This is by far the worst job I've ever done. The advertisements give this impression that you will have all the free time to "explore china". But in reality, it's a lie. This is just a factory job.
The website (and my recruiter) state that flights are free but even that's misleading. They give you a tiny monthly "flight allowance" on top of your paycheck but upon calculating, it'll require you to work for about 17 months in order to purchase a regular two-way North American flight: far longer than your one year contract. And the pay: It's terrible and far below the standard for international teachers in Shanghai. They also give you the impression that food and housing would be far lower than reality. After the aformentioned, and taxes, you'll most likely have about 2000 rmb (280 USD) to save. That's barely anything considering how they promised a Western standard of living.
*Fun story. I heard from teachers in other cities that they were told that their flights would be covered. However, they actually had to pay for the flight to Shanghai and then EF covers for their transfer flight. What kind of sneaky thing is this? That's like giving a free three course meal but in the end, you have to pay for everything except for the dessert. But don't worry, this cheap, down-to-the-cent attitude is what you'll get throughout working here.
Upon landing, I already knew something was off. The school decided to place our hotels in some Holiday Inn 1 HOUR away from the actual head office where we were supposed to meet for "training". During training, which didn't really prep us for anything, they informed us that they will hold our documents "for safekeeping". Like come on we're fully grown adults. Obviously this was suspicious from the get-go.
Afterwards, you're sent to your designated center. And oh my god, was it a nightmare. I find out from the senior teachers that multiple people have left and I'm there just to patch up the sinking ship. Oh btw the turnover rate is crazy! Most people never even finish their 1 year contracts and if they do, they almost never stay for another year. What kind of fulltime job has people only staying for 1 YEAR????
I was explicitely told to hide where my family came from, lest it makes it less attractive for the parents to have me as a teacher. Humiliating.
A couple days later, I had to witness a local teacher crying due to stress. Now, I'm someone with no prior experience teaching kids (which are most of the teachers). Imagine that you're given 1.5 weeks to observe different classes and then you're thrown into the deep end with a full schedule. And since I joined during Summer course, my schedule was beyond overloaded. They don't schedule enough time for me to prepare each individual class. They leave big multi-hour gaps in your day so that they can legally and financially say that you've only worked 40 hours and nothing more. (Expecting you to use that time to prep. OTHERWISE KNOWN AS WORK). They also expect you to do a lot of unnofficial unpaid duties outside of the office such as doing standardized tests. On most of my working days, I've worked from 8:30am to 10:30pm. And even though my massive center is understaffed, they'll take any kid as long as their parents have money. Even if he's distruptive, destructive, and in my case: loudly wishing for my death. The teachers have no actual power to deal with these situations. Even after all that, the school decided to keep him with zero reprocussions. At this point, I was basically being paid to be bullied and harrassed. When I voiced my concerns, my manager deflected it and suggested I was suffering from culture shock.
EF is a business but it has zero respect for itself as a school. This is unheard of in any other teaching facilities or private schools.
Oh, and throughout all this, I had no access to my work email. Thereby making my life even more complicated.
So yea, you'll be dead tired. And when you're dead tired, they still expect you to be this perfect happy go-lucky teacher. You take all the risk leaving your life behind and moving to China while the company loses nothing. They can fire you on a whim and that's what happened to me. I was let go one day before the end of my probation despite having great reviews from 99 percent of parents and students. (And coincidentally, at the very end of the busiest time of the year). The reason was laughably arbitrary and nitpicky; such as not writing down how I would meet each named student's needs in a classroom, how I decided to teach the 'reading' segment after the break than before, and how I sometimes gave the answer to a struggling student during a review. A review. Not a test. None of the other senior or junior teachers expected this outcome at all. I later find out that most of my students were told "I had resigned due to a family emergency". How insulting is that. At least own up to your actions. (Apparently this is standard procedure for any teacher leaving).
Upon termination of my contract, EF did everything they could to prevent me from getting another job. Including witholding my documents that I paid for. -Which is borderline illegal. (These are the same documents that the company promised to reimburse me with but didn't). This kind of unproffesional & spiteful behavior is shockingly stupid. It goes against any business sense at all. Why go out of your way to make your company look worse by alienating your former employees. With only a month to stay in China, and due to EF's obscuring behavior, I had to go to extreme lengths to secure a new visa including speaking to the American consulate, my local connections in Shanghai, and the Chinese Labor Board. Think about how crazy this is: I HAD TO INVOLVE MY GOVERNMENT AND THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT just so I can circumvent EF's childish actions.
This job brought me to the breaking point. I was set up to fail. EF doesn't really care about its workers. It's owned by a billionaire but does its best to increase its margins against the physical and psychological wellbeing of its employees. They could improve everyone's lives but just choose not to. The morale of my co-teachers was non existent. Most of them looked disheartened and broken. The company treats you like an idiot; giving you only excuses.
