Pros
I worked at English First full Time (more than 1 year) It's an ok company to learn the ropes with (by that I mean it’s 100% legal and easy to get hired), but it's dubbed ''The Training Camp''and the ''Walmart of ESL Teaching'' for a reason. The vast majority of teachers (70%) either quit or do not renew their contracts * Friendly helpful colleagues are great (with the exception of management) * New teachers will learn a lot (through necessity, not training) * They provide you with legitimate visas, residence permits and pre-arrival support. * You get paid on time.
Cons
They word contracts so vaguely that the can argue anything in their favour. Example: EF says you have a maximum of 20 teaching hours, but that doesn't include demos, marketing events, or Summer and Winter Course (Summer and Winter Course teaching hours can go as high as they want, because there is a clause that states there is no limit on Teaching Hours during Summer and Winter, so I was working over 30 teaching hours). Example: EF says you have a maximum of 40 working hours, but that only counts as actual working hours. So if your first class is at 9am and your last class finishes at 7pm (typical weekend day), but only have 6 hours of classes that day then you have only worked 6 hours even though you've been in the school lesson planning, preparing materials and teaching for 10 hours. So you end up working 50/60 hours because EF argues that because you only have 33 teaching hours, you only have worked 33 hours in total. And woe upon you if you don't complete the extra administration and other unpaid tasks, as they will dock your salary. Bad pay. The base salary may look ok, but if you factor in all the hours you work (usually a lot more than what is in your contract) the pay is actually quite poor. Overtime is not a thing. There are 100 EF teachers in my city. No one has gotten overtime, ever, despite working more than 40 hours a week. EF only considers teaching hours to be working hours, so despite all the administration, lesson planning and other office hours, you will never get paid overtime. EF also looks for any reason to dock your pay and not pay your bonuses. Profit is King, learning is secondary. This leads to kids with no English being placed into running classes. When one kid is talking about what they did at the weekend, and another can't even respond to ''what's your name?'', it leads to very frustrating classes and clashes with management. I've been asked outright to lie to parents about various things. From test results, to student performance, to Summer and Winter course content .EF is a very dishonest company. No vacation time. You get two days off a week (usually Monday/Tuesday), except in summer and winter, where you work 6 days a week. 10 days of holidays a year, and your sick days are deducted from your holidays. Work/Life Balance: Awful. You work very unsociable hours, will little to no time off. During Summer and Winter you work 6 days a week with significantly more classes. It's just awful. Senior Management: The worst management imaginable. They treat their staff so badly that they have to hire outside of the company for management, because very few people stay long enough to become management. They were incompetent and outright hostile when I tried to discuss problems. When I tried to address these concerns with more senior branch managers, I was simply told there was nothing they could do, and to stop complaining.
