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The Reviews 'n' Ratings - 3
(IEG) International Education The school has a lot of academic based and test preparation courses such as TOEFL
and IELTS. The school is well resourced with an excellent range of course and
resource books and the teachers tend to be young. The front desk staff are
reasonably professional - something sadly lacking in most language schools in
Bangkok. This is a nice school and a good bet if you hold an RSA and have some
experience. The recent growth in this school has been in the area of corporate work. They now have a few outside contracts with big companies and have recently won one of the Thai school contracts that ELT lost - good job - unfortunately, IEG are not that choosy about who they place in these external positions. To complicate matters, this school pays decent salaries but has a confusing structure when it comes to contracts and remuneration. Three years ago when salaries in Bangkok were a lot lower than they are now, they offered new teachers a starting salary of 33,000 baht a month. Now, they are offering contracts starting at 28,000 with increments in the first year up to 33,000. Existing teachers are on 35,000 + commission (depending on the number of students that come through the doors) - it's all very confusing! I believe the salaries offered for folks in-house and those on external contracts may be different too. The TPS contracts, the outside contracts are nine month contracts and part of the other three months can be made up with work at summer camps. They now manage a successful language school at Khon Kaen University. IEG is also managing a TEFL course, which is accredited by Chichester College (UK). It will kick off in 2001 and be held every second month. The course will be held on four days being four Saturdays and is an intensive course with assignments and journal work. Finally, they also offer some degree programmes onsite through New Hampshire College which if you are suitably qualified to teach, pay a very fair 900 baht per hour.
Overall: Quality Establishment Oddly, this school sees itself at the premium end of the market competing with the likes of British Council. Their fees are steep and they attract some wealthy students. Teachers are a real mix with both older teachers and a few young faces too. This school used to have the audacity to charge you 3,000 baht for a work permit if you were a part-timer but thankfully this policy has been changed. And if you left without giving a months notice, they would extract 5,000 baht from your final pay packet - collecting one's pay and and not reporting for work again comfortably got you around this. Again, this crazy policy has been changed. A current Inlingua staff member told me that the Thai managers are the biggest problem preferring to apply whatever policy (regardless of how long ago it was abandoned) that they feel is suitable for the situation that they are currently facing. He stated that this was also a problem at other schools. Really? I never noticed that... I love the advertisements that they placed on the net recently that said that teachers will teach a minimum of 24 hours. The ad went on to say that some teachers make up to 60,000 baht a month - God only knows how many hours they taught to earn this. When will these schools learn that that the teachers only work this number of hours and in some cases more is that they need money to survive. The quality of one's lessons do fall away after a certain number of hours and any decent DOS knows this so that their willingness to allow teachers to do so many hours also shows a willingness to allow the quality of lessons to drop too. In February 2001, one fellow proudly let all know that he was teaching 42 contact hours a week and to make matters worse, that was made up of 50 X 50 minute lessons = 50 lessons to prepare for - nightmare stuff! 42 hours a week? Who the hell is the head teacher at that school? They should be shot for allowing a teacher to do so many hours. I get the feeling that this school puts a lot of work into having nice premises and having a proactive and somewhat successful sales team. However, their reputation for actually delivering a good product is not that good. While Inlingua is actually an international language school with branches in many countries, the Thai operation is owned by the same Thai corporation, ITEC, that owns ECC. Outside contracts are well paid by Inlingua at 500 baht per hour plus 90 baht for transport. This is very reasonable given that I heard rumours that Inlingua recently dropped their corporate training rates from 1500 - 800 baht per hour and shows that their yield per hour is pretty damned low by industry standards. (Not sure how true this is as it is a huge drop). The one major benefit of working at this school is that they copy the Linguaphone Thai course (the BEST Thai course available) and provide it to interested teachers in three nicely bound books and two cassettes for a bargain 300 baht. To buy it elsewhere (outside Thailand) costs about $US 200. Although piracy is endemic throughout Thailand, I wonder what the Swiss head office thinks about this? Basically, this school is a good place for a first job to start and learn the ropes. After three months you will have had enough and you will tell them what to do with their job. Really, you will! This school seemingly doesn't care about their teachers - only about making money. Overall: Average Kings
College However, I know of one teacher who has been working there for three years and has not had one pay rise in this time! The schools is well resourced although they have chopped and changed between various course books. Teachers are expected to work long hours (7+ per day) at the weekend teaching children, some as young as five years old and this is an area of contention for some teachers. This school has a very serious problem with course placements with teachers complaining that they have had 45 year olds in the same class with 8 year olds! Week classes are predominantly adults. In 1998, this school had a bunch of convicted pedophiles working there and this actually scared some of the other teachers away. Overall: Unclassified - (Have received MELS is part of CMMU (the College of Management, Mahidol University). Mahidol is Thailand's oldest university and is also one of the most prestigious. In the long term, MELS is an attempt to generate revenue in preparation for the major reforms expected in 2004 when all government universities will have to be financially self-supporting. However, for the time being, MELS prefer to describe themselves as a "non-loss organization", placing more emphasis on their dual role as providers of ELT and the self-proclaimed, unofficial PR department of CMMU. According to the British management, MELS is CMMU's gateway to Thailand's business community, conducting Business English courses for the corporate market in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and along the Eastern Seaboard. They have at their disposal an impressive faculty of foreign management trainers who are employed part-time on CMMU's Masters in Administrative Management program. The manager has a realistic attitude towards employing TEFL instructors and has a good reputation for matching the right teacher with the right assignment. If you are over 30, have some business experience, have had some kind of formal TEFL training, have taught in Thailand for a year or more and 'look the part' you should be offered some work with MELS. All MELS' teachers are paid hourly rates, starting at 600 baht per hour, and you can work as many or as few hours as you like for them which makes a pleasant change. The management style at MELS seems to be firm but fair. Certainly, a high degree of professionalism is demanded from teachers and staff in general but it is possible to make a lot of money with MELS, once you have built up a reputation as a reliable and appropriate teacher. Given that all CMMU students study their pre-masters English with MELS, MELS is already well-established in Bangkok's corporate market and there are also plenty of walk-in classes at their premises at SCB Park Plaza. Teachers offered work at MELS can expect a variety of work at attractive rates. Add to that the chance to work for a name university but under foreign management and it's easy to see why so many teachers are beating a path to MELS' door. Well worth checking out if you think you can cut it !! Overall: Quality Establishment
Nava Language School They have a rather odd contract for external teachers whereby you are expected to teach 29 hours a week across 6 days. Now, this does not sound so good and when you consider that all of this is outside work and invariably at different locations, and with traffic in this city, travel times can be crazy. Fankly, 29 hours per week is too much...and will result in burnout before too long. The starting salary is in the 26,000-29,000 range which is one of the better starting points in this industry in Bangkok - 26 for those unqualified and 29 for those with teaching credentials. Feedback from two former DOS's at this school is very bad. Add to this that of all of the emails that I get regarding schools in Bangkok, I get a huge number of, admittedly unverified, negative reports about this school. Still, the money is reasonable. In mid-April, 2000, they were running big colourful ads in the Bangkok Post that sure give the impression that they are a professional outfit. New information has to come to light about this school. They want to be known as the
best school academically and they realize that to do this they have to retain staff.
They have already made some improvements including a 13 month salary, return
airfare, and reduced travel times. They seem to be very sincere about improving conditions.
*If this school would drop the contact hours to 20, things could be a little
more manageable but as it stands, 29 per week for outside work is frankly, a killer! A large chain with many branches throughout the country. For a long time this school had a dreadful reputation but they at long last seem to have taken note of what people have been saying and have made some important changes. They used to hire just about anyone, gave that person little or no support and generally treated teachers very poorly. The whole operation was Mickey Mouse and I used to have some very harsh words to say about them. Now, after much criticism and at times referring to them as the armpit of the industry, they have made some drastic and sorely needed improvements, particularly to their remuneration package. The new salary scale is as follows: Siam have "external teachers" at over 30 Thai private schools teaching kindergarten through to Mattayom - 9 academic month contracts with salary per month of 28,000 - 30,000 baht based on one year experience, a college degree and / or certification (this is pretty good!). A 10,000 baht bonus is paid at the end of the two academic terms if all student reports have been completed and another 10,000 baht bonus is paid at the end of the two terms based on no missed teaching days after the four month probation period ends. There is also a 1,000 baht per day training allowance if the teacher has up to three training days before his contract begins. Internal teachers at the 17 local SIAM branches. Siam has offered a unique system where by a teacher can select whether they wish to work a 5 or 6 day week - nice idea! A 6 day per week earns 27,500 baht per month for a twelve month contract. A 5 day work week earns 23,000 baht per month for a twelve month contract. It was interesting to note that of the 28 current teachers who were given the choice of the five or six day per week contract only 5 teachers selected to go from 6 days to 5 days per week. Siam attribute this to the 6 day week not being so inhuman after all but I put it down to the fact that 23,000 per month is just not enough in Bangkok. I used to give them serious grief about the remuneration for internal teachers in the past. Part time rates for internal teachers are still on the low side at 200-220-250 baht per hour based on experience - in all truth and honesty, few people pay lower than this. The external part time rate for corporate contracts is 300-350-400 baht per hour. The salary rates for their vocational college SBAC, and the new college that the Ministry of Education has authorised SIAM to open to grant bachelor degrees is set by those governing boards. As already mentioned, about half of the teachers work "in-house" in their branches while the other half are located at Thai schools teaching children in classrooms with about 50 students along with a Thai teacher. In-house teachers work up to 36 contact hours a week (which is just so damned crazy it's not funny....) if there is a full schedule while those located off site, external teachers, will do less than 25 contact hours per week. One of the nice things about this school is that the classes in their branches are generally small - usually ten or less students in a class. For whatever reason, the students that come to Siam tend to be really decent folk and they are a lot of fun to teach. They are motivated and want to learn. Many teachers report that they do actually have a lot of fun with many of the students during their time at Siam It's also nice that they use the (in my mind) excellent Reward series of books. The farangs that work there, especially messrs Michael and Brian are totally in touch with reality but are essentially puppets and do not have the ability to change things. There have been unlimited postings to the internet, particularly Dave's ESL Cafe, from former employees advising against working for this crowd - heed the advice and look elsewhere. This school used to have a problem with staff attrition but currently, the staff retention is surprisingly good. Siam Computer sent me statistics in mid 2000 that showed that at that time, 62% of foreign teachers stay for more than a year - and that's pretty damned good in Bangkok. Part-timers get paid on the twelfth day of the month following the month that they worked. While I truly believe that this measure was introduced to stem the tide of people collecting their pay at the end of the month and not coming back, Siam claim that it is in fact due to the number of staff that submit overtime sheets at the end of the month and the time requirement to process all of these. While this may be true, it is hellishly bureaucratic. If you are white skinned and can speak reasonable English but you are not actually a native speaker, this school will take you on. So, this school could be a good bet for someone from continental Europe who speaks reasonable English although it isn't their first language. On a personal note, I read a lot of bad information about this school on the internet before I came to Thailand. Many people said that it was no good and to be avoided. If one could go back about three years or more on Dave's ESL Cafe Discussion forum, they would find similar comments from other former disgruntled teachers. This school insists that teachers clock in and out of branches using an antiquated old time clock system to ensure that they complete all of their hours. The system is so fxxxed up that teachers working weekend classes that finish at 4:00 must stay until 4:30 before clocking out. Archaic, cruel, unnecessary, antiquated....the negative adjectives could go on for ever! If you end up at this school, should you have any questions at all about teaching or life in Bangkok, ask either Bryan or Michael who are both experienced, knowledgeable and in my experience, extremely helpful. However, at the end of the day, they are subject to the policies set by the Thai owners and can only do so much. To get some sort of balance, there are a lot of teachers that do enjoy their time at Siam but with all due respect, the folks that I meet that teach there largely seem to be unqualified and really didn't know a noun from a verb. The expectations on teachers at this school are not high so pressure from management shouldn't be a problem. In what will no doubt be seen as a controversial move, I have updated the overall
rating for this school to mediocre. Let's hope it stays this way - or gets better! Founded in 1990, with a capital investment of only 2,000 baht, by a fellow with 23 years experience teaching in Thailand, this was the first school in Bangkok to outsource English teaching whereby teachers go and teach within the premises of clients, usually high profile companies. This school does not offer salaries to any teachers so therefore all teachers are technically part-time. What this means is that if business goes to the pack, there won't be any work - and no money. However, the company insists that customers cannot cancel classes and make them up at a later date suitable to them. If the customer wishes to cancel, the company loses the class and the teacher still gets paid. A nice way to look after teachers. One positive thing that I've heard about this school is that they start teachers on 350 baht an hour - a reasonable hourly rate. However when you realise that this is for corporate work which usually pays a lot higher than standard language school work, it's not that high at all. Also, when you consider that you have to make your own way across town to some company's offices, it suddenly looks a little light. Teachers should note that Text'n'Talk "professional teacher trainers" come in to observe every sixth class to ensure that quality is maintained and the company's objectives are being met. While this is a good idea in principle, to me it shows a lack of trust in the teachers. While observations are vital to teacher development, this is perhaps going a little over board. As mentioned earlier in the page, Text n'Talk offer a teacher's training course which gets quite a lot of folks fly in from outside of Thailand to attend - impressive. This school has been very difficult to rate. I have heard bad things from a couple of people that worked there quite some time ago, but this needs to be offset by email exchanges that I had have with the owner who seems committed to trying to improve things in the industry and was for a while lobbying ministers of parliament for recognition of English teachers and other bits and pieces. Overall: Under Review Brand new school located on the top floor of the Seri Centre, next to Seacon Square - if you don't know Bangkok, this is a bit of a way from the centre. Full-time contracts start at 35,000 month teaching all kinds of classes - children's, adults, test preparation etc. The planned emphasis is going to be on children and preparing them to be able to study overseas. They plan to teach English using other subjects as a base (especially science), for example learning sufficient English to be able to complete a science project. Sounds like a novel approach. The school is affiliated with several Australian universities. This school is still young but they seem to be doing well. They have a good contract and appear to be well run. They seem to be quite choosy about who they recruit to. Other than being a bit out of the way, they're probably a good bet. Overall: Quality Establishment Vektor Multimedia A relatively new player in the market, Vektor is a British based company that offers a lot of CD-Rom based training courses for students. This means that "conventional" teaching techniques may not be used and rather, one has to improvise to utilized the resources that the company has developed. They also offer positions where by Japanese students call the teacher in Bangkok from Japan and the teacher has to go through some dialogues and essentially test the student. The teacher then emails a report to the student on their progress. They also have quite a few contracts at high profile multi-national companies and there seems to be more working coming in. This is obviously more your regular type of English teaching work. They pay very well for this type of work in that they pay all taxi fares and the time you are spent travelling is essentially counted as work time! They pay well, the manager is a straight talking, bullshit free type of guy and frankly, for someone who wants something a little different, this school could be a good bet. It really depends on what type of thing you want. For someone who enjoys working with technology, this company sure has a lot going for it. For the technophobe, stay clear! Overall: Unclassified (but I think they'd be pretty damned good)
World Learning Services
This somewhat elaborately named school is a new one to open in 2000 and is located in the IT Mall on Rachadapisek Road. It's run by a couple of young Americans who have teaching experience in Asia. I can not comment on the school at this stage but they seem to have some good ideas and if they are able to implement these ideas, it could be a winner. They plan to offer TOEFL (well, they would, they are American!), General English plus more. They are going to pay 400+ baht per hour for part-timers and seem to have realistic ideas about salaried teachers but I gather the salary scale is as yet undecided. Worth looking into.
Overall: Unclassified |