assignment. Because we aren't married, my sponsor won't sponsor her. How can we make this work? Thanks.
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10/27/2008 3:05:12 AM
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topic:
L-VISA TO F-VISA
mandy
Posts 1
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Our company is specilized in providing services of VISA, no matter what you want,extension or convert your VISA category, we also can help you to process it. Moreover, we may help you to pay penalty and without arresting if your VISA is expired.
Mandy is glad to receive your call or email.
Phone:13521108830
Email:zhangli920@gmail.com
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10/22/2008 8:16:21 PM
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topic:
Foreign Expert Certificate Now Blue
Guest
Posts 121
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Foreign Expert Certificate Now Blue
Heyas everyone, just thought I would let you know that the FECs are no longer red, they are blue!
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10/20/2008 7:59:57 PM
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topic:
ChinaTeacherBlog.com - ESL Teacher Blogs in China
7095
Posts 87
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ChinaTeacherBlog.com - ESL Teacher Blogs in China
China Teacher Blog is now up and running and hosting a fantastic blog contest starting November 01.
For new teachers seeking a free and powerful blog platform that is highly customizable and free from the great firewall of China, peep it.
$$$ Cash Prizes $$$
www.ChinaTeacherBlog.com
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10/20/2008 2:10:54 PM
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topic:
Shanghai American School
7095
Posts 87
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Shanghai American School
http://www.saschina.org/
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10/19/2008 10:07:30 AM
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topic:
Which Mobile Phone Company to Choose?
JourneyEast.org
Posts 36
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China Mobile offers the highest quality service and easiest means of finding cards to replentich your balance while travelling, or kiosks where you can pay to add additional time onto your service. China Unicom offers the worst quality service of the bunch, though it is the biggest from a assett, capital perspective.
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10/17/2008 10:35:31 AM
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topic:
Any ESL teachers living and working in Wuhan?
mustard_44
Posts 2
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My fiance and I are from Canada, and are looking to meet some mature (meaning not drunk every weekend) teachers living and working in Wuhan.
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10/17/2008 10:33:09 AM
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topic:
warning - medical forms now required for z visa!
mustard_44
Posts 2
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I'm new to this site, but this thread caught my eye. I'm from Canada, and arrived in China for the second time two months ago (August 2008). Both my fiance and I were required to have medical forms completed before we came, in order to receive our Invitation Letters. We went through the Calgary Consulate. Another friend went through the Vancouver Consulate, same situation. My doctor found the form rather comical, but completed it without complaint. So yes, this seems to be the standard now, rather then the exception.
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10/16/2008 7:00:04 PM
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topic:
Hong Kong Visa Services Overloaded
brenda
Posts 28
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A girl from our school got hers there last week. I believe so.
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10/16/2008 1:16:59 PM
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topic:
Hong Kong Visa Services Overloaded
docgary
Posts 6
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Are they now processing z visas in Hong Kong?
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10/14/2008 9:17:00 PM
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topic:
Hong Kong Visa Services Overloaded
Guest
Posts 121
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First a word of warning, the Hong Kong visa service is overloaded. First you line up outside the building until the security guard ushers you inside. Afterwards, you take the elevator up to the visa office whereupon there is another large line-up for passport pickups, and another lineup to get a ticket number for your visa application (similar to waiting-in-bank system).
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10/12/2008 11:02:17 AM
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topic:
How are the L visa stay dates determined?
Guest
Posts 121
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The number of days is discretionary, they can basically give you whatever they want to give you. For Americans, you can request 30 - 90 days and you will usually get it. Other countries aren't so lucky. For multiple entry, they wont issue multiple entry visas unless you have been to China before. If you haven't been to China before, don't waste your time by requesting multiple entry, they will not give you it.
hope that helps.
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10/11/2008 10:30:45 AM
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topic:
How are the L visa stay dates determined?
z-visa.com
Posts 46
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Should be no problem to get the 60 days visa, you dont have to include your airline tickets any longer, but you may want to if you have great concern. They will typically grant your request for 60 days with little problem.
Enjoy your trip!
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