Job Discussion Forums

[SledgeCleaver]

I was talking to a recruiter the other night and he said he was quite confident he could get me a job teaching AP Economics at 17,000r and above and that once I had a couple years experience I could be earning 30,000r or even more teaching such a subject. However, I took all these promises with a grain of salt and I'd like some other viewpoints.

Basically, I came onto this forum with the fairly firm conviction that I wanted a teaching job in Asia. I've been getting interest from Chinese universities for teaching English, but I'm not sure that teaching English is what I really want to do, that it might be a bit of a dead end for me personally.

I soon started looking at ads for jobs teaching math or economics at international schools, but most of these (especially in more Westernized or glamorous locations, be it Switzerland, Taiwan, or Thailand) require a teaching license, which I don't have. However, my other credentials are good; B.S. in economics, 5 years teaching experience, including 2 years teaching mathematics and test prep, 2 years teaching ESL. It does seem somewhat reasonable that Chinese schools would have a pretty high need for teachers in economics, and that I'd be quite competitive for all but the super-elite schools, even with my current qualifications. So I don't think the recruiter was lying that I could get these jobs, and that lots of them pay quite well.

But are some of these schools crap to work at? How is it possible to find the best ones? I know of websites like http://www.cois.org/ but the schools on sites like that tend to be the super-elite ones that are accredited by Western agencies and require teachers to have a license in their home country. In other words, I'm looking for a way to find the best schools that don't require a license, the "upper middle-of-the-road" schools you might say. I suppose this is a specific ask in terms of advice, but maybe someone has good ideas. I'm especially concerned that the management and supervision be professional, not just some dude with big guanxi who's good at enrolling rich kids but can barely run a school.

Also, this is more a personal question, but related to teaching at international schools, I've started a grad school application for this May, which in 13 months would give me dual licenses to teach "Business" and "Social Studies" in the USA and thus just about anywhere. I have to decide pretty soon whether to follow through with this application and sign on for a year in the grad school coal mines (plus $20,000+ in debt), or whether to just set out to China for a job. I'm starting to think I'd rather just work, that I don't want to go back to school, at least not right now. The idea of having a qualification that would allow me to work in any country does appeal to me. But I could always go back to grad school in a couple years and get this qualification if I felt like China wasn't for me in the long-term.

Penny for your thoughts.

[Non Sequitur]

I don't know that there is a 'halfway house' between the international schools requiring a home country teacher registration and the 5-6000K pm uni English gig.
Be interested to see what other pennies come up on this.

[GreatApe]

Non Sequitur raises a good point. Although salaries and opportunities will vary according to location and demand, the "middle ground" between a university gig and an International school is slim-pickings if you only want to work for one school and not freelance or supplement your income. For example, I recently applied to teach for a very good small college in Guangdong just to "test the waters" (I'm actually quite happy working where I work now, but may eventually decide to get back to teaching older students again).

The advertisement was for a college English teaching position at 8,500 to 12,000 RMB per month. I interviewed and was offered the job, but they were only willing to negotiate upward on the salary scale to about 9,500 RMB a month. Still a pretty good gig for 16 to 20 teaching hours a week, but nowhere near what they advertised and not close enough to what I currently make to warrant a change of jobs. Had they offered to bring me on at the salary I wanted (at least 11,500 RMB), I might well have taken the job, even though I believe I have more long-term security working for the school where I'm at now.

I'm American. I have an M.A. and B.A. in English. I have a teaching credential from California, and I have 12 years teaching experience in America (University for 6 years, High School for 5 years and Middle School for 1 year). I've been teaching in the PRC for 3 years now.

I currently work for an International school in Guangdong which is connected to colleges and universities in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and the UK, and which also sends students to America on a regular basis. Our curriculum is IGCSE (British based) and we teach subjects like AP English (and Writing), Business, Accounting and Economics. As far as exams go: we offer O Level, A Level, GCSE, IGCSE, and IELTS preparation for our students.

Having said that, I can guarantee you that none of the highly qualified teachers at my school make 20,000 to 30,000 RMB a month. It's more like 12,000 to 16,000 at the high end, with most new foreign teachers starting out at 8,000 to 10,000 RMB a month. The Chinese national teachers make 5,000 to 6,000 if they are very qualified and "lucky."

I'm not saying you can't get 17,000 to 30,000 RMB in Beijing or Shanghai or at a very prestigious school. I admittedly do not know those markets, and the International school where I work is not one of the Top Twenty International schools in China. It's pretty run-of-the-mill, actually.

I work where I work now because it's challenging and reminds me a lot of teaching 11th grade in high school (Honors or AP) and freshmen/sophomores in college. That's when it's going well. Right now, our International school only offers placement for middle school and high school students at 6 Forms or Grade levels.

The job can be a grind at times, but I like it very much. I have a future here. I have opportunities with the company and with the boss who runs our school. I pay for NOTHING each month except a bit of electricity and however much I choose to spend on groceries, my smart phone, clothes, dining out, my girlfriend, and my colleagues (come to think of it, I need to start saving more money)! With that in mind, I am able, realistically, to save 6,000 to 9,000 RMB virtually any month I CHOSE to save that amount.

It's a good life in a city that typically gets blasted on these message boards, but newbies need to remember that big cities in China are ... well, VERY BIG! I live and teach in a good district and a nice area and the company my boss is connected to is investing 70 million RMB into our school over the next 3 years. New teacher housing is being built outside the window where I currently sit typing this post. My point?

Yes, there are great jobs available in China and the OP definitely seems qualified to pursue some higher end jobs. I wish you luck! My advice? Take your time and don't be too tempted to jump at the first decent offer. Take your time and "look around" a bit. Then, realize that you won't actually know what you're getting into until you get into it! Premium salaries come with a price.

Also, with regard to your question about going to graduate school and getting a teaching credential. I earned my teaching credential while I was teaching in the states. I spent roughly $10,000 getting mine while I was teaching full-time. At the end of the 2007 school year, I made a fairly bone-headed decision to leave the high school where I had taught for 5 years, and began working at a middle school for a year as the school's newest English teacher. Obviously, in 2008, the economy went to hell and California began laying off teachers and looking for creative ways to save money. I was the first teacher not brought back for a new contract once my original contract with the school ended. I was making $56,000 a year at that school. The school could hire two brand new teachers on my salary alone, and that is what they did. BAD TIMING! Lesson learned.

No regrets! I came to China and love it. Like yourself, I had wanted to "Teach in Asia" for a long, long time. I thought I would teach in Japan if I eventually did it, but again, the economic problems at that time dictated that China was the better choice, IMO.

Long story, short ... If I were you, I probably WOULD NOT invest in the $20,000 teaching credential at this point, unless you are absolutely sure that you will be going back to the states to teach again. And, in my opinion, you won't truly know the answer to that question until you experience teaching in Asia.

I hope all of this helps you in some small way, and again, GOOD LUCK!

--GA

[Non Sequitur]

GreatApe
That's the most informative post on the international school situation I've read. In fact I thought that teachers at internationals with teacher reg did earn 25 to 30K and wouldn't be bothered lurking on Dave's
Boiling it down, there isn't the margin for registered teachers that I thought.
A registered friend who taught primary international (also in Guangzhou) was coy about how much they earned but from a lifestyle point of view she/he seemed to do OK. Could afford housekeeper/cleaner etc.
Could be that OP should get a standard 16 hour pw gig and top up on privates.

[SledgeCleaver]

[Mikeylikesit114]

Sledge Cleaver,

Please PM me with the email address of your recruiter.

I graduated with an M.A. in Econ from a California public university. In 2008, I was offered 15000 rmb per month to teach AP Econ in Shanghai, but took a business English position in Shenzhen instead (same salary, Bei Da's graduate business school). At the time (2008) it seemed that AP Econ teaching jobs were relatively rare.

After 3 years, I found a job teaching AP Econ in a Shenzhen public school for 15,000 which I quickly learned was well below market.

Now I'm teaching for a private company that offers foundation year programs and AP Econ, and am set to earn 25000 a month after tax next year, along with a housing allowance. My company states that they require an MA, but from the amount of job postings and rapid growth of AP and A -level programs in China, I'd suspect they'd take a bachelors and teaching experience.

[Non Sequitur]

'otherwise I'd just head off to unis and pick up privates with my spare time'.
Why not a two-stage process?
Get a 16-18 contact hour gig at a uni.
Make sure it's Oral English. Not sure how keen you are on marking but the workload for 60 students per class and 8 classes per week would severely eat into your spare (privates) time. A lot of work will be simply copies of the paper of the brightest student and believe me, trying to get original work out of them is soul-destroying. Lesson planning is additional of course.
After a few months and with a few contacts and some supplementing private work, have a look at where you might move to.
I've said this many times - your first job in China should have the least downside. Preconditions (which won't be met anyway) will just add to the many frustrations you'll encounter just being on the ground.

[LarssonCrew]

Some of these schools still are purely about the $$$ though.

I was offered a law teaching position, teaching full time A Level and university prep law courses and the salary was 11,000 for full time, 40 hours a week, which is a joke.

You can make 150 at least an hour teaching English, why would I teach a specialised subject that very few are capable of teaching for 11,000 a month?

[SledgeCleaver]