next »

[RandyTeacher]

A friend of mine in Suzhou wants a new job teaching small kiddies but has said that he was warned away as it has a terrible reputation for how they treat their employees.  Can anyone tell me more?
Randy

[larksong]

A friend of mine in Suzhou wants a new job teaching small kiddies but has said that he was warned away as it has a terrible reputation for how they treat their employees.  Can anyone tell me more?
Randy

The Disney Corporation has a stellar reputation, but I'd like to know how that carries through to the English school franchise, too. Anyone know anything definite, good or bad?

Lark

[kitano]

I knew someone who worked for one in Yangzhou and enjoyed it. It's one of those franchises so it might be run by a nice/horrible/useless/capable person depending on the particular centre

I imagine that working for a school called 'Disney' would only be one or two steps up from working as a Ronald McDonald back home but to each their own

[ericthered]

As far as I know, Disney English has nothing at all to do with the Disney Corporation...and I have also heard unpleasant things about this chain of schools.

[The Local Dialect]

ETR, they actually are owned by the real Disney corporation. At least if it is the proper Disney English, not some wannabe knockoff.

I interviewed with Disney for a DOS position in Beijing (I didn't follow up on the job though -- sounded like a huge massive amount of work, very long hours) and they seemed very professional to me. They have a lot of foreigners in their management and they seem to run a tight ship. They have their own in-house materials that of course incorporate the disney characters, Donald and Mickey and so on. It is all kids' English and they have fairly high expectations from their teachers. They sort of reminded me a bit of a kiddie version of Wall Street English.

One major plus is that they offer actual insurance to their foreign employees, not your typical Chinese uni insurance plans, but proper expat medical insurance that you can use at international hospitals. That alone was enough to make the offer pretty tempting.  

[milkweed]

There's negative stuff about them on other ESL forums. It's a corporate training centre out to make as much money as possible so quality will be well down the pecking order as will your happiness as a teacher. Expect so be compromised.

[larksong]

Thanks so much for the input! I guess if I end up having to go with a language school, being treated professionally is better than being treated like dirt. Unless I'm professional dirt?
 

Lark

[The Local Dialect]

I think Disney is one of those outfits that really works teachers to the bone. Some people don't mind teaching kids, some people don't mind long hours. For other people, those things are completely unacceptable. I couldn't work the hours they were asking personally, even though the money was decent. In Beijing anyhow they do offer highish (15K a month and up) salaries + housing allowance + insurance. The total package is not bad, especially if you don't have the experience to pull in a position that pays well and has low hours.

You'll hear the same sorts of mixed things about Wall Street, EF, or any big chain. Some people hate them, some people love them. Disney did strike me as being more organized and professional than most.

[milkweed]

Originally on Shanghai Expat but found it on Dave's Eslcafe today about Disney English in China:


DO NOT WORK FOR DISNEY ENGLISH


I've noticed a lot of concerned people on other forums commenting on the dominating cultural influence of Disney. Here's my response: I currently work for Disney English in Shanghai. The fact of the matter is, there's a market for the Disney brand here and we can't quite expect a company like the Walt Disney Corporation to fail to exploit a willing market niche if it will expand their waistlines, cultural homogenization be damned.

The most pernicious thing about the Disney Corporation in China, from my perspective, is the awful manner in which corporate protocol, efficiency, and the profit margins lay waste to any semblance of decency regarding the workers here. Tens of "cast members", including myself, gave up jobs, kissed families goodbye, and uprooted our lives to work for Disney based on blatant lies that recruiters spat regarding vacation allowances (5 paid vacation days per year and you work on Thanksgiving, throughout the Christmas holiday; that was a revelation), compensation, working hours, you name it.

Most of our benefits and compensation (especially time off, overtime, etc.) are below industry standard, from what I gather in the teaching communities here in Asia. Also, Disney will not list benefits for employees in the contract. They don't want to put it in writing; what they will put it writing is "all benefits are subject to the discretion of your direct line manager."

Each new contract that comes out is different from the last, and offers less and less to look forward to. They've just changed the policy from a reasonable 30 days notice; now you have to give them three months' notice in advance of your quitting.

Teachers here have not been reimbursed for funds spent to acquire a health check and other standard procedures that Disney requires. Employees are urged to take precautions to check if promised reimbursements ever make it into our accounts. Make sure to copy your forms, because if Disney loses them (fairly common occurrence, here), they will not take you at your word regarding the money they owe you.

Taking sick days is openly discouraged because it is very difficult to get coverage for people's classes. Disney can't keep on substitute teachers because their full-time stock is so transient, they have no other option but to hire would-be substitutes on full-time. You cannot simply take the requisite time you need to rest. Disney doesn't trust you, and so forces you to seek medical attention for even those child-acquired illnesses that only require bed rest and fluids. Thus, we are expected to pay sometimes outrageous hospital fees out of our meager salary. Three visits to the doctor because you had a nasty cold and didn't want to infect your students? How about you pay the man 6000 RMB, minimum.

Furthermore, Disney English, at least in the Shanghai region, has an uncanny knack of hiring teachers for managerial positions; teachers with no managerial skills, very little people skills, and poor communication practices. Please, if you are at all interested in acquiring a job here or anywhere, get a thorough feel for the type of management system you'll be forced into. My colleagues and I did not get a choice, and this greatly reduced the amount of clear information we could obtain about our working environments before we signed on.

Rest assured, however, that the Disney environment is thoroughly Corporate. Expect your good work to be rewarded with more work and very little thanks. Expect your less-than-stellar work to be met with persistent, distrusting micromanagement, written warnings, and passive aggressiveness. Expect to continually feel vaguely put upon by upper management, to be thoroughly alienated from any job title that carries more weight than yours, and to have your pushes for innovation funneled through an endless bout of (thoroughly inefficient and demoralizing) chains of command, form letters, open-ended presentations, and eventually non-implementation.

The company is desperate to fill its pockets with money and expand as rapidly as possible-- so much so that they are currently running into trouble because people are quitting before they fulfill their contracts.

The Walt Disney Company is renowned for its customer service, and this makes sense when you see the profit incentive in it. What Disney English needs to learn is that honest and responsive human resources are equally good markers to strive for. This isn't a theme park in Anaheim or Orlando with fifty schmucks willing to sign up any day in the week. This is a job in China that requires certified teachers willing to leave kin and kind behind for something completely unknown. Frankly, we deserve better.

[MK]

Sounds like yer average English language training center.

[kitano]

Sounds like yer average English language training center.

I was thinking that

I've worked for quite a few training centres and more than half of them were like that. I think I've only seen 2 or 3 in my years that weren't just set up to exploit students and young 'teachers'

[The Local Dialect]

I kinda stopped taking him seriously when he complained that he had to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas, to tell the truth.

The rest is incredibly vague and, as you guys pointed out, the same could be said of any number of training schools in China.

[Day Dreamer]

I honestly don't know what the relationship is between the real Disney and this school. BUT, if you know anything about working at Disney Land/World, you lost your arguement and bitching rights.

Oooooh (sarcasticly) I hated working at Mcd's. Its long hours and low pay. Really? What, this is new?  

I've worked at private schools, but never a sausage mill. Ihave friends who do and some of them like it. I recommend it for those who are inexperienced and want to learn some teaching methods. Its good if you hope to continue this for years.

If you just want a part time gig or on a gap year, find something simpler