Job Discussion Forums

[Son Thach]

Hi All, I am new to the board, and new to teaching, having just completed CELTA qualifications at UTS, Sydney, Australia. However, I am not new to Viet Nam, having lived there on and off for 25 years (doing things other than language teaching). I am a native English speaker (Australian), but am competent in Vietnamese.

I've been considering looking for a job in Danang, as its a place I love and have many friends there. I am greatly indebted to the author of the website https://danangteaching.wordpress.com, which has lots of great information.

But I wonder if anyone has more up to date information. Is Da Nang a good teaching destination? Is there plenty of work there? What are standards, both professional and employment-wise, like?

How do you think cost of living there compares to HCMC?

TIA.

[AGoodStory]

Welcome to the forum, Son Thatch! I can't personally contribute anything about Da Nang, but I have a request for you. Could you edit your post to remove the comma following the website link? (or insert a space between the 'm' and the comma.) It prevents the link from working. Thanks--and again, welcome to Dave's!

.

[TRH]

https://danangteaching.wordpress.com/

If we move to Da Nang for retirement as my wife suggests, I certainly will not be looking to teach more than maybe one class a week or a few privates.

That said, this is an excellent resource for anyone thinking about teaching in Da Nang. The ratings of possible places of employment are honest and solid reasons for the ratings are given. In some cases, the blogger admits he does not know which is rather refreshing. The site is not complete as the pages for entertainment and shopping don't seem to exist except on the menus but it is off to an excellent start.

[skarper]

I looked through that site a while ago but on a different computer so I'm grateful for your link.

The topic of Danang as a destination crops up from time to time. And I think the old threads are still valid. There is work but not as much as the bigger cities. And more people want to live here.

Ergo, it is harder to get work, harder to get enough work and they pay less than they probably should.

If you are new to teaching you would be well advised to start in an easier market and relocate to Danang when you have some experience. Unless you have the money saved to live for 6 months plus without earning much.

Being able to speak Vietnamese will help with daily life but not with teaching or finding work. In fact, I might be tempted to keep my Vietnamese competence quiet when applying for work. I get the feeling they like to think the we don't know what they're saying about us.

It will be much harder to find work if you look Asian. It certainly shouldn't but it definitely does make a difference. Also harder if you are older than the ideal 25-30 bracket or even in the over the hill 50+ age range. They like women more than men, because so many classes are for children.

Beware dispatch companies that send you into local schools to teach classes of 30-40 kids with no resources, no support and not even any assistance from the class teacher who may well sneak off to take a nap during you class. This is becoming quite a common way even the bigger chains try to squeeze more profit out of their teachers. This could have you working from 8am - 9am in one school, from 3pm to 4pm in another and back int the main school to teach from 7-9pm.

I have no experience of this having always avoided such work. But I have heard it can be pretty gruelling and soul destroying too.

[DauntlessinDanang]

According to one of the local expat groups on Facebook, Da Nang is now home to around 1,000 foreign English teachers. That may seem like a lot of teachers for a city of this size, but like so many other cool places to ply the trade, Da Nang is and always will be a temporary destination for most of the folks who move here. Some of them, exasperated by a general lack of work due to their own hirability and/or a limited number of schools offering the same evening and weekend time slots, are gone within their first year. Most teachers tend to live and work here for a year to two before heading back home or moving on to greener ESL pastures. Compared to the metropolitan areas, Da Nang is still relatively cheap for food and accommodation, but getting more expensive than it used to be. A few teachers stick around a bit longer, and some eventually settle down in Da Nang for good. But for older expats like me that's still only 20 years or so. The point is, job turnover in Da Nang is a way of life and there is and always will be room for one more. Whether you stay for six months or six years is up to you, but chances are you'll enjoy your life here despite the ephemerality of it all.