5 Student Complaints at “McEnglish” School in Japan

Posted by Bill Belew on February 27th, 2007 in Japan | Comments Off

Non-native English countries around the world have businesses that offer ESL (English as a Second Language), EFL (English as Foreign Language) and ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) classes.

They are all the same. Why the different designations? Who knows? It's not important unless you are a stuffy scholarly type needing something to disect.

Japan is especially awash with these ESL, conversation, 'McEnglish' schools. I started my own and ran it for nearly 20 years before selling off branches and turning over the main location to a friend.nova.esl.jpg

But service is not always given with a smile, and the take home is not what the student bought at many ESL schools in Japan.

Some complaints –

1. Students complain that courses are sold for ungodly sums.

2. Students say they are made to buy learning packages as well.

3. Students say teachers are unprofessional, often kids on working holiday from Canada or Australia.

4. Students say tricks are employed to get them to cough up contact info of friends.

5. Students say the guy/girl/businessman/drunk/old lady/old man next to them is holding them back.

Uh…yup…there are some lousy English conversation schools in Japan.

But…

1. nobody reached into their wallets and pulled out the money forcibly.

2. nobody made them buy the additional packages

3. if a teacher is a schmuck…don't go there.

4. is their an advertisment that is NOT tricky?

5. it is REAL hard to find a student in a conversation school in Japan that actually PULLS the rest of the class…at least I have never seen one in my 20 years of teaching there.

English schools in Japan have problems…but so do the students wanting to learn at them.

Where did you learn English?


 

Comments are closed.