Program Reviews

Ni Hao! As my boss Rich always says "This Is China" - meaning pretty much anything can happen, anytime, anywhere, any place and to anybody! You have to prepare for the unexpected. Nothing is as easy as 1-2-3 here. You've really got to be able to adapt to change quicker than you can say abracadabra! Regardless of all of the ups and downs and mishaps China is AWESOME! I love it! LoveTEFL have done an amazing job with our placement in Inner Mongolia. Yes I said it Inner Mongolia. Where's that you say? China or Mongolia? It's China alright but with a heavy Mongolian influence. It's the best of both worlds. Everything is so different and there's two languages everywhere you go. The dialect and accent are far different from the Mandarin of Beijing and even more so from the Cantonese of the South. Hohhot! Hūhéhàotè, Huhehot or even Huhhot as many people call it something different everyday is a fast paced, exciting city that has countless restaurants and Korean BBQ's that are to die for. There's high class shopping centres right down to back street markets. Prices are dead cheap. A 40-minute taxi can cost as little as 30 RMB and that's £3! WOW! Two people can eat 5 different dishes and have some amazing Chinese tea for only £2.30 each. Nowhere in England can you get it as cheap as that. And there's leftovers to take home. Our school is fantastic and the children are generally lovely. We only work weekends and two classes on evening during the week! Amazing or what? 10 classes a day on Saturday and Sunday are a killer, but the partying on Sunday night more than makes up for it all. Baijui is another killer! It's the Tequila of Hohhot but 10 times worse! Prepare your throat to be burned to death and your head to be seriously banging in the morning! Well I have to go teach...Zaijian!

The I to I program has changed my life. In the UK, I had no prospects and no opportunities because of the dire state of the economy, so I decided to review my options. The I to I teaching program popped up and I was immediately enticed.
The staff were very professional and helpful, my placement was excellent (I worked in a Kindergarten teaching the cutest kids!) and I have met countless amazing people. The initial two week training period was a mixture of in depth lessons, culture classes (including Tai Chi and calligraphy) and all out fun with organised tours, meals and social events. I definitely got more than my money's worth!
I now plan to stay in China long term, and this life changing experience I owe to I to I.

Although I had an awesome time on this Internship, that was in spite of the programme not because of it.

Anyway, here are some pros and cons of the internship. Hopefully some things have changed for the better since we did it.....

Pros

1. I was placed in a nice modern hotel building with 12 other lovely interns. It was so nice to have the support.

2. The city we were placed in was in the middle of nowhere but I loved the place, the people were so kind!

3. Thailand is an awesome country. It is likely that you will be placed off the tourist trail too which is nice.

4. It is only for 6 months so is a good tester if you have never taught before or are nervous to commit to a whole year.

Cons

1. Upon arriving in Thailand we quickly found out that this wasn`t actually an internship . In fact our schools were actually lied to and told that we were all already experienced teachers! We were put in the classroom with 50 screaming kids from day 1 with absolutely no guidance or support.

2. You get ripped off. Let`s face it! The schools paid a wage of 27000 baht a month. We would see 12,000 of that, maybe 4000 would go towards our accommodation. The rest would all go to i To i (again, the schools are lied to about this and think that all the money is going to the teacher. When my school found out they were really upset).

This would have been fine if we had been receiving the ammount of support that had been promised to us but that was not the case at all. After the 1st month we were more or less on our own. In fact, we even had to go to the hospital alone several times including my friend having an operation there without any help from our supervisor. I don`t want to blame my supervisor though, she was lovely. It was just that she was so busy with other i to i volunteer jobs too that she had little time to help us.
At my school there were 8 foreign teachers. 3 of us were with i to and got paid 12,000 a month, 5 had the exact same job but were from another company and they got paid a full 32,000 a month for the exact same job!!!! Do your research first!

3. The orientation is fun but doesn`t prepare you for the realities of the Thai classroom. In the orientation we learned heaps of fun pair and group activities but on arrival to my classroom of 6 and 7 year olds i realised this was impossible. So we basically had to discard all we were taught at orientation and learn on the job.

4. You may have a long commute. It took one friend over 1 1/2 hours to get to school everyday.

5. Think that at least all your visas and paperwork will be sorted out properly? Think again! I had a huge issue with my visa (My passport date was stamped incorrectly on entrance into Thailand) that my school noticed that my supervisor said over and over again was fine. Then all of a sudden one day she said that I had to get it fixed ASAP or i could get arrested and have to pay a hefty fine! It got sorted out in the end but was handled poorly.

All and all I would say DO NOT join the i to i internship. They were too dishonest and didn`t care about the local people or their teachers. They just want to get as many people on the progamme as possible so as to make more money.
I know teaching overseas for the first time is scary but this is not the best way to go about it.