Viewing topic: the EF menace

Hey bobs, isn't it a bit ironic that after blacklisting EF from your site that their advertisement still shows up at the top of each page? After peeking around some other ESL forums it seems like they have an equally back reputation from Istanbul to Bejing. Maybe its time for ESL teachers to unite in a crusade against the EF menace?

Ironic indeed Yep, EF is a big, rich franchise that exploits naive young teachers, markets them as highly-trained experts, sells utter rubbish for extortionate prices & so I have no great sympathy for them, or at least for the EF-Mundane in St. Petersburg where I taught.

Consider the fact that a student in ANY expensive school in SPb with a high marketing spend is little more likely to get a teacher of a higher calibre than a student at a smaller, cheaper school. And the teacher isn't getting paid in accordance with the marketing claims for his outstanding capabilities. The student is paying for image and possibly comfort (though in the cramped EF case, comfort wasn't a part fo the equation). I don't see that resources are any better either.

The teachers are from a small pool, and EF-Mundane doesn't pay well enough to get the best of them. They are only good for either newcomers/novices (they are geared that way - their stupid, rigid system of 'rules' just doesn't swing it for freelancers) or teachers that have difficulty finding enough work. Any seasoned local teacher would just get p**sed off with their b**lsh*t.

With EF-Corporate it should be easier to work out decent freelance terms. In fact, with almost any school from summer onwards it should be blindingly easy to work out decent terms if you're here on an independent visa (just don't think you can get schools to employ you for three months at a time - it won't be easy).

Getting back to the point, EF-Corporate does, however, genuinely seem to be a different setup (apparently administratively independent from EF-Mundane downstairs, just coincidentally in the same building, i.e. it answers to EF-Central, not to EF-Mundane) and has another long-term VR member working in it. He transferred there from a long-term job in EF-Mundane, which is a good sign I reckon. Michael isn't a monster, he just gave me a nice opportunity to lay into EF He's since bought me a couple of lunches, which is a good way to tame a Scotsman

They've got a clean slate to start from, so we'll see where it goes. I've never yet scrambled a freshly-hatched school (I had a bad feeling about LS from the start, but those are not grounds to blacken a school's reputation - when the facts came out, I rumbled them despite the fact they had been relatively generous in their financial support of the site, e.g. there was theoretically good reason to let it slip. I guess everyone else that works there and is happy with it [and appalled at being affronted on VisaRus ] is welcome to it ).

I'll also add that EF-Mundane were loath to dip into their pockets even to pay me the reasonable wage that I requested (remember the story) whereas Michael managed to squeeze some cash out of them for advertising on VR. Cheers for that

I think everyone will agree that this is hilarious, even EF...

Google search for "English First Saint Petersburg".

That's EF-Mundane, right there at the top of the results (at least it was when I tried it)

Google search for "English First Corporate Saint Petersburg"

That's EF-Mundane's listing at the top, followed by EF-Corporate in the little indent.

There'll be quite a long way to go for EF-Corporate to shake off negative associations with EF-Mundane, but if they are decent, they'll doubtless get decent feedback. SPb is a small village

I think that the techno-wizards at EF might soon be burning the midnight oil - submitting a vast new load of key words for their own site to the search engines....

As some of you already know, I am off "a-fishin' " for a while - But I will be back quite soon, never fear....

That's cos I wanna be here after the summer when, (according to bobs12, elsewhere), the big-bux fish will be being landed in number by the freelancers...Not that I am that concerned about it...

We shall see...