Topic: EF/English First Thailand

[Jon]

Update:

1. As part of the next process of the legal saga - March 7th the franchisee brother's translation was not accepted by the civil court. The case will be finally heard/investigated November 2007. The case depends on the translation, so very unlikely the defendent (former DoS) needs to worry. The door to compromise has been opened slightly, but the DoS feels that only vindication in the court room will satisfy him.

2. The former DoS has had contact with the EF person responsible for Thailand.

UPDATE ref.: civil action by the Chiang Mai EF franchisee/representative against a former EF DoS.

Friday April 28th? - BK South civil court to hear the testimony of 4 BK based witnesses for the plaintiff (EF representative).

The Chiang Mai EF representative included them on the witness list he had? presented to Chiang Mai civill court and which was accepted by the presiding judge.The EF representative is responsible for bringing them to court to give testimony on his behalf. 3 witnesses are EF management and 1 is a former EF country manager. None of the 4 witnesses attended court. The court has set another date for their attendance.

All witnesses need to have been interviewed by the conclusion date of this case - November 2007. Until then I will update the board on all actions of EF's representative in Chiang Mai.

[Johnny Rotten]

Fuking outrageous what EF are doing with their ex-teachers. Guys, there must be authorities in countries where EF operate where you can direct your information. I'm sure British authorities would be pissed off at their behaviour. What about newspapers? surely this is a good story for them???

[Johnny Rotten]

Despite the charge of fraud Chiang Mai's EF guy is doing ok - new contract at Regina Coeli College.

[Jon]

A current update to this can be read in EF Chiang Mai's entry in the Hall of Shame.

http://www.teflwatch.org/2006/07/03/ef-chiang-mai-enters-the-hall-of-shame/

[Jon]

Update

EF Chiang Mai Huay Kaew has been closed 

There's a big padlock on the door and a sign on the door that says 'closed for renovation'. No renovation going on however. The 'closed for renovation' sign is often used by business owners who have been forced to close but don't want to lose face. It's assumed that he didn't pay his rent, but that can't be confirmed yet.

He has told people who have told people who have told me that he will reopen EF in another location in a few months. Hardly likely as he will lose his investment in Huay Kaew and will need to invest substantially in a new school - unnecessarily so. Plus EF will need to approve the new school. Again another lie (?) to save face and avoid creditors methinks. He's still using the EF brand in various schools around Chiang Mai.

Over to you EF if you don't want your brand used and abused.

 

[Jon]

It can be confirmed now.

He hadn't paid his landlord for electricity for the last 7 months and he hadn't paid his rent for the last 2 months.

[wake]

Hello folks,

Is EF the same as E+ ?  I see a building in my town that was E+ for about six months then, overnight, the sign was changed to a green "E World" sign.

Just wondering.

w.

[Uncle Che]

probably not, I don't know if E+ is the same as English Plus. English Plus is a very infamous chain.

[Ronaldo]

E+ is the same outfit as English Plus and as pointed out by Uncle Che has it's own notoriety, it does however have nothing to do with English First (EF), which of course has its own problems.

[Mods-Rockers]

Wake its not unusual for E+ schools to go out of business, The business plan Khun M sells to the owners is tottally unviable and normally within a year they go bankrupt allowing Khun M to find another mug oops sorry clients to buy another franchise.

[hero]

See here:

http://www.teflwatch.org/forum/index.php/topic,176.msg4442.html#msg4442

[Jon]

UPDATE
A few weeks ago people from EF came to the building where EF is located in Chiang Mai and spoke to the building owner. The EF people said they were from Singapore (unlikely) but were probably the Indonesians who are responsible for EF operations in Thailand. The owner of the building gave them very Thai-style ambiguous information. They were looking for their franchisee!

I heard people visited some of the outside EF contracts in Chiang Mai today and explained to the schools that EF Chiang Mai is now under new management. They could have been genuine EF people or they may have been 'represenatives' of the previous franchisee because this may be an attempt to distance himself from the school if salaries aren't paid at the end of this month.

[Jon]

A bilingual magazine in Chiang Mai named Compass (www.compasscm.com) recently published an advertisment for a NEW LANGUAGE SCHOOL in Chiang Mai from the 'EF' team. 'EF' is written in Thai ("อีเอฟ"), maybe so that I or EF management in Thailand (Indonesians) won't be able to read.

The 'new' school has
a contact number: 0-****-**** (no landline)
a website address: www.speak-more.com (under construction)
the address is not specific but gives the road name 'Sirimuangklajarn'

This is a new language school brought to you by the franchisee of EF in Chiang Mai. Unfortunately according to his contract with EF he's not allowed to open a competing business within a stated time period even after he ends his contract with EF. I feel there's possibly a chance (sarcastic remark!) he's taking the piss out of EF and their contract with him.

Mod edit: Please no phone number, if someone wants the number, they can PM Jon.

[DerringDo]

EF SS was a strange place to work I must confess.

If you ever had a problem outside of working hours you couldn't contact the centre owner for any reason. It seemed that she gave an unused number because it was ALWAYS turned off. She insisted on having your mobile phone number and then gave it to the front desk who would call at the drop of a hat to ask about cover even though you had made a specific request that it wasn't to be used for work AT ALL.

The teaching staff were great to work with although the chap who fell asleep in class and the native  French speaking wannabe DOS were a little strange. I guess we all have our idiosyncracies. I would work with the foreign teaching staff again though as it was good fun, and worth the experience to meet them. The DOS who left was worth his weight in gold.

Materials were very hard to come by, especially quality paper as opposed to the cheapest brand of paper and woe betide you if you dared ask for some card. This was in direct opposition to all the promises at the interview with the pleasant owner. The supplementary materials are extremely poor and old. When I was there, there was a TV and DVD/VCD that the owner wanted you to use and then mysteriously didn't work on the day of use because "You didn't book it". Neither did anyone else . I didn't get to the bottom of it, because it would have been a waste of time as the owner wasn't there, only the lady who talks to her friends on MSN for 8hrs a day. The rest of the staff are vacant and so quite pleasant, but damn they eat smelly food right outside the teachers' room.

The students were great especially the astronauts who stared at the ceiling and dreamt of being elsewhere. Classes are manageable and the students are very friendly especially the one who called one teacher "pig big"  . There are a variety of levels in any given class just like other schools.

Not a bad experience overall just an owner I wouldn't want to work for again.

[Ronaldo]

Being the DOS who left and who was "worth his weight in gold"  requires me to at least provide a few lines in support of DerringDo's post, which is a well balanced description of a typical EF branch.

 

Fundamentally this branch has so much going for it, location, site, staff etc... but alas suffers from a typically anal-retentive owner who cannot for one second relinquish any power or decision making authority whatsoever to anyone, unfortunately this stiffles any efforts by all of the staff to provide a quality educational product to it's customers.

The cheek of it, is that she then complains that revenues are down and that is the fault of the teacher's, who have to resort 'make and mend' techniques to get through the day.

So another perfectly good business will trundle along and under perform in the franchisee heaven that Thailand's private edutainment system is, whilst kids gaze at the ceiling and their parents sit outside and stare at you through the plate glass.

Hilarious