EF Education First
3.7 out of 5 stars.
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EF Education First Employee Reviews for Teacher

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Teacher121 reviews
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3.5Work–Life Balance
3.1Pay & Benefits
3.2Job Security & Advancement
3.3Management
3.7Culture

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Meet interesting people from around the world.

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It's a company that is a leader in it's field and has been around for decades. You meet interesting people from around the world. It is great to work remotely and have flexibility to create your own schedule. The pay is not great, though.

Pros

Flexible schedules, remote work, meeting people from around the World.

Cons

Low pay
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EF gave teachers a 7% pay cut during 11% inflation

The company dehumanizes teachers, gave teachers in the West a 7% pay cut during times of 11% inflation. They frequently ask teachers to 'share tips' at hour long webinars for no pay. They ask teachers to give the company their custom lesson plans that the teachers created themselves, for free. They changed the pay structure that honored teachers with experience and high student survey ratings to giving the same pay to everyone, even those who just starting teaching, indicating teachers have zero value. If the students book a lesson, the company takes the student's money, but only pays the teacher if the student attends the class. So both the student and the teacher lose, like a gym membership.

Pros

flexibility in scheduling work day, if you want a pay cut since you can only make the highest level if you get up at 4 am to teach

Cons

the company re-wrote all the scheduling rules to benefit people on the East Coast, where most of the black teachers reside. The teachers on the West Coast are white, Asian and Hispanic - we don't matter in this 'woke' culture.
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Bad: teaching at International Language Campus

Extreme underpay, and always classified as part time no matter how many hours you work so they can deny health insurance. Tremendous responsibilities that outweigh the pay by a lot. Materials created by higher paid full time corporate staff are awful, poorly organized and often with mistakes. It’s the teachers job to figure out what to do with it. Many different “products” and resources for the teachers to use, but that just means an overwhelming abundance of things to figure out. The mix of students includes teenagers to middle aged individuals, all with different needs and goals. It’s the teachers job to figure out how to satisfy them. Teachers are given raw feedback scores from surveys that affect career advancement opportunities but it’s such generic scores that we have no idea where we are really failing or succeeding. Management proposes more trainings and classroom observations but that’s just more work. The gap between the pay we need to survive and the pay we actually receive is so extreme that no modest offer of a pay rise will even come close. It’s going to be severe teacher turnover indefinitely until bad rumors spread and students stop coming. My guess is campuses will start to close and upper management will be blindsided by it because the company is so top-down they have no idea how bad it’s getting until it’s too late. And the upper management is so far removed from the every day operations they won’t know how to fix anything until it’s already too late.

Pros

Can learn about students from around the world

Cons

You will not be able to support yourself financially if you work here, so you will quit like all the others who came before and will come after you
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They paid for my move to China. It was all downhill from there

Awful work / life balance. Awful top level management: they froze my salary increases to make sure they could keep paying investors. They don't really care about the front-line staff, and would do anything to make a few more dollars, including lying to parents and students, lying or misleading staff, making staff work in unsafe conditions, not to mention regular exposure to Covid and other sick children. Their employment contracts are regularly amended and not in the employees best interest, they trap employees with the threat of having to pay visa and relocation costs. It's all very shady and they don't pay nearly enough to make it worth it. Ownership needs to make big changes or this company won't attract good employees

Pros

Great coworkers, paid relocation to China

Cons

Non-competitive wages, no work/life balance, poor vacation and leave, poor management and ownership
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Overall I would give EF a 5 star rating because they really work with you to get adjusted not only with your job but also your living accommadations

EF Education First is a wonderful place to work and the staff work very hard to support its new incoming employees providing lots of resources and options for work locations and assignments. Everyone makes a wonderful effort to be supportive and helpful. I will certainly go back and work with them again.
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5 stars

What is the best part of working at the company?The coordinators and being able to set your own hours. What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Getting up super early. What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Worked from homWhat is a typical day like for you at the company?Fun t aching children.
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- pretends to be a high school

Not much training Management don’t have your back Limited constructive communication Ambiguous expectations especially regarding assessmentsA lot of work for minimum wage They have ‘spins’ which are silly classes management have created- everyone hates them and they often don’t make sense Peers are your only help - and they are good. When I was there - I was only there for a couple of months - 7 teachers left - they’re struggling to recruit, only foreign people or those new to the industry want to work here. I now understand why!It looks good, but there’s a lot of issues - keep your other options open if you decide to work here.No, repeat NO support from management- incredibly unprofessional
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Fun work place

Good management, nice location.Accommodation provided not the bestGood company to work for overall. Management are friendly and will try to find solutions to any issues you have.

Pros

Free lunches for the summer

Cons

fairly low pay- not very flexible
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Great students

I taught for over two and a half years. It was great meeting students and the teaching was productive. The technological problems with communications. I would say this could get you by for a while.
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Great place to work.

It was a very good experience and I was happy to be part of the team. I Would recommend the company and would definitely consider to work there again.
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Goof

Amazing place to work, I worked online teaching and it was so amazing. All my students were great and the online team were very supportive. I highly recommend
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Good to gaining experience

Great for gaining experience, unfair pay and long hours . The work gets repetitive over time and no proper communication between management and freelancers
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Flexible working hours, but basic pay

I am a postgraduate student and prior to that I was travelling, so this job has great flexibility for me to fit around my studies and active lifestyle.Your students rate your classes out of 5 and you receive a bonus each month if you achieve a certain average. This however, is still a living wage level amount.HR is supportive, polite and accommodating.Some great tips that come out of newsletters emailed to you, conferences are offered for connection building, CPD and a sense of community and you have a chance to build a rapport with students and get regulars.Advancement is not easily achievable, I have received only a £0.50 per hour pay raise since working for this company in the last 2 years. When I joined there was promise of advancing to +£2 per hour after 2 years as a 'senior tutor', but we have since been informed of a wage freeze so I have no current prospect of advancement.

Pros

Flexible schedule, good workplace culture, teaching resources provided.

Cons

Low pay rates.
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Opportunity

Training and the ability to learn something new. Coworkers are professional and nice. Parents and children value education. Help teachers in a new culture.
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make your own hours

made your own hours. Students varied so you got quite an experience. Managed yourself but helpdesk and work support was good. Hardest part was sometimes managing the kids and parents. The most enjoyable part was having my own hours and the kids.
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Supply good resources, but pay is minimal

I worked here for 2.5 years in Suzhou China. Before the pandemic it was a rough place to work as they paid less than other training centers but made you work a lot more. However during and after the pandemic it was great as they were forced to compensate employees correctly. If you have a teaching license, go to a school. If not then this is a good place to start working

Pros

Stable income

Cons

Starting pay is low
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Enjoyed the students, not the management

As a teacher at EF International Academy, I can say that I enjoyed teaching my classes and working with my colleagues. However, some crying babies feel that can talk to the management directly and a member of the leadershp team pressured me to change a student's grade, which I don't appreciate.
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Friendly working environment with nice coworkers in my team.

I worked at EF adult school in China for over 10 years. I would definitely recommend people to work for EF as it provided a great working platform where you can fulfill your career dreams.
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A good job to start out in teaching.

Don't value experienced teachers and the working hours are awkward to have a normal life. Management and environment depends on which location you get.
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Good short term ESL option; management an issue.

I worked for this company for 3 years, as a new graduate looking for valuable work experience. I was hired as an ESL Teacher, and later became a Senior Teacher which gave me some added responsiblity within the academic team. On the whole I found it to be beneficial, but there are a number of serious flaws in the operational side of the job. In terms of the positives, the onboarding process is one of the major strengths in the contract. The HR are responsible for ensuring you have the correct documentation for entering the country and this was fulfilled, so that new employees can focus on other issues associated with starting a new job in a foreign country. They also help with integrating employees into a new lifestyle and culture; which is only beneficial.In terms of the work itself, training is offered (however unpaid) and covers basic ESL concepts which are helpful in planning an executing lessons. Management training is offered to more senior staff which covers the basics of workplace communication; team work; specific operational procedures and management strategies.With that being said, a problem that I encountered is much of this training cannot be implemented into actual situations which occur in the workplace. The company seems to have an issue with trying to balance educational advancement with an aggressive production model. As this is a training centre, there is a constant battle between academic and business operations. This makes working with service and sales departments frequently difficult. Teachers' opinions and advice are often ignored by service/sales team - 

Pros

Training, resources, good onboarding procedures.

Cons

Lack of sensible management, low Pay, lack of holidays.
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Fun workplace

EF online is a great stepping stone for those who wish to start teaching online. The salary for freelance online teachers is probably for someone who already has a full time job and looking to make passive income.

Pros

Work-life balance

Cons

salary is not enough
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Overall rating

Based on 1,111 reviews

Ratings by category

3.5 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
3.1 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
3.2 out of 5 stars for Job Security/Advancement
3.3 out of 5 stars for Management
3.7 out of 5 stars for Culture

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