Some English language schools may rip you off!

Many native speakers of English teach English in Japan for living, and many Japanese people want to learn English from native speakers. But, be careful, guys. Some English language schools rip you off. As an English teacher, I always want every English language school to benefit both Japanese English learners and native English teachers. Below is the article of Mainichi Daily News, which is an online newspaper.
How to use a native speaker, that's a very important question.

Nova, operator of the McDonalds of English language conversation chains, is beset by myriad claims of poor business practices that resulted in a government raid on its Osaka office earlier this month, and sees it battling a series of lawsuits across the country.

At the heart of many of Nova's problems are the contracts it forms with its customers. Kozo Nagano, the lawyer who heads the Kyoto Consumers Contract Network NPO, elaborates.

"Nova signs contracts where it sells classes on a point basis. Points become cheaper the more you buy at the same time. But trouble occurs when you want to pull out of a contract before it's finished. Suddenly, the points are assigned a new value different to what they were worth when the contract was signed, and the customer ends up getting back an extremely small fraction of what they originally paid, even though they may not have used much of the time they'd paid for."

...But Nova is not the only allegedly dodgy player in the conversation school caper. Competition in Japan's English language lesson market is fierce and competitors will do anything to get an edge.

"It happened not long after my high school graduation. I went back to school one day and this gorgeous, scantily woman was standing at the gate," a 19-year-old male university student tells the men's weekly. "She flashed a 10,000 yen note in my direction, told me she worked for an English language school and wanted to see my graduation album (containing contact details of class members). I saw her and the money, and next thing we were in a convenience store taking photocopies of my album."

Once contracts are signed, English language schools are relentless in squeezing their students....

Students say they're often held back by their peers.

"We're supposed to be working on a small class basis, but we have at least five people turn up every time. Invariably, we'll start off learning a phrase like 'This is a pen,' but there'll be some old biddy around who'll mumble along in Japanese, stumbling to come up with the correct English to use. How are we ever supposed to improve studying with twits like that?" a 30-year-old English learner says.

English conversation teachers get bad marks, too.

"Our teacher couldn't give a damn and yawned all the way through class, from start to finish. And he absolutely reeked of booze," a 26-year-old student says. "I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to make it all the way to the end if it were a man-to-man lesson."

But teacher have their gripes as well.

"We're supposed to have 10 minutes between classes, but get none. We're not allowed to talk to students away from the classroom. We have to move around our building via the emergency exit stairwell," one former English teacher tells Weekly Playboy. "The pay is 250,000 yen a month. At first I thought it wasn't bad, but we don't get a raise or a bonus or paid vacation. There's a teacher turnover of about 90 percent a year."

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20070227p2g00m0dm005000c.html

If the teachers at your English language school are like them, you might enjoy going to the school. But, it doesn't guarantee whether your English will be like these Hollywood stars'.

Another thing that makes me think about English language schools is that every teacher looks too good. You may want to think it's cool, but wait a minute. As long as they have great skills to teach English, they don't have to look like Ashton Kutcher or Keira Knightley, do they?