Pros
- The staff at MT headquarters were kind and understanding for the most part. - Offers a really good salary. I doubt I could find a professional job back home and not make that kind of money for at least 5-7 years. - Very little lesson-planning (unless you're teaching advanced Grammar & Writing for international school kids. Then you need to know what you're teaching.) - Two hour breaks are pretty decent and give you time to re-charge for the rest of the day. - A late start at least one day a week. - You can request to be moved if you do not like your center. - Brilliant feedback system on lessons with center liasons. - You are mostly left alone by the parents. (Just quickly say hello and move on.) - If you are lucky, you'll be placed with caring managers/owners who will go out of their way to make sure you are treated well. - If you honestly need to work here, try to get a position as a sub. They have the best hours, you get to travel around Hong Kong everyday and get to meet new people. If the kids are trouble, you only have to deal with them for one lesson.
Cons
- A few franchise owners of certain MT schools are rude, disrespectful, money-grubbing and uncaring people. They can dismiss you without reason at all - such labour practices would be grounds for lawsuit in most western countries. - You have NO say in who takes your classes - it doesn't matter if they're rude, disruptive, or even violent; they will not remove them from the class as long as they keep paying. - Kids are often forced to advance to the next English level despite doing poorly in class. ( The parents are very persistent.) - A few pieces of the class material have serious mistakes that clever students often question (which is embarrassing to deal with.) - Franchise owners will literally put toddlers who are incapable of even speaking their native language into chat rooms. - Franchise owners will even violate health and safety codes. (a room designed for 8 kids will have 12-13 packed in them.) - A lot of center managers will push for kids to be assessed at the last minute (I even had to do 4 in the space of an hour) and will often take a kid right out in the middle of an assessment because they can't figure out how to schedule properly; so they'll be placed at the wrong level. - In many centers, you'll be placed in tiny classrooms with no windows and only bright, fluorescent light for sometimes five hours at a time. - Sometimes the HR guy can be a bit rude, but he is a reasonable person. - There is a bit of racism on the part of the Chinese admin working there. If they make a mistake, the owner/manager is too forgiving. But if you do, you are in for it. - Admin also get way more time off. - Teachers do not get a commission for each kid they assess. - You can get really repetitive, boring classes for some days. (Like 4 chatrooms in a row.)