Disney English

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124017964526732863.html

This was in last week's Wall Street Journal, has a video that goes with it. Disney is supposedly a good company to work for, at least in US. No mention of what it's like to work for them in China, but curriculum seems pretty heavy on marketing for Disney- do well in disney themed classroom, get 'magic tokens' to exchange for disney products.

"We never saw this as an effort to teach the Disney brand and Disney characters," says Andy Mooney, chairman of Disney Consumer Products Worldwide. "We set out to teach Chinese kids English."

Guys, I think we have them all wrong.  What a noble gesture.

Article also contains this tidbit about EF:

English First SV...says it uses the (young learners) program as a loss leader to feed its lucrative adult schools..."When we look at just the kids' business, it hasn't made a dime in 15 years," says English First President Philip Hult.

That's odd, cos received wisdom says Kindergarten is where the money is at - you can certainly make decent money as a teacher if you are willing to do Kindie.

I strongly concur.
Kids are a MUCH stronger market than adults. They pay a bit less per head, but they tend to stay in one school program quite a long time. Every school I ever had any dealings with that taught both sides made ALL their money from the kids...if they lost on anything, it was the adults.

Total bull from both these schools.