Ok so it's time to explain the company I work for..
It is called English First, EF for short. It is a franchised company, though you can work for the company and not for the franchises in some areas. I am one of 12 foreign teachers here, out of a staff of about 50 people (everyone else is Chinese). In the lower level classes, we have Chinese Teaching Assistants to help with understanding as well as classroom management.
The categories of students are as follows:
Small Stars: Ages 3-6
High Flyers: Ages 7-9
Trailblazers: Ages 10-14
Real English: Ages 15 and up
So far, I am teaching one SS class, and 3 HF classes. On top of the basic classes, we also offer one-on-one services we call VIPs. People pay for VIP lessons anywhere from 40 minutes once a week, to 2 hours 5 days a week- depending on how quickly they want to learn! There is also something called Life Club for adults, which I will explain in another post.
There is a set curriculum for the actual classes, though we can teach the information however we want. With the VIPs, there is no actual curriculum, and instead you focus on whatever that student is most interested in learning (most often studying for the IELTS*).
*IELTS: International English Language Testing System. This test is used by universities across the English speaking countries as a standard for admission for speakers of English as a second language. In America, the TOEFL is also accepted.
