ImmerQi | Teach & Travel China Program

Day to day differs from the classes I teach! My youngest students are 6 years old and my oldest is 17 and there are a varied lot in between! I have mixed nationalities in each class and it makes for a very interesting learning experience! Difficulty would be text books and the mix of different levels in one class! However it always is an interesting class none the less! Highlights would be the children everyday, everyday their smiles just make it all better no matter what is going on!

I'm going to keep this brief and short..

My sister has also done this programme and had recommended it to me. So it's well worth doing!

The first month was an awesome experience. Hanging out in Beijing was amazing, and at the age of 18 it blew me away. Met lots of people, had tonnes of experience that I had never experience before. Simply amazing.

Teaching placement was also pretty chilled. But they also vary widely around China, so the one that I had might not necessarily be like the one you will get. Which makes the rather exciting!

I taught 21 classes a week, 45 minutes per class. I felt like I was a capable teach by the end of it. Lots of travelling also between this time, as in China their holidays are normally a week long or so. I went to Guilin, Yunnan, Guangdong.. all over. Excellent time!

This program has had a major impact on my life. Since then I have been teaching myself chinese and have been to China several times. If it wasn't for the initial support from TTC, I don't think I would be as brave as I am today.

I am currently in China teaching English, so it's legacy lives on!

Little London English school in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia was a great place to undergo your teaching internship. Our average week consists of teacher training and lesson planning on Thursday and teaching on Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off. We are contracted to do 20, 40 minute lessons a week (usually 3 on Friday then 17 at the weekend). They are always looking for extra work though and the school will pay you 110RMB per hour over these contracted hours which is an easy way to earn lots of extra money. You get lots of time off which is great which gives you plenty of time to get everything sorted such as the washing etc and to go out and explore Hohhot. The school is also very generous. They will pay for various celebrations (it depends what time of year you have the internship) and they even payed for what have been a very expensive grasslands tour. I won't spoil some of the other surprises though. Food and drinks are unbelievably cheap here and I have not cooked once which is actually really practical. When I first arrived at the accommodation it was an absolute tip and looked nothing like what we were shown just before we came which was actually the full time teachers accommodation and not ours. Be prepared for this and you won't have a problem. I honestly hated the 1st few days because of this but be prepared to spend the 1st 2 days or so buying products and cleaning your apartment. There is enough time to settle in, especially compared to some of the other schools so don't think that you are wasting your time. It could be better for the next group of people as they are building more apartments right now. There are so many foreigners working at the school so being social in Hohhot is not a problem. People are always inviting you places. There are some great places to go! Clubs such as box+ and babybox are the ones to look for. Although they are unbelievably expensive, we have gone there on countless occasions and not bought a single drink because lots of people in there buy them for you. There are some great supermarkets for buying your daily needs which also have plenty of imported products to satisfy your need for western food. It is really practical to live out here and there is a really cheap and great market on the doorstep of the university that you live in. It is very dirty around the area which isn't good but you soon get used to it. Some of the food places there are great. Don't let looks deceive you! There is a curfew but it doesn't apply to foreigners so don't let that alarm you. One thing you need to be prepared for is that sometimes depending on various reasons, the school is very disorganised. They have messed up our pay a few times (which will get sorted - just make sure you take note on the days you have worked) and on our 1st few weeks at the school we had no monitor at our school so everything was all over the place but it soon settled down. Also be prepared if you are coming in winter because it gets unbelievably cold. I haven't yet experienced this cold to the full extent but even now in mid- November it is freezing. Wait til later on. Stock up on winter clothing as early as possible. It's easy enough to find!!! Overall - If you are placed in Inner Mongolia you will have the time of your life. The time off is the best part and you can travel during your internship. We have just got back from a 3 day trip in Datong which was amazing!! Also you are al in it together (lots of people get placed in Hohhot) and you always have the support of people. Inner Mongolia is a truly amazing place!

I took apart in the TTC Program in Summer 2009, right after I graduated from High School. It was quite a challenge to leave my home country for the first time by myself, to a country so far away, so different.
Therefore, I was really happy to have the support of the TTC team. The first month in Beijing (TEFL training) was amazing and I found friends for a lifetime. Now, 4 years later, I am still in touch with many of them, we met up all over the world and share our China experience. The TEFL training was very beneficial as well and I felt prepared when I left to my placement. I was placed in a "small town" (1 million people) about 4 hours by train from Beijing. In the beginning, it was a difficult transition. From buzzing Beijing into a small Chinese town with very few foreigners..However, my school was amazing, I had lovely students (I taught many different age groups) and great colleagues. I also learned a lot of Chinese and made a lot of Chinese friends. I was often invited for dinner by my colleagues/ students and got to know a lot about the Chinese culture. The work ethic was a little difficult to adapt to in the beginning but also an interesting part of the experience.

I did the Teach and Travel China internship through i-to-i TEFL and I would definitely not recommend it! It was one of the worst experiences of my life and to think I paid almost $2000 for it makes me sick to the stomach! The company, schools and entire programme is shady in its practices and many many people have quit the programme.

We arrived at our schools ill equipped, we had no cooking utensils and I had to beg my advisor for money so we could buy cooking stuff. The money they pay you is NO WAY enough to live off if you are placed somewhere expensive like Beijing. You will end up spending a lot more than you earn.

Many people quit the programme as their contracts were broken by the school, some people did not get their pay, some people had no running water or working shower for months, some people had no food (school meals) and no money to pay for food because their pay did not arrive on time. Some people has infestations of rats, bedbugs and other insects in their room. These people did not get refunds and were not relocated as promised. One person was fired for no good reason by his school. These people all lost their money as they did not receive refunds.

The company that run the programme (ImmerQi, who run Teach Travel China) are very shady and totally illegal practices, they lied to us, telling us that if we quit the programme, our visa would expire instantly and we would have to leave the country or break the law. This was a lie. They also got a company in Beijing to lie and say we were working there so they could grant us visas. This was so they did not have to tell the government we were making them money and they took most our paycheque for themselves. They charged the school almost $2000 a month for having us as teachers … we received less than 5% of this payment. They also lied to the school about our experience, telling them that we were more qualified than we actually were. They just make money out of you and then charge you for it. They also told us to lie to the authorities if anyone asked, and to say we were not getting paid anything at all.

A few people had their laptops, mobile phones and money and passport stolen by the schools (or someone at the schools) too. We were warned to lock our items away in our cases as people at the school have keys and will come into your rooms and apartments whilst you are teaching and steal your things.

Stay away.

I definately recommend ImmerQi, they are very serious and professional about what they do. They have a great support system for all participants and are all genuinely nice people.Thanks to the one months TEFL course in Beijing you'll get to meet so many new people that you'll never be without a friend when in China!

Okay, the first month of the program consisted of a course in Beijing. This course was excellent, no question about it.

Getting help from ImmerQi at my placement was a whole different story. In the beginning ImmerQi was helpful when my school caused me trouble or didn't provide things as stated in the contract. That changed all of a sudden when they stopped replying to my emails.

Also, ImmerQi pockets the overwhelming majority of our salaries and refer to it as a "management fee". I feel scammed. The ImmerQi staff hasn't been honest to us about that.

I'm not recommending this program to anyone. I'm only recommending people to stay away from it.

A lot of the reviewers are focusing on their experience in China, it's very likely that you will have an enjoyable time in China and the company would like you to.

However the business side of things are very corrupt, you pay a lot of money to get on program and in return for this you spend two weeks in Beijing in a mediocre hotel, get given a very small amount of lessons and fed rubbish food. They'll also be some fun and games and they'll try and make you comfortable so you can go off and teach and make them money.

In total you pay around £1000 for the two week course and for them to find you a placement, that's no too bad. However once you are at your placement you get paid £200 a month for about 5 months and a £250 completion bonus again not terrible, until you realise that the school is paying TTC around £800 a month and they're taking around 75% of your pay and why? They barely contact you and help you during your time at the school, they don't pay for your flights and you've paid £1000 already.

And if you're lucky enough to be given a good placement and you want to extend your contract with the school, TTC has put a clause in their contract that forbids you working for the school if it is not with TTC.