The environment is clean and bright. I already liked it when I went for the interview, and I feel that working in such an environment puts me in a good mood. The class manager and other senior instructors are very friendly, and whenever I have a question, everyone is willing to help, which makes me feel very reassured.
I don’t have to prepare teaching materials myself. My friend works as a private tutor and has to prepare their own materials, so they were quite envious when they learned that I don’t need to prepare my own materials when working at Ming Guang.
The scheduling is stable. After I was hired, I received a steady schedule. At first, I was a little worried that there might be times when I wouldn’t have any classes to teach, but it has remained quite stable so far.
The class manager communicates with students’ parents. This is what I consider the biggest advantage. Whenever students’ parents have any questions, the class manager communicates with them, so I can focus on preparing lessons and teaching students.
I don’t have to teach many students at once. There are at most three students in a class. Compared with other cram schools, where there may be more than a dozen students at once, I find three much more manageable, and I can focus more on the students’ questions.
After working as an instructor for a while, people around me said that my communication skills and patience had improved. It was an unexpected benefit.
There are quite a few miscellaneous things, such as reflection books (similar to communication notebooks) and notebooks, and I sometimes forget them.
I feel mentally exhausted when I encounter students who are difficult to teach.
I hope the salary and benefits can be improved further.
Pros
1. As someone mentioned earlier, when I went in for the interview, the classroom director mentioned that they would prepare teaching materials for you and provide many teaching resources. So once I started, I only needed to focus on lesson preparation and think about how to optimize the content and quality of my teaching.
2. You do not have to deal with parents directly, which means there is less chance of encountering overly demanding parents. The classroom director handles this part, and I think not having to communicate with parents makes things much easier.
3. Even without relevant teaching experience, you still have a chance of being hired. In addition to the classroom director and senior instructors at Hess International Educational Group being friendly and willing to help, the tutoring center also regularly provides individual and group training, so I think it is fairly well organized.
4. I applied for a part-time position, so basically I just made my available time known and let the tutoring center arrange my schedule. There is a certain amount of flexibility with regard to working hours, and the scheduling is stable without requiring rotating shifts.
5. There may be opportunities in the future to continue advancing to the position of classroom director.
Cons
1. Like everyone else has said, I hope the salary can be a little higher.
2. Dealing with very mischievous students can really make you feel discouraged and frustrated. For example, there was a period when classes had just switched to being fully online. Since we teachers had our own SOP, the lessons themselves did not become disorganized. However, the students in front of the camera would easily run around, leave their seats, and would not come back even when called. We could only call their parents and ask them to help, which was really a headache.
3. Having to think of the content for the comments every time makes me feel like I am running out of things to write.
1. I think that for people without experience, as long as they can demonstrate a proactive attitude and pass both the written and oral examinations, they can get in. After joining, there is also training and the opportunity to observe senior instructors’ teaching methods. At least, you will not have to figure everything out on your own, making it a pretty good place to build experience and improve your teaching skills.
2. You do not have to deal directly with parents, and you do not need to prepare teaching materials yourself, which saves you a great deal of trouble. At the same time, the cram school provides many question-bank resources for students to use when reviewing.
3. Scheduling is fairly flexible. I simply submitted my available hours and let the classroom manager arrange my schedule.
4. There is always someone to ask when you encounter problems. When you first join, there are inevitably many things you do not understand, but the classroom manager is always willing to teach you. If you encounter bottlenecks during teaching or do not know how to handle a student who is particularly difficult to manage, you can get plenty of useful advice by asking. For example, you can receive guidance on how to arrange the course content more effectively and exchange good suggestions and methods with experienced senior instructors to solve all kinds of problems. Overall, I feel that the working environment is quite good.
5. The sense of accomplishment when seeing students’ grades improve.
1. Of course, I still hope the salary and benefits can be a little higher.
2. There are many things to use at Ming Guang, such as online reflection forms and communication notebooks. At first, it is really difficult to get the hang of them, and it is easy to forget or overlook things, so you constantly need reminders!
3. The system sometimes malfunctions, and it can crash when uploading photos.
4. When teaching a group of three, it can feel like there is not enough time. You have to keep thinking of ways to improve and make the process smoother, which is truly mentally demanding.
Clean and bright
The hourly wage is 170, yet it says “negotiable.” What a joke.
The quality of the teachers who work here is probably like this too. Parents considering sending their children here should think twice.
None
Basically just a middleman taking a cut from tutors' pay.
Tutors can find students online themselves—why should they have to pay such a large commission?
No advantages
The compensation is extremely low—at a level that would leave graduates of a top-tier university completely stunned.