Two new ways of blacklisting schools
As I’ve worked for the school in these two links I can tell you that the changes in technology certainly haven’t improved on the usual TEFL blacklisting accuracy (although they can’t be much worse than Sandy’s recent accusations of a TEFL school’s links to terrorism, with no evidence at all), but the TEFL news nerd in me found the fact that they exist quite interesting anyway, and here they are:
Wiki on Japanese Eikaiwa (English conversation) school Shane, with wikis on GEOS, Aeon and ECC on the same site
Yahoo Answers question and answer on the same school
Will be interested to see what Yahoo does with an obviously one sided answer, but as I said in my previous post we need all the help we can get. Hope they do better than the short lived anti-TEFL-scam Facebook group.
Tags: News
March 9th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Alex, what’s all this about me posting rumours and half-truths on my blog?! Perish the thought!
As for the Manchester School of English and their links to international terrorist networks, it must be true, ‘cos one of their previous employees said so. Well, he said it COULD be true … sort of.
Actually “circumstantial evidence”, I think they call it. His boss was in Mumbai at the time of the attacks there last year. Or was it the week before?
March 14th, 2009 at 1:41 am
Well, I can answer the question about what Yahoo would do about it- they simply deleted the whole thing.
To make up for that, here’s another blacklisting schools in Japan site that seems old but I’ve only just discovered:
http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/eslprotest/index.html
I particularly liked:
“Note: The views expressed on this web site are those of the visitors. If you or your company have been offended, it is purely your fault. Maybe you should change your business practices”
March 20th, 2009 at 5:38 am
Someone’s really got it in for Shane, but I think they are wasting their time with Yahoo Shitsumonbako:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090318102420AAh6aFh
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:58 am
And another attempt on yahoo:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090321025406AAbVHNp
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 am
There have been several attempts i the past at creating forums to blacklist schools and TESOL course providers, but they have either been threatened, bought or sponsored by the schools that regularly attract flak.
It’s interesting to note that it is almost always the same institutions that attract negative opinion and comment, and one or two top the league. The schools that try the hardest to play down the negative feedback quite obviously have a very guilty conscience, so maybe there is a lesson to learned there; in the words of some commentators “There’s no smoke without a fire”.
Probably the most effective way to blacklist without attracting too many life-threatening attacks (and there have been some), is through individual blogs.
Google references every forum posting, blog, and blog comment extremely quickly, often within less than 24 hours – a search on the web for an institution’s name will reveal all that has been said about them.
February 17th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
I’m writing an article on TEFL and teach abroad scams. If anyone has information or contacts who have had bad experiences with either of these, please send me an email at kellyhep@gmail.com
January 13th, 2011 at 10:30 am
I’d like to nominate Caledonian School-Prague for Blacklisting.
I’ve been working there for almost a year now and I’m desperately trying to leave.
Since the merge with Tutor and new managerial staff, in Spring/Summer 2010, this school made a sudden downfall.
Although the pay is average for the location (compared to other schools) and is always on time, in several occasion our payday has been changed without any notice. But that’s to say the least.
The main problems are:
- the contract stipulated between the teachers and the school REGISTERED IN JERSEY, which means that Czech lawyers can’t do anything to help, should you need them.
- No Health insurance (for EU teachers)
- No National Insurance
- No paid holidays AT ALL
- No sick days allowance
- No minimum basic salary
But what’s even worse, the management does not support the academic team in any way.
Everytime we asked for information or help we have been faced with one of the following answers:
a. I’ll ask my superior.
b. I’ll ask the school’s lawyer.
In either case we never got any answers.
Now, I don’t tend to bite the hands that feeds me, but really, this is a joke. No wonder there’s such a high turnover of teachers and the vacancies posted on various TEFL websites are ongoing!
Oh but, to be fair, you do get reimbursed of the in-company travelling expenses (public transport ticket)!
April 30th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
The best way to get even with these scoundrels would be to terminate them–no, not in the mafia movie sense so much as in the put them out of business sense. In the case of Eikaiwa, a little healthy competition (like a good school next door) combined with idle gossip amongst the mothers might be a good strategy.
In the case of the ALT “coyote” outfits, I think that organized pressure on schools, PTA organizations and BOE’s would probably do the trick.
So I saw two guys getting on the train as I was debarking and gave them a kindly nod to which I was treated to a healthy look of disgust. I wondered why I had forgotten never to respond to the presence of foreigners and wondered who these unpleasant losers could possibly be…and then I recalled that there is a Shame franchise just outside the station. Predictable coming from Shame and typical of the problem of foreigners which is so easily exploited by the Japanese.
So the next time you give some poor working stiff the “what are you doing in my Japan” sneer, stop and think about it. Notice that the Japanese will never betray each other no matter what they think of the relevant person or of his questionable morals, but foreigners seem to be based on the Benedict Arnold model and most seem more concerned about maintaining their newly acquired “zero to hero” status than in making things better for themselves and others.
And another little rant. Don’t you think it’s about time to do something about the Gaijinpot and its racist tendencies. Daily diatribes about the unfaithful gaijin who abandoned japan in its time of need after receiving so much from their adopted country and…blah…blah…blah!…. The very next time we have a quake back in sunny California, I’m out of here and trotting off to show my faithfulness to the western paradise that made me what I am today–a gaijin sweating out his life for nothing in Japan. Gambare Nihon! Oh yes, and all you traitors who never made it back to the bayou when Katrina hit…for shame!
I suggest a complete boycott of Gaijinpot and its Japanese masters. If no one responds for two weeks to any ad placed there while prospective employers are contacted about placing free ads on an alternative site, what do you think the end result would probably be? And once Gaijinpot is out of the way, employers would be subjected to a “healthy business practices” standard or sent packing with no place left to advertise. Of course, sound as the idea is, it could never be accomplished because foreigners in Japan spend all their time and energy screwing each other over in a feeble attempt to compensate for their low self-esteem resulting from abuse by unscrupulous Japanese. (Please note that I carefully and intentional refer only to unscrupulous Japanese.)