CIEE Teach Abroad & TEFL Reviews

As far as the program itself goes, I haven't had the best experience. They make it sound like they will assist you throughout the process, but I feel like what I really paid for was a few weeks in a hotel to meet friends and a couple of crash courses about legal stuff we had to do upon arrival which was super overwhelming.

Before I left I tried to get in touch with the office for over a week. I sent emails and left voicemails and I never heard back from them. I understand it is a busy time, but I felt like this was very unprofessional, especially since the information I was requesting was time sensitive for my visa application.

I basically figured everything out on my own and haven't heard from them expect to tell us about big news, which we all know about anyways. I don't think it was worth the money at all. You can do the exact same program through the government and it is 100% free. I just didn't know about it until after I was already here. I would suggest looking into that if you want to come teach here!

The actual job is great though! I work in a secondary school and I have enjoyed being with the kids a lot. I plan to be a teacher when I return to the US so I think the experience has been great for me. The placement of schools has little to do with CIEE though. I work with two other auxiliaries that came here through the government for free. They also really consider your wishes when they place you which is nice.

I would suggest applying directly through the Ministry and finding a Facebook page for the Auxiliares who will be able to answer the questions that you have. I did the teach abroad program here in Spain and I wished that I had saved my money.

They were helpful with the visa application although that is something that you can easily figure out. They also offered a TESL course, which now that I am here seemed very unnecessary for the job (and you had to pay extra).

Once I got to Spain, I was shocked by the level of carelessness and lax that the coordinator in Spain had. In fact it was so bad that she could not answer most of the questions that people had and she gave out wrong information. At this point I am still waiting on documents from them that would have been faster had I just solicited the documents myself when I arrived.

There's no doubt that my experience with CIEE Teach Abroad was excellent. For someone that had never lived abroad before, the support of the staff (in particular for orientation) was fantastic and gave me the confidence that I needed to live abroad independently.

As noted earlier in a previous post I will also explain my rating system. Overall rating, I gave the program 3 out of 10. This is because CIEE did assist in the initial phase of getting me to China, but once here many issues arose. When CIEE was contacted I never received any kind of feedback and it seems that nothing was solved when I voiced various concerns. As far as benefits goes I gave this category a 1 out of 10. CIEE well underestimates the pay and from what I have seen and been offered from various other schools in the area we are getting paid far less than any other foreign teacher in China, regardless of the amount of experience and school type. To be honest everyone who I speak with doesn’t understand why I came here through CIEE and rather insists that I was scammed and should have applied directly to a school of my choice. I would be getting paid twice the amount and would not have to deal with any kind of drama…trust me. Support I also gave this section a 1 out of 10. Kelvin is a great guy and hard worker and truly is dedicated to CIEE. But I have received zero support from CIEE state side and feel as if I have been left behind. The main reason I applied through CIEE is because I wanted to avoid the headaches and such but this whole experience with CIEE has been nothing but complete agony. Facilities I gave 3 out of 10 because this is China and the facilities are what they are, Chinese…..I gave the fun section 5 out of 10 because I am having an amazing time! The culture and the way of life here is amazing and it’s been nothing but a fun adventure. I would have given a 10 out 10 but I have to deal with the constant headache of the company I was placed with in Harbin. They are nothing but a money making machine and care nothing about their employees or the education system. I applied thinking that I was going to be working at one school, not three or four and would be dealing with professional, honest people. And in turn it has been nothing but a complete nightmare to say the least. So whatever you do, do not get placed with a Chinese company in Harbin or Qiqihar and rather insist that you be placed at one school. And of course I raised various questions regarding the company I was placed with and was told that this was one of the few organizations who can get a working visa and whatever paperwork is essential. When in fact there are eight universities here in Harbin who has told me to just go home and re-apply through them because they can get me the working visa and all. Not only universities but international language schools and many primary schools can also get you the proper paperwork in order to work and live in China. Thus I still do not understand why I was dumped with this horrible organization. And of course CIEE has yet to do anything and I am stuck trying to figure out my next move. Safety I gave 5 out of 10 because again it is China and we are foreigners you just have to be safe and use common sense. Overall the staffs at CIEE are very friendly but something’s need to be sorted out from a managerial standpoint regarding the handling and relations with schools overseas. You do not need to go through an organization and just apply directly to a school of your choice. For most CIEE participants they have a blast, it just depends on where you are placed. Unfortunately I was placed with a notoriously bad company in Harbin and nothing has been done about it. CIEE has been notified several times and again I feel as if they do not care. China is amazing and it is what you make of it!

I have read some of the reviews and I was surprised. My experience with CIEE was excellent.

Pre-arrival in China, any questions I had about the program were answered fully and in a timely manner. This being my first real trip abroad, I had no real idea of what to expect, especially when visiting a developing country. Help with a visa and other official "stuff" was great.

Information about my school was provided by CIEE in the form of email addresses and other contact information for CIEE participants that were/had been at my future school. I got some great information from the people I wrote and I felt much more at ease and informed about my new assignment.

The airport pickup and the orientation in Shanghai were great. Kelvin Li and his staff did an excellent job. We were wined and dined, saw some great sights, and had a lot of fun. Experienced teachers were there to give us some guidance on what to expect at our destinations and in lesson planning, class preparation, and teaching ideas. I found that very helpful. Finally, transportation to our schools was provided. I think the money for the program was well spent.

As far as issues at/about my school, they were minimal. I took up any issue with the FAO myself and if it couldn't be resolved, I simply contacted Kelvin, CIEE's prgram director in Shanghai, and the problem was fixed.

I am now almost halfway through my fourth year in China after teaching in three different cities and virtually every grade level. I now return to Shanghai for CIEE's orientation where I help out as an experienced teacher.

I am loving my life in China and I would not hesitate to recommend CIEE as a way to get here.

After completing our Bachelor's degrees in the US, my husband and I taught at Shandong University of Science and Technology located in an area called Huangdao which is outside of Qingdao, China. I had been to China before and studied abroad with CIEE in Beijing while completing my degree, which is how I learned about their Teach Abroad opportunities.

My husband and I weren't sure what we wanted to do career-wise so we decided to spend a year in China while we figured things out. Neither of us had much teaching experience so we knew we needed to be flexible and open to different locations & age groups. We were excited when we learned of our placement and immediately started to research the area.

The year that we spent in Huangdao China is certainly something that we will never forget. After our year teaching at Shandong University of Science and Technology we relocated to Shanghai where we stayed for the next 2.5 years. We both agreed that the year in Huangdao gave us a much clearer perspective on Chinese students than many of our friends who had only been able to live in Shanghai or Beijing.

We were not paid much while teaching at SUST (roughly 500USD/month, mind you this was 4 years ago) however housing was provided and food cost next to nothing. In our first semester we were able to save enough money to travel around China, Hong Kong and to Singapore for the majority of our six-week summer holiday.

Our teaching load was incredibly light, which allowed us to spend time on self-development (which mainly meant binge-watching Mad Men and and catching up on my long list of novels to read) but we also had a lot of time to get to know the students better and experiment with different lesson plans. We were fortunate to have each other to bounce ideas off of the first semester, because the university didn't offer much support for development. However the second semester we were at SUST we were joined by another group of incoming CIEE teachers that were equally as enthusiastic about self-improvement in the classroom. We definitely bonded with these other teachers, and 3/5 of them I still communicate with regularly.

Overall I loved my experience teaching in China with CIEE. I was grateful for the support that we received before our departure and upon arrival in Shanghai. I don't feel that my local university did an excellent job of setting expectations for us, however I also learned that this is how things often go in China. If you're about to embark on this journey, no matter what organization you go with, I believe the most important thing to remember is that it's going to be different from what you're used to (and that's the whole point of going). Keep an open mind and be flexible.

Have fun, I wish I was about to start this journey again!

My boyfriend and I went through CIEE for Teach Abroad in China and would not recommend going through CIEE to anyone, for the following reasons;

1) The program costs a great deal of money ($2000+) and the services rendered are advertised as placement, an orientation, information on the teaching process and living abroad in China, and visa acquisition. When placing people, CIEE does not closely follow the requests of either the individual (We specifically requested to not be placed teaching children and were placed at a preschool) or the school (our school asked for people with two years of experience or more and they were provided with us. We had no experience working with children and my boyfriend had no work experience). Furthermore, they do not provide clear information about the ability to reject a placement. As for the orientation, the location was nice, as well as some of the activities, but the information rendered was far too little and, often, not accurate (For example, CIEE provided us no information on taxes, little information on teaching [especially for the preschool level], and their Chinese lessons, although split up into different competency levels, were all provided with the same packet).

The visa acquisition in particular is the largest strike on their system for me. We were provided little information about how the visas are secured and no forewarning about how the visas may not be acquired in time. It came as a shock to receive an email from CIEE telling us that our visas would not be acquired in time and that we needed to change our arrival date. We had spoken to CIEE previously about visa acquisition, as we wanted to arrive a few days early, and they had informed us that this would be no problem. However, when the visa wasn't coming through, I tried to get more information from them, and they became impossible to reach. Once I finally reached my coordinator, he begrudgingly agreed that the visa could be acquired in Hong Kong at our own expense, but would not provide me with details as to what would go into this effort. I understood that CIEE was not at fault for the visas not coming through, but their literature had not been forthright about the possibility. As information was the bulk of what I was paying them for, I pointed this out to the coordinator and suggested that the literature be updated to be more forthright. It was not updated.

When I asked the coordinator if I was guaranteed to get my visa by the date they told us to arrive, he informed me that we were never, in fact, guaranteed to get any visa from them, but if we had not received any visa by October, they would refund "a part" of our program fees. This was, in fact, generous of them, as their contract rather brutally absolves them of pretty much everything that can go wrong.

Once we informed CIEE that we did intend on getting our visas in Hong Kong, lest we incurred more cost, they danced on thin ice with our visa applications, waiting for the Z paperwork to come in, even though I requested that they didn't and I wanted to incur the cost on my own. We did not receive our passports with the L visa back until the day we were leaving. Once we reached Shanghai, we had been no better informed about what would occur, even after asking 2 CIEE representatives who were supposed to be the head of their departments. We were told that our school would handle everything. Once we finally went to Hong Kong to acquire our Z visa, we were informed by the Hong Kong office that our US physicals were not valid for visa acquisition in Hong Kong. When we called CIEE Shanghai, they were surprised by this fact, but did nothing to help us solve the situation. When we called CIEE Portland, they condescendingly informed us that we had been "warned" and informed that this would happen. When we told them that we were, in fact, not, they, again, did nothing other than admit their mistake.

2) CIEE representatives have often fallen off the grid and been completely impossible to get a hold of (this has been an experience program-wide over here). When CIEE representatives are reached, they often have nothing better to tell you to talk to your school about it.

3) I was informed by my school that they go through CIEE partially because it allows them to pay their teachers significantly less. That said, there are jobs in my area that require less time and experience (and no degree) that pay over double what I receive in a month.

In conclusion, what you can receive through CIEE Teach Abroad, be it information, TEFL certificate, a job placement, visa paperwork, and a short stint in Shanghai, can easily be acquired on your own and is not worth the large program fee forked over. If you are looking for a support network in China, CIEE is not a strong candidate.

I did get a one week orientation in Shanghai which I really enjoyed but not everybody did because they did not get their visas in time due to issues with their schools. Ciee did place me but the information I got about my school and the city it is in was seriously misleading. The information is about an old location the school was in and hasn't been in for five years. I was also never given the information that in the last five years of ciee placing poeple at my school only one has stayed the whole year. When I contacted ciee about issues with my school they simply tried to scare me into staying by giving me incorrect information about how my visa could be canceled. (After talking to a lot of people in China they all say the same thing, it's next to impossible to cancel a visa). I often didn't even get answers from ciee staff when I sent them questions.

Though I have to say all in all the work at my school isn't bad (I've heard other ciee people who have to deal with much worse) the school they sent me to has forced me to work more than is stipulated in my contract and refuses to pay me money when stipulated in my contract. My living conditions are poor (living alone in a school building where there are classes every day in the classrooms next to me). The school even refuses to do simple things to make life better (such as refusing to turn the bells off in my building when the students aren't in school or have a Chinese person in some of my classes to reprimand students).

Other native speakers in my city get treated much better by their schools, have much better accommodations, and get paid much more than I do. Honestly, if I were to do this again I would come on my own. Going through Ciee is a waist of time and money. It's better to get information on online forums from people living in China and find a job from the internet than it is to use this program. For the money you pay you could easily pay for accommodations and even a plane ticket home if the job you find for yourself isn't good.

I personally work at a public school where the students don't have the ability or want for a foreign teacher. The only reason I'm at the school is to keep their standings high in the community and charge students higher tuition. This is not what I expected to deal with when I came to China especially through ciee.

For anyone who has never been to Spain before, CIEE is the perfect program. There variety of programs and there staff were really helpful through the visa process. Also, once we were in Spain they were knowledgeable and gave helpful and solid advice for how to complete the NIE (número de identidad) process, how to open a bank account, and how to find housing.

CIEE promised to send me and 8 other people to teach at a college. Instead they sent contracted us out to a company that pimps us out all over one of the coldest cities in China. I'm on an overcrowded bus (usually without heat) for a few hours every day and go to five or six different schools per week. I teach every grade level, ranging from adults to kindergarten, and often do not know the material I am teaching until I arrive at the school.

CIEE claimed to not know this happened here, but the people who they sent here last year complained about the same stuff. We've already lost one teacher, my best friend, because conditions were too hard to handle. Our boss is uncaring and mean.

I know we're in the minority of CIEE experiences, but either way you should this could happen to you.