This was posted by BlakeS on another site and I wish to passs it on to others.

Many of the people looking through these forums are first-time ESL teachers, taking what they can from everyone elses experiences and input to make an educated decision on where to work.

Hopefully this will help with where not to!

My first ESL teaching job was with a company called Kidcastle in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China. The owner of this school owns 7 schools in Xi'an and currently employees roughly 14 foreign teachers.

My employment started out fine. The school looked nice, my co-workers were very friendly and my students were great kids. All of this quickly took a turn for the worse....for myself and many other foreigners.

I signed a contract to work a 5-day schedule, as did most others. Myself and almost all other staff were later made to work 6 days. This included new-hire staff that were told they would work 5 days but when they arrived were told they would have to work 6 - plus many more classes that they weren't expecting. Of course, they are in China at this point and what are they to do? All of this, simply because the school could not or would not keep itself properly staffed, so everyone else was forced to pick up the slack to ensure all classes were covered.

Some of the teachers, understandably, just left (due to other problems, as well). Perhaps we all should have at that point. They gave decent notice and let the school know that this wasn't they signed on for and were going to pursue other opportunities. The school made them cancel their work visa before continuing with their journeys - by telling them they had to take their visa to the PSB and downgrade it to a tourist visa.

DONT LET YOUR SCHOOL DO THIS. For those in the know, these teachers met quite a shock when they were told they had to fly to Hong Kong in order to renew their work visas. For those of you not in the know: Your employer sponsors your work visa. All you need to do is notify your local PSB (Public Security Bureau) of the problems you are having and that you will be signing with a new school. The new school will then have your visa transferred to them or they will simply renew it for you. This way, you aren't required to leave the country (pretty much) to renew.

Anyway. I had negotiated a new salary to work 6 days. They had also offered me a position in the TAD (Teaching Affairs - Training) department. At this point, I was now working 6 days and training all of the new staff. Well, a month comes and goes and no new staff is hired, so I have no new staff to train. The school decides to cut my pay from 7200 Yuan to 5500 Yuan without notice or explanation. I tried to meet with the owner of the school many times, for an explanation, with no luck - until I finally left a note on his office door stating, "If we cannot get this issue resolved and I cannot be paid the agreed upon amount, myself and my girlfriend will have to seek employment elsewhere. I will have to notify the PSB of these and other continuing issues in order to do that.".

A meeting was scheduled shortly after.

In that meeting, a new salary was agreed upon an offer made by the school that I accepted. Of course, when it came time to sign the new contract, I was told they couldnt afford to pay me this amount (all of a sudden), even though it was more than 1000 Yuan less my previous pay. They wanted me to work more classes for the pay that had already been agreed upon. I notified Kidcastle Head Office (Kidcastle is a franchise) about this problem and they did absolutely nothing to help. I decided it was time to leave.

A few days later, my girlfriend receives a call. Not only are we not going to be paid our outstanding salary (which I didnt expect to get), we were expected to pay them money for outstanding bills. I told them they were welcome to take it out of our pay that we didnt receive.

We attempted to leave our apartment the next day. Unfortunately, the school had told our buildings security guards to inform them when we try to leave. Before we had the chance to get all of our bags out of the building, various members of Kidcastle staff showed up.

.and heres where it gets interesting.(and not just typical)

.one of them starts trying to steal our bags. I try to stop him and he finally puts down our bags just so he can make motions that he wants to fight me. Quite a crowd is developing by this point. He, then again, tries to steal our stuff. My girlfriend puts her hand out to stop him and he throws her into a wall. At the front of this building are 4 stairs leading down to the driveway. Im not a violent person, but at this point, I threw this person over our bags and down those stairs. There wasnt any more fighting after that.

Long story short. They called the police forced us to pay money that we owed them while still never receiving our outstanding pay. Another member of the Kidcastle staff told me, We can tell the police that you hit (name) but we dont have to tell them that he hit your girlfriend and everyone here will say the same thing. In other words, not only were they breaching contract, changing contracts without asking, stealing our money and assaulting my girlfriendthey were also trying to have me put in jail. Once again, all of this because I wouldnt accept my pay being changed without notice or reason.

If this was the only case of abuse at this school, I would simply write it off to them not liking me. And thats fine cant be everyones best friend. But unfortunately, it wasnt just us.

Another couple came down with some sort of respiratory tract infection very shortly after arriving in China. One member of the FAD (Foreign Affairs Dept) took them to the hospital but refused to translate what the doctor was saying. Later, outside of the hospital, she told them they were fine and should return to work. Not until another member of staff took them back did they find out that they did, in fact, have a serious infection that required medication (daily I.V.s) to treat.

There is the continual case of teachers agreeing to 1 contract while in their own country but when they get here they are told the terms have changed and they have more classes over more days - due to understaffing. Whether to save money or because they are just that unorganized....I don't know.

Another staff member was paying the school to have his apartment to himself. After months of this not being a problem, he was told he was going to have a roommate. He refused seeing as how this is what he has been paying them rent to avoid they told him he would have to pay them MORE or they were putting someone else in the apartment.

With the apartments, new teachers would arrive to apartments, which had very little that the contract stated it would. Toilets wouldnt work. There wouldnt be hot water. Things would break and would never be fixed. I once asked why it was taking so long for something to be fixed at a co-workers apartment and was told, Foreigners ask for too much. Why cant they just teach?

Teachers would call in sick, only to be greeted by the owner knocking at their door telling them they have to go to work. I didnt believe this until I called in sick one day and received a phone call telling me to go to work or Im fired even though our contracts clearly stated we had 5 sick off.paid. Now I know why everyone turned off their phones when they didn't go to work.

It was a never ending string of problems; a magicians scarf of problems. Some are not note-worthy and simply annoying but some are like the ones included here.

My main concern: Kidcastle Head Office did nothing to help.

I can tell you, Dont ever ever ever sign a contract with Kidcastle Xian and youre obvious response will be, No kidding.. As with other franchises, it is hit and miss with the schools. It all depends on the management. I am now working for a franchised school and have met the complaints manager. I know this school takes care of the teachers at its franchised locations. If there is a problem, which does happen from time to time, they do what they can to help. Kidcastle doesnt. Refuses. So, even though it is hit and miss if you miss there is no one there to help.

So Ill skip the obvious dont ever ever ever sign a contract with Kidcastle Xian and go the next step.

Dont ever sign with Kidcastle.

There are far too many schools with locations ALL throughout China such as, EF (English First), Aston English and many others.there is no need to take the risk. They all have similar contracts with similar pay, but you can be slightly more sure of your sanity and even your SAFETY with these schools. You cant be sure with any Kidcastle, knowing that if something goes wrong.youre on your own and being in a country where you probably dont speak the native language that isnt very comforting. Trust me. I know.

PS: After they were done trying to steal my bags and getting as much money out of me as possible, they told me that if I posted what happened online they would.and I said Youll what? What more could you possibly do?. They didnt seem to deem it fit to reply in front of police men or something along those lines but Ill keep you updated to what that what was. If anything.

Be safe, all.