And so the Circle is complete...
The collapse of NOVA is now... an English lesson.
This was brought to my attention by my brother Paul, who often uses the Breaking News English site for lesson materials. This week? Japan’s biggest English school in troubleNova Corporation, Japan's largest English conversation school chain is in serious financial trouble. The company, which employs some 4,000 non-Japanese English teachers, was given court protection from creditors on October 26th. It has debts of around $357 million and has given up any efforts to try and clear them. Nova’s directors are hoping to find sponsors to keep the majority of its 900 schools operational. The company’s disgraced president is nowhere to be found. Nozomu Sahashi, 56, owns a 16 percent stake in the company but was fired on Thursday. The board accused him of financial wrongdoing, as he could not give an adequate explanation for his "opaque way of fund-raising and negotiating with potential business alliance partners."
Nova’s collapse has angered thousands of teachers, many of whom have not been paid. A union representative, Katsuji Yamahara, expressed his concerns saying: "This is a serious development that could force many students, instructors and employees to suffer losses." Some teachers now face eviction from their company-provided accommodation. There have even been cases of Nova deducting rent from teachers’ salaries and then not paying landlords. Teachers at the scandal-hit school went on strike last week to protest against the company’s malpractices. The final nail in the coffin for Nova seems to have been a discovery that its advertising lied to potential students about its services. Nationwide ads claimed students could take lessons any time they wanted, which proved to be untrue.
It is then followed by a damn good pre-made lesson plan. If I'm going to be scaring up private lessons, I could do worse than to haunt this site....
Just reading the vocabulary lists is depressing.
This was brought to my attention by my brother Paul, who often uses the Breaking News English site for lesson materials. This week? Japan’s biggest English school in troubleNova Corporation, Japan's largest English conversation school chain is in serious financial trouble. The company, which employs some 4,000 non-Japanese English teachers, was given court protection from creditors on October 26th. It has debts of around $357 million and has given up any efforts to try and clear them. Nova’s directors are hoping to find sponsors to keep the majority of its 900 schools operational. The company’s disgraced president is nowhere to be found. Nozomu Sahashi, 56, owns a 16 percent stake in the company but was fired on Thursday. The board accused him of financial wrongdoing, as he could not give an adequate explanation for his "opaque way of fund-raising and negotiating with potential business alliance partners."
Nova’s collapse has angered thousands of teachers, many of whom have not been paid. A union representative, Katsuji Yamahara, expressed his concerns saying: "This is a serious development that could force many students, instructors and employees to suffer losses." Some teachers now face eviction from their company-provided accommodation. There have even been cases of Nova deducting rent from teachers’ salaries and then not paying landlords. Teachers at the scandal-hit school went on strike last week to protest against the company’s malpractices. The final nail in the coffin for Nova seems to have been a discovery that its advertising lied to potential students about its services. Nationwide ads claimed students could take lessons any time they wanted, which proved to be untrue.
It is then followed by a damn good pre-made lesson plan. If I'm going to be scaring up private lessons, I could do worse than to haunt this site....
Just reading the vocabulary lists is depressing.