Job Discussion Forums

[august03]

I'm currently in China and looking at Russia as my next destination but I am unsure on what to expect.

Here in China I can live very comfortably on about 2/3rds of my wage (about USD$6000 of $8000 a year), still travel and save.

I am treated by the locals as somewhat of a celebrity, which makes living and meeting people easy for me.

I have limited Chinese language skills but I can still get around easily because the locals are so friendly and all willing to communicate in whatever means we can.

The school I am working for goes out their way to ensure I am well provided for and are not very demanding.

Would the transition to Russia be as easy or is TEFL teaching more of an independent thing there? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[canucktechie]

Well as it happens my last job was in China and now I work in Moscow.

It's true China is very very cheap, I saved about 1/2 of my salary compared to nothing here in Moscow. But one reason for this is that there was very little to do in my city (an obscure provincial capital).

In my own experience the students in Russia are a lot nicer than the Chinese. I will make one exception to this - the Chinese teenagers are better behaved than the Russians. On the other hand, the Chinese kids are more difficult. I was told that one reason for this is that in the Chinese public schools, if a child misbehaves, the teacher will hit him/her. Of course we were not allowed to do this and some kids take this as a license to misbehave.

In the end you really have to make your decision based on where you want to live, saving 1/2 of your salary doesn't amount to much if you're only making $500 a month in the first place.

[august03]

Thanks for your advice. I must say though that I do work in a public school and I have never ever seen or heard of a teacher hitting a student. I have even been reprimanded for putting a child outside of the classroom after they had misbehaved - "a student is entitled to an education", "yeah sure" I said "but the teacher is also entitled to respect, no respect = no class for that student!!"

[Phillip Donnelly]

Like Canucktechie and August03, I also worked in China before coming here. I agree with him that Russians are generally easier to teach, except for the teenagers. However, they are more demanding and seem to complain more about teachers than their Chinese or Spanish counterparts.
Re how much of your salary you can save here, that really depends on you. Some teachers at BKC-IH manage to save half their salary and some are broke with a week of being paid! If you have a taste for expensive nightlife and fancy restaurants, you will be one of the latter.
If you look around the other forums, you will find endless discussions concerning a contract teachers� salary (550-675 at BKC-IH) and whether it is too low or adequate. However, I HONESTLY find it much easier to save money here than I did in Spain. Re China and Russia, I find it somewhat harder to save money here than in China. It�s quite a bit more expensive here, I�m afraid.
To sum up, I think Canucktechie hit the nail on the head. If you are only earning about 600 dollars per month, then even saving three quarters won�t make you rich. If you�re interested in saving a lot of money, then Korea or Japan or probably a better choice.

[waxwing]

I've occasionally pondered going to China, and viewing the (vast amount of) information available on this website, it seems true that the pay and conditions are significantly better .. or at least, the conditions are better, and the pay is about the same, whilst the living costs are slightly lower.
Is that true? (I know, impossible to generalise...)

I also get the impression that in general class sizes are bigger in China - is that true even in the private language institutes?

[august03]

I work at a very nice ($$$) public primary school and I am lucky to have only 28 students in each class, however the norm at public schools is about 35-50 students. Language schools can have between 15-40 it all depends where you work. I don't know what the class sizes are in Russia so I can't compare, does anyone else have the info.........

[waxwing]

Yes, sorry, dumb of me.. well, in the private schools, I can't speak for everyone but we rarely have more than 10 in one class here. I have a vague recollection that there's a rule it shouldn't go above 12. I consider that pretty normal for a private school - they're paying for a personalised service.
As I already said, there isn't really a 'public' option here for foreign teachers.

It's one of the things that puts me off about China - the idea of teaching 30ish primary school children in another language - gives me the horrors! Anyway I'm not qualified to teach the under-11s.

[Phillip Donnelly]

Waxwing is right that private language academies in Moscow tend to set a maximum of 12 students per class. In Spain it was the same, but when I worked in a language school in China, the maximum was 20. This was a problem, as Chinese students could not really see the benefit of pairwork and all of them wanted individual attention from me.
In BKC-IH, I'd say the average number of students is per class is about 8, but in any class there are usually one or two who don't turn up, more with adult classes than children, of course.
Re pay and conditions, you're looking at around 4,000-5,000 yuan per month net (accomodation etc is almost always paid for by the school). That's about 500 dollars per month. The cost of living is very low, of course, so 500 dollars will go a long way. However, having said that, some teachers still managed to end up broke after a couple of weeks!
Re conditions, it depends enormously on the school. I was very lucky-my wife and I lived in a 100-square metre apartment and the Chinese staff was unbelievable helpful. However, you have to do your homework re the school. China has more than its fare share of horror stories.

[L_greg]

Is 700$ per month - that`s the salary I`ve been offered - enough to survive in MOscow?

[expatella_girl]

[Sashadroogie]

That's about the standard salary of a McSchool theses days, I think. Even a bit on the low side of those places too. A flat should be included in the package as well, but it is a still lousy salary. But as a means to an end, many teachers new to Moscow usually suffer this poverty level until they find their feet and get better positions.

Don't expect to eat out or socialise much though. At all, in fact....

[Red and white]

This cost of living debate is a regular on here - some of you might be interested in this article from an English-language paper in Moscow:

http://www.moscownews.ru/local/20091102/55391682.html

It reckons most Russians believe they need to earn 62,000r / month (about $2,000) to live a 'decent life'. The average in the city is given as closer to 30,000r.

Food for thought ...?

[kazachka]

[discostar23]

I recently got an offer for 2500USD a month from Moscow. Which works out to about 70.000 rubles. From checking the discussions on here I figure that will be enough to live on. Correct?

[Sashadroogie]

That's not bad at all. However, for that I'd guess they aren't throwing in a flat, so expect at least 30K rubles to be swallowed up just for a basic single-room affair. Personally, I never feel too comfy if I'm taking in under 100k a month, which happens over the summer low season.

Is this an first-time-to-Russia offer? I'd go for it.