Results

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3. Important factors on choosing English cram school

♦ Teaching quality

♦ Environment

♦ Feeling after try out class (a positive experience in the trial session)

♦ How teachers communicate with parents

♦ Pressure to sign up for the school immediately

♦ Teacher’s attitude and enthusiastic in teaching – use fun ways to teach

♦ Teacher’s teaching method

♦ Price

♦ Long term management of school

4. Differences between chain stores and small business English cram school

♦ Staff member’s attitude at front desk

♦ Teaching attitude between part-time and full-time teachers

♦ Teaching methods and classroom management

♦ Better word of mouth

♦ Teaching and learning goals

3.1.3 Results

Based on the feedback from the participants, there seems to be a consensus that most parents send their children to English cram schools because of the importance of the English language. Parents want their children to like English and develop the basic written, speaking and listening abilities in English while young. By comparing the good qualities from the

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current cram school and factors parents consider while choosing a perfect school, we can come up with some critical success factors for this research.

1. Teaching quality

The quality of the teacher seems to be one of the main factors parents consider. Parents prefer to have teachers who have prior teaching experiences. They feel that a good teacher won’t know how to teach overnight. It takes time and practice. They also want someone who really enjoys teaching and views teaching as a professional career, not just a job.

Parents are satisfied when they see their child happy to go to English cram school everyday, and most importantly, to see their learning progress.

In addition, parents believe that having good quality of the teaching materials is also essential. It is hard for younger students to learn English by rules. If a teacher really enjoys teaching, he or she is expected to put a lot of effort into creating a fun learning environment. A creative teacher would be able to come up with fun games and activities to teach grammar.

The focus group participants care about the teacher’s background too. They would like to know the teacher’s educational background, and where he or she was originally from.

Most of them have a preference for foreign teachers from North America. The reason behind this has nothing to do with discrimination, but mainly because of the accent. The English language most often heard is American-English. Fewer parents want their children to learn British-English. In a non-English speaking country like Taiwan, letting children speak and listen to American-English with foreign teachers is something that most parents can’t provide at home.

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2. Environment of the school

A clean and safe environment is definitely a must too. No one would send their child to a school that is dirty or in an unsafe neighborhood. A cram school is not like a regular primary school where you are assigned to attend based on your residence. Parents have more opportunities to decide which cram school to attend. When parents are shopping around for crams schools, the first thing they notice is the cleanliness and safety of the school.

Parents pay attention to small details. For instance, whether the floors, classrooms, bathroom, and kitchen are clean or not. They also look for security gates or teachers at the front desk to make sure no strangers would walk in or allow children to leave school unnoticed. Parents also notice the size of the classrooms and how many students are enrolled in the school and in each class. These are just some questions that might pop out into the parent’s mind while walking around the school. Therefore, in order to leave a great first impression when the parents walk into the school, it is essential to create a nice friendly environment.

Children learn very fast, especially with peers. If the school can provide an all-English-speaking environment, in a way, children will be forced to speak English only.

With some body language involved, they will be able to speak English without fear within a short period of time. Also, it is a good sign when the school is able to create a fun environment that makes a child look forward to going there every day. Parents and children should be happy and look forward to go to the cram school. They shouldn’t need to drag or persuade their child to go there. Due to all these reasons, a great environment for learning is definitely something to put in mind in order to gain the parent’s satisfaction.

3. Teacher’s commitment

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A good attitude always makes a huge different in the service industry. Many bigger chain stores recruit part-time English teachers only. These teachers typically only come in and teach hourly and then leave right after they finish. Parents feel that with this kind of teaching attitude, teachers wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about teaching compared to a teacher who works full-time and who is able to spend more time with the students each day.

Part-time teachers would only have to clock in at their scheduled time, go in class and teach for a few hours, then clock out when times up and go home. Most parents that participated in the focus group mentioned this problem, and had been unsatisfied with this kind of teaching attitude that they had experienced at other schools. On the other hand, full-time teachers have the opportunity to be with the students longer each day and have the chance to know more about each and every student’s personality. These teachers are better able to identify the problem easily if the children are falling behind or if something were to happen.

The way teachers and parents communicate is also a significant factor. Although the teacher’s goal is to educate the student, it is also the teacher’s job to communicate with the parents periodically. In a way, parents, not just the children, are the school’s customers.

Parents respect teachers who exhibit a professional.

Participants also explained that they don’t like high pressure selling techniques.

Parents also dislike the pressure of being forced to sign up for the class immediately when they walked in a school or right after the try-out class. When deciding whether or not to enroll their child, they consider the attitude from the front desk staff teachers. Are they explaining the curriculum in a nice friendly way? Are they professional? These are the questions that are quite important to the parents. A good school should let the parents, their customers, have the opportunity to go back and think it over or even compare with other schools. If the teachers at the front desk have a nice and friendly attitude, parents tend to

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feel more welcomed and willing to stay.

4. Long term management

Parents feel more secured when they see a well organized curriculum that has been established for a long time. They want to feel comfortable to see their children learning English level by level. If the school provides a well-designed curriculum plan, parents wouldn’t have to change cram schools often. Parents are sending children to learn English when they are very young. When parents are satisfied with the curriculum and the service provided at the school, they will continue to register their children at the same school as they grow older. Since this is the case, parents tend to ask around about the school’s reputation, which means word or mouth is very powerful. They would want to know about the service and quality of the school. They wouldn’t want to register for the school and worry about whether the school will close down or not one day.

Although the bigger name-brand schools have a strong brand image, they are mainly franchised by individual owners. Therefore, while their brand name might be well-known to the public, there are still possibilities that there is inconsistency in the quality from one location to another. Occasionally, some schools branches are closed down due to poor management. One of the participants from the focus group pointed out that there was a school near her house that had changed their name three times within the past two or three years. It changed from Sesame Streets, to Shane English School, to now AMC Language School. Surprisingly, these are all big franchises English cram schools. As a result, in order to obtain parents’ trust and commitment, a well structured long term business management plan is needed.

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3.2 Mystery Shopper

In this section, we will be analyzing the information gathered from the mystery shopper experience. We will be only evaluating the seven schools that the mystery shopper visited.

First we have summarized all the information from seven schools (Table 2). Then based on the data, we will also analyze the important factors on choosing English cram schools into the same four categories as the focus group. In each category, we will analyze the problems that were noticed from each school in the following subsections.

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Table 2 Mystery Shopper Comparison

Happy Marian Hess Kojen Joy Giraffe AMC Smart Kids

2 days/week 5 days/week

Hours per class 2 hrs 2 hrs 2 hrs 1 day - 3 hrs

2 days - 1.5 hrs 2 hrs 1 day - 3 hrs 2 days - 1.5 hrs 2 hrs Language in class try to be all English try to be all English try to be all English depends try to be all English depends English only

No Chinese only in the

HW after each class after each class after each class after each class after each class after each class after each class only on weekends Falling behind make up class make up class make up class make up class make up class make up class make up class

# of students 24 max 24 max 24 max depends 12 max 12 max 12 max

# of teachers in class only 1 only 1 1 or 2 only 1 only 1 only 1 only 1

Materials own textbooks own textbooks own textbooks own textbooks own textbooks own textbooks Let's Go / Side By Side

Foreign teachers yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

Local teachers yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

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1. Problem 1 – Prior teaching experience

Most chain stores don’t require teachers to have prior teaching experience. Happy Marian, Hess, Giraffe, Kojen, and Joy all have several branches through out Taiwan. They have all been in the cram school business for decades. Therefore they have a stronger brand positioning. With well-reorganized brands and bigger corporate structures, these schools are able to provide training programs for new-comers, either with or without teaching experience. Perhaps, none of them would require teachers to have an educational background in early childhood or education. As illustrated in Figure 6, the privately-owned school requires teachers to have at least two years teaching experiences. One may argue that the larger corporations develop their own professional teaching staffs through in-house training programs. However, there is no guarantee that trainees stay around long enough to develop into highly trained, teaching professionals. Having a large training program may indicate that there is a quick turnover of teaching staff and a constant need to train new instructors.

Figure 6 Prior Teaching Experience Requirement

2. Problem 2 – Number of students per class

The number of students per class would influence the quality of teaching as well. It is must