Job Discussion Forums

[mnguy29]

I just want to put this out there for any unsuspecting prospective teachers who are considering University teaching jobs in China. You may want to avoid XMUT in Xiamen. I was a teacher there for two years. First, they will tell you that this U is in Xiamen,.. well its not. Very deceptive. In fact, it is far from the city out in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do. You could call it the slums. Takes over an hour by bus to the downtown. This is where they will offer you a free apartment. If you choose to live in the city, like I did, they DO NOT offer any allowance and are unhappy and will treat you differently. In my first year there, I was very happy with my students and classes and schedule. Mostly girls, business and related majors with great English. They liked me and I liked them. Second year was terrible. I had mostly boys with Engineering majors and the English level was very low. They gave me a lousy schedule with classes Friday late, and Monday morning early about 8am. Most teachers had three or four day weekends. What about being fair to all?

The communication and organization between admin. and teachers was really lacking. Important things that we really needed to know in order to do a good job were last minute or sometimes forgotten completely. My classroom was in a building next to a major highway so with the windows open, I could not hear my students speak and they could not hear me. Oral English? I made them keep the windows closed, which they really hated and always tried to sneak them open. It was an ongoing fight. I told them I needed a different classroom to no avail.

I was also cheated out of my contract bonus at the end of my second year and I heard that other teachers also had a problem with this and other things. Xiamen area is NOT a cheap place to live as some would assume. I think the salary that we were paid was FAR under most other Universities in the area and in nearby cities. In your second year they will only offer a very small increase which is almost laughable.

Ok, sure, some of the teachers at this U were happy. But to me, retired married couples who do this mostly for adventure and fun really dont count. There were also some who were happy to sit in their rooms in their free time and live a very quiet, boring life in China. I don't think most teachers would want this. I didn't come to China for this. In the city, you can make many friends, go shopping, eat western food, go to the beaches, the bars, have some things to in your down time. One young couple left in the middle of the semester.

Anyway, might sound like some sour grapes, but I just wanted to throw it out there. I would NEVER suggest to anyone to teach there. If you do, and things go sour, don't say you were not warned beforehand.

[bobdaun]

Thanks for the experience.

Anybody else have any experience with this place?

[piglet44]

I have just signed on for another year at XMUT. MOD EDIT The school is okay not brilliant and not terrible.They pay on time, they give REALLY good apartments to the teachers, they provide a free shopping bus to take you to Metro every Saturday if you want to go.They gave us a free shopping card for Seashine department store with RMB 1000 on it to spend as we choose.The school is in Jimei nobody denies that. It's only a 30 minute trip to the island by BRT and cost is 2 RMB.
I have seen worse locations.And Jimei is not the sticks, it has stores and plenty of nice places to go.If you google it before you sign up you can see exactly where that is.The usual MOD EDIT are to be found with schedule,etc but these are pretty much the same everywhere.I think some people MOD EDIT love to complain about China wherever they are.Just my 2cents..

[theoriginalprankster]

Thought you were leaving Xiamen, piglet, according to your recent WOX posts.

Perhaps I misread.

[Non Sequitur]

Chinese municipalities are very large in area, so don't slag the school for stating Xiamen. It's up to you to probe further about exact location.
I've found that often schools will even up the workload over two semesters or two years. This may mean a cruisy deal in the first followed by more difficult students and timetabling in the second.
I've known schools to give a teacher 14 hours pw in semester one and 22 hours in semester two, on the basis that over the contract the average was less than the 20 max.
When OP re signed for another year an enquiry about workload would have been appropriate.

[ChrisHenry15]

Updates? Any current teachers?

[Mr. Kalgukshi]

Obscenities are not permitted here. It is more than highly probable that posting same will result in one's tenure ending here ever so quickly.