Kind of like being in an abusive relationship.
Pros
Good place to get started when you really want to teach/live abroad and no one else will take you or you don't know better. They will take pretty much anyone regardless of experience/ability as their turnover rate is so high. They are always hiring. Most teaching materials are relatively well made. If you really enjoy working 70+ hours a week, they have good opportunities for advancement.
Cons
They will tell you it's a 40 hour a week job, which it is not. Closer to 60+ hours a week to finish everything they expect you to do. You are not a human being to EF, you are a disposable beast of burden. Most of their teachers are fresh out of college and come over to China for a "fun" year abroad, so they don't expect you to stay for longer than that. Anyone who sticks around longer than a year is a workaholic. Extreme pressure from management: nothing you do is ever good enough for them. All "training schools“ in China are essentially the same: for-profit organizations that masquerade as institutions of learning, but EF is the worst of them. You will generally make about 12k RMB a month, which is typical for training schools in China and which, if you aren't in a major city such as Shanghai or Beijing, is more than enough to live comfortably on. The problem is that the amount of work they claim you will be responsible for is not the same as the amount of work you will actually end up doing. Save yourself the exhaustion and stress and go work for Meten, you'll earn 50% more for half the work. The "Kids and Teens" program is comprised of about 90% children between the ages of 2-6, so you end up dancing and singing and generally acting like a clown for your paycheck most of the time. EF acts like they are the best of the best when it comes to English schools in China, and will make you feel like you will never be able to get a decent/well-paying position in China if you leave them. Yet I worked for three different training schools in China and they had the lowest salary for the largest amount of work. EF had this cute little tagline they liked to use while I was there that I think really exemplifies what they are all about. The tagline was "From 'hello' to Harvard," and this perfectly encapsulates what they do. EF, as well as all other for-profit English training schools for children in China, operate by selling Chinese parents this "dream" that, if their kid spends 2 hours a week attending their English class and does a bit of homework, they will become fully bilingual speakers who will grow up and go to attend a prestigious foreign university. The harsh reality is that this isn't how second language acquisition works, and a lot of these kids are being raised by their grandparents, who often do not even speak Mandarin, let alone a single word of English. So although it's a nice little slogan, shelling out thousands of RMB a year for your kid to go sing English songs and interact with native speakers is not really going to lead to them being Harvard grads in the future.
