Honest Opinion: My Experience Working at Meten English
I worked at a training center! Here’s an inside look into everything I loved and hated about working there. I know there’s tons of information online about various training centers, and most of the reviews are spiteful or angry or dramatic. I have nothing against Meten. I just want to give you an honest, upfront, non-emotional review of what it was like to work there. Here’s 13 things I loved and 8 things I hated:
Background: I worked at Meten English (which teaches mostly adults and a few children) in at a center in Shenzhen, China for one year. I had previously taught a Chinese university for four years.
I loved:
The co-workers. Of course, this will vary from center to center, but my co-workers were awesome. For the most part, they were all friendly and very willing to help me get the hang of things when I arrived. We would usually eat meals together during our breaks, and we would constantly talk to each other between classes. Most of the teachers in my center truly cared about education and wanted to be the best teachers they could be.
The students. Again, this will vary. But, I loved that I got to teach adults instead of teaching children. It made class time feel much more valuable and effective. One thing I loved was that the students were eager. They were paying quite a bit of money for these English lessons—they were going to make them count! It also helped that these students were studying English for a reason. Some wanted to improve their career or make a career switch. Others wanted to study just because they loved the language. Either way, 99% of the time, I stepped into a classroom with students ready to learn.
The textbooks. Now, no textbook is perfect, and Meten’s textbooks are far from perfect. But, the material was pretty good. Actually, Meten had the best textbooks I’ve ever used. Did they have problems? Yes. Could you still create awesome lessons from them? Absolutely yes.
The class sizes. Meten has one-on-one private VIP classes, but the standard classes only have 4 or 10 students. Often, classes won’t be full as well. These tiny classes really help you go over the material more thoroughly and dig in deep to practicing. After just an hour, you can see students truly grasp the grammar or see an improvement.
The drive to improve. Meten constantly has extra trainings and a lot of time is spent reminding teachers to be the best they can be and encouraging them to hone their skills. My co-workers were always bouncing ideas off of each other and asking for new ideas or advice on projects.
The legality. Training centers have bad reputations for fudging visa laws. And, while Meten is not exempt from illegal activity (more on that later), they seem to be better than a lot of other training centers that I’ve seen. Meten just went public, so they’re under more scrutiny than some other smaller centers.
The extra classes. In addition to normal classes, Meten also has “chit-chat” classes, which are just “open conversation” classes. The teacher sits in a designated space, and anyone who wants to come and chat can. There’s no set topic, no curriculum, and no requirements. It’s so great to get the chance to sit and talk with people, to share stories, to learn about their culture, and to share your own. My favorite class, though, was called a “Selective Course.” This was an optional course teachers could choose to teach, and they were given complete freedom to choose the topic and to design the class anyway they liked. My class was about American culture. Other teachers taught speech classes, debate classes—the sky’s the limit! The class happened once a week, and anyone could join. In my case, I often had the same students visiting, so it felt like a traditional class, where I could build on the material I had taught in previous weeks. Hands down, Tuesday nights, when I had my selective course, were the highlight of my week.
The VIP classes (sometimes). These were one-on-one classes, and VIP students could request the same teacher each week. If you got regular VIP students, it could be really fun. Not only do you get to know the students really well, but you get to work intimately with them and see them improve.
Their seriousness about protecting teachers. Again, this could vary, and there’s still lots of work to be done in our society towards gender equality, but one situation really impressed me. I had a VIP student who made me feel uncomfortable. He was in his late 40s, and he would request my class each week. After a few weeks, I didn’t feel comfortable being in the same small, private room with him. I went to my head teacher and scheduler and told them things he had said and done to make me feel wary. They immediately pulled him from my schedule permanently, no questions asked.
The lack of responsibility. In a traditional classroom, the teacher holds a lot of responsibility to produce student who can perform well and learn. There are tests, quizzes, semester evaluations, etc. At Meten, it’s up to the student. Since the students are not children, it truly is the students’ responsibility to work hard, pay attention, study outside of class. The teacher does the best with the class hour he’s given, but there’s not the same level of pressure or responsibility.
The lack of lesson planning. Hallelujah. If you’ve never been a teacher before, you’ll never understand the joy of clocking out, going home, and not doing more work. When you’re a traditional teacher, your work never ends. With Meten, it’s more like an office job. When you clock out, you’re good to go. Also, in an 8-hour work day, Meten gives a 2-hour meal break, and a 1-hour planning time. You can easily get all your work done before you leave for the day.
The schedule. I loved how easy it was to take time off or switch days. As long as you gave them advance notice, they always tried to work with me. I never got any requests for time off denied (Except for sick days. Keep reading for more details on that.) Also, if you want to go home or travel for an extended time, Meten has the option of taking a month or two off in-between contracts. Meten also has the option of signing a 5-day-a-week contract or a 4-day-a-week contract. If you sign the latter, you will have 4 days of work and a 3-day weekend each week.
The ease of teaching. After your first few months, teaching will become a breeze. Since you’re teaching the same lessons again and again, you’ll be able to iron out all the problems and tweak your lesson so it becomes perfect.
If you want to see other general pros and cons of teaching in a training center, check out this article:
I hated:
The lies. Every situation will be different, but during my year at Meten, they lied a lot. I’ll give you a few examples:
I agreed to sign my contract under two conditions: 1) I could work in the same district where I lived so I wouldn’t have to relocate. 2) I would begin work at the end of August, after I returned from America with the proper paperwork for a work visa. When I started, they put me in a center 2 hours away from where I lived, meaning I had to relocate or take a 2-hour cab ride each day since the buses closed too early for me to use public transportation on the way home. I had to relocate. When I arrived back in China at the end of August with all my paperwork ready to go, they dropped the ball. My first day of teaching ended up being November 1. That meant I was left paying relocating costs, a new deposit for the apartment, three months rent up-front, in addition to living all of September and October without a paycheck. Not cool.
During the hiring process, the recruiter I worked with lied to me about countless details about the job. Until I actually went to the center, I thought the job was quite different. For example, I was told Meten’s classes often had 30 students. In actuality, 4-6 is the most common number of students.
I was promised the opportunity to earn a raise, but they cancelled it last minute.
Other teachers were also lied to about where their visa was processed (that teacher’s visa ended up being illegal).
You may have problems with your first paycheck. I was to be paid on the 10th of each month, so I was desperately waiting for November 10th, due to all the financial set-backs I had that summer. November 10th fell on a weekend, but I assumed the financial department would work on the weekends, since that’s when everyone worked, or they would have set everything up for the automatic transfer to go through by the time they left on Friday. They didn’t. My boss told me to talk with them on Monday. On Monday, they told me that Meten didn’t get my bank account information processed in time. I had to wait another week, then take a day off to travel to another part of the city to pick up my first paycheck in cash.
When I tried to leave Meten, my boss didn’t want me to go. In order to change jobs and change your work visa, you need a reference letter that proves you don’t work at that job anymore. When I asked my boss for that letter, she lied to me multiple times and dragged the process out for an extra month, so she could have me work for an extra 30 days. She wanted to do that for 3 months, but I found out that she had been lying, and confronted her about it. If I had continued, I would have been working illegally. (Side note: The day after I left, the police came to my training center to check all the foreign teachers’ visas. Some teachers were brought in for questioning.) If I hadn’t found out, and hadn’t pushed my boss to file the paperwork properly, I would have been in trouble.
The visa process. Getting a visa is never a fun activity, and never a super-easy process. Meten, made a mess of it though. It was difficult to get clear answers about what steps I should take. (I later found out the office of Meten’s visa specialist has a high turn-over rate, so most of the time, you have an inexperienced person working on your visa.) I finished all of my work on the visa, and even texted the specialist when I was on the way to the airport to fly over. I arrived a few days before my contract started, only to find that they had done zero work on my visa. They told me, “We didn’t know you were coming.” I had to wait two months for them to process my visa. In the past, I’ve gotten my visa within two weeks.
The workaholic mentality. Meten runs more like an office than a school, and there’s an unhealthy obsession with more and more work. An award is given each year to the teacher who taught the most classes, and it’s considered a badge of honor to work 12-hour days. Meten also requires their local teachers to work insane hours. And when everyone is working 12-hour days, you just get used to it, right? I also worked in a culture that frowns upon taking sick days. That meant going to work even when I felt like I shouldn’t.
The racism within the company. Meten is a Chinese company, and it does have some problematic inclinations. Caucasian candidates are preferred. People of color (including people of an Asian ethnicity) who apply as a foreign teacher are more likely to be turned down. When I first arrived at Meten, each employee could get a free cup of coffee a day. Quickly, a new rule was made that only foreign teachers could get free coffee. Local teachers and employees would have to pay. In the past, all teachers would have two days off. Now, only foreign teachers can have two days off, while local teachers get one. Local teachers are also required to have a higher number of teaching hours a month. If they fall behind that number (in case of vacation days or sick days), they have to make them up through overtime.
The focus on theory and business. First and foremost, Meten is a business, like most training centers. Bringing in money was more important than education. Also, in trainings and observations, Meten seemed obsessed with educational theories, rather than practical advice or application in the classroom.
The standardization. Meten’s goal is to have a group of standardized teachers who all teach the same material in the same way. They probably will not state that out-right, but in their trainings and observations, that’s what they are looking for. Unless you have someone observing your class, you’re pretty free to teach however you like. But, just know you might have to adjust your techniques when you’re being observed or joining a training exercise.
The schedule. If you’re new to China, a schedule that’s all afternoons/evenings and weekends could work great for you! But I had already been in China for several years, and having that schedule made it almost impossible for me to see any of my old friends.
The factory-style education. This has its pros, including making teaching a whole lot easier, but I grew to not like the factory-type schedule. I go into a class. Students come in. I repeat the same lesson I’ve taught a hundred times. Students leave. I leave. Repeat. Having taught before, I grew to miss having the same students each week. I missed being able to have a semester plan and goals that we worked towards each week. I missed getting to know my students on a deeper level and see their progress. Some teachers might not care about this one, which is why I mentioned it last. But in the end, this was the number one reason why I decided to eventually leave Meten.
All in all, the work was great. Dealing with the visa process and the legal process was . . . not so great. I hope this article was helpful and gave you a look at what the inside of a Meten training center was like. If you have any questions, ask me in the comments below, send me an email, or ask me on Instagram!