Web International - Experiences or info?

[optical]

I'm looking into working for this company, Web International

http://www.webi.com.cn/

Just curious if anybody had any bad experiences or horror stories about them. I searched the forums and found them mentioned a few times by people listing names of schools off, but not really any info about them. I'm already in China and they have an office near to where I am staying, so mostly I'm just concerned about things like non-payment, terrible slave hours, soul binding contracts, etc.

One thing that's really concerning me is that I have located two completely different job ads for the same position and the same company. The first one says, just requires you to be a native speaker and have teaching experience. Ok no problem. But the second one I found says, must have bachelors and TEFL/TESOL preferred. So when I emailed them, I wrote "I do not have a university degree". In their response, they asked me to send a copy of my degree. I wrote back, this time within my response I wrote in bold letters, "I do not have a university degree."

The response?

I notice you have a college dipolma , that's also fine

my concern is you don't have any teaching experience before

so i may have 2 options for you

one is an adult teaching job with 8000RMB salary (no accommodation) another is 6800RMB for 18 classes/week to kids ,no accommodation , that's the only two jobs i have for unexperienced teachers

Web international requires a demon class in the interview , if you have confidence , you can try , i let them have a look at your resume first

That's interesting. In my first email I wrote that I had a lot of teaching experience! I really have no idea what she means by 'I notice you also have a college diploma'. I don't have any college anything! Also I would like to note that this came from a yahoo.com.cn address. That in itself doesn't completely freak me out as I have several friends in China who frequently use personal email accounts to conduct business and I know they are on the level. I'm just playing it by ear for the moment and I will be checking out their facilities later on this week to see what their operation looks like.

Thanks!

[nomad]

Check Dave's ESL Cafe, there is a thread on the China forum about Web Int'l -problems

[outcast]

I worked very briefly for them the year before last (then I found a much better job and bailed), and I was quite unimpressed. They hired a guy who claimed to hear voices in his head (not kidding you, I overheard a conversation about him between a teacher who didn't like him and the manager, it was the manager who said that guy hears voices in his head.) While that guys chinese was extremely good, he would always teach his classes in chinese and even then he wouldn't actually talk about anything remotely related to the course, just kept going on and on about chinese ancient history. I still can't believed they kept this guy on for more than a year......

[simonlaing]

I've done part time work and had friends who did full time work there.

The working salary should start at 10,000 or 8,000 with 2,000 housing allowance. They teaching time is 24 hours which is very tiring.

Compared to Canilx and Nasdaken, they don't leave as much flexibilty to the teach and micro plan the lessons for you and tailor the lessons very closely to the computer and the vocabulary it teachs. One lesson will be review the vocab for 60 minutes . and the next lesson will be use that vocab for 60 minutes.

In nanjing they often had the manager sit in on several of the classes, the criticism if you detoured around the lesson plan would be heard often. But if they needed teachers it wouldn't matter much and like other places the recommendations of the students was most important issue. The lesson plans had a lot of material which I liked but didn't allow for switching the style of the class. some classes were 1 or 2 people and others were 8-10. Switching would help. The classes are most often in the evening and afternoon. The Web school is a franschise and things change from place to place. Also the do have some online courses for you to teach.

People don't ask about the diploma, it might just cost them some bother in getting an F visa instead of a Z visa.

Canilx and Nasdaken seemed to leave more flexibilty to the teacher to change the lesson and add material. I personally think this is better as the teacher can tailor the lesson to the student's level and personality.

Play up being caucasian and you will likely get the job, if you haven't already been given (as long as his is not wacko hire him consideration).(There are a couple in China, china needs the teachers)

Good luck,

Simon:)

[ChineseOtto]

Never worked for thembut had an interview that went well... found a different job thought!

I work as a D.O.S. now so, on the visa note (cause I deal with that with each new teacher). The Deploma is NOT the "end all be all" of getting a job. Working visas can still be obtained thought the employer may have to do a little bit of work on the side to get it! I have had several teachers in the past few years without deplomas and you don't need to worry about that too much. It may lower your pay being that it makes it more difficult to work out the visa stuff. Also, having college graduates is a boasting right for many employers. "My teacher graduated form blablabla..."

Over all I wouldn't really worry about too much. Do get back to us though and let us know how it goes!

[lilongyue]

That's interesting. In my first email I wrote that I had a lot of teaching experience! I really have no idea what she means by 'I notice you also have a college diploma'. I don't have any college anything!

Sounds like a simple screw up to me, looking at the wrong application.

Working visas can still be obtained thought the employer may have to do a little bit of work on the side to get it! I have had several teachers in the past few years without deplomas and you don't need to worry about that too much. It may lower your pay being that it makes it more difficult to work out the visa stuff.

The OP had better double check this, as the new visa restrictions may require some kind of degree for a work visa given to a teacher. A fellow American I bumped into at the gong an, when I was asking about my marriage visa, was saying how he had no choice but to apply for a 1 month tourist visa because he didn't have any degrees. I didn't ask what he meant exactly, but anyway you had better double check if this has become a requirement.