Job Discussion Forums

[amisexy]

Hi,

I currently teach in Eastern Europe, at a well known chain of schools. I have a CELTA, a bachelors degree, and a UK passport (I'm a native speaker).

I am hoping to go to China next academic year (Late August/ Early September), but I'm finding the variety of schools a bit bewildering.

I was wondering if anyone have advice for someone like me trying to find a job in China? Someone who has some experience and a fairly well regarded TEFL certificate. I'd want to be in on of the bigger cities (Around 4 million +), but I find Beijing and Shanghai a bit off-putting. I'd also want to ideally teach a combination of adults, teens and kids. Plus no more than 21 teaching hours + 0 office hours.

Thanks for the help.

[Non Sequitur]

2nd tier provincial cities hover around the 4 to 6 million mark although geographically Chinese cities take in a lot of country.
This means the downtown may not look like it serves 6m+.
With those hours required for your contact time, you are putting aside the EFs and Disney-type outfits which could give you the age mix you require.
My advice is get a 16-18 contact hour* uni job which will give you 5-6000RMB per month. This will have you teaching young adults.
Then do private one on ones or language school work on weekends to expose you to adults and younger children.
Corporate classes is another area for private work.
The uni/vocational job will give you the basics like accom, visa and airfare, plus paid winter holiday.

*Each hour = 45 mins.

[lemak]

Often the rule in Asia is to drop a zero off the official population size in order to get a feel for what a similar sized city would feel like back home.
My city is officially in the 5 to 6 million range, but feels more like 500~600,000. Google someplace that says it has a million people and you're practically getting some little Amish village or Children of the Corn, which interestingly will still have 300 KFCs, lol.

[Non Sequitur]

You're right about the KFCs

[amisexy]

[quote="Non Sequitur"]2nd tier provincial cities hover around the 4 to 6 million mark although geographically Chinese cities take in a lot of country.
This means the downtown may not look like it serves 6m+.
With those hours required for your contact time, you are putting aside the EFs and Disney-type outfits which could give you the age mix you require.
My advice is get a 16-18 contact hour* uni job which will give you 5-6000RMB per month. This will have you teaching young adults.
Then do private one on ones or language school work on weekends to expose you to adults and younger children.
Corporate classes is another area for private work.
The uni/vocational job will give you the basics like accom, visa and airfare, plus paid winter holiday.

*Each hour = 45 mins.[/quote]

Thanks for the information!

Can you recommend anywhere to look for schools, or any universities that I should look at applying for?

[Denim-Maniac]

amisexy - how have you found the work in Europe? Do you want to do something similar again?

University and vocational college work is often the popular choice in these parts as the workload is light and the benefits are many (long holidays for example), but the teaching scenario may well be worlds away from the average European language school. This may be quite a consideration and can make the choice of university work very undesirable for some people.

I am currently teaching German students for a European student organisation in the UK. All classes are contracted to be 15 students or less, and each of these classes is streamed by ability. I work quite closely with a head teacher who visits my classroom probably once a day.

For some people, this type of class size and streaming according to ability is key. However, this type of thing is normally quite absent from the vocational college and university setting. When I worked in a vocational college in China I the average class was around 45 - 50 students, ranging from elementary to upper-intermediate in the same class. And Id be lucky to have a senior staff member visit my class once a year.

A recent thread about university teaching.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=100978

[Non Sequitur]

Denim is right and you should factor in larger class size (see recent poll) and unstreamed students not particularly motivated. I do find vocational students - particularly tourism or hospitality majors fairly turned on the importance of English for their jobs.
As for applications, get yourself up on seriousteachers.com for a start.
You can then apply for suitable jobs with a single 'click'.
Work out your preferred cities/provinces as there is a search facility on seriousteachers.
Could you post your preferred locations and others may have specific vacancy info.
Best

[amisexy]

Thanks for all of the replies guys!

I do enjoy my work here in Europe. But, I am also definitely looking for new challenges and experiences. I'd like something that wasn't a world away from Europe, but I know that it won't be similar. I also realise that there is less 'academic rigour' in most Chinese schools, in comparison to European schools. In my current school the maximum class size is 10, but I doubt a bigger class size would bother me too much.

I've joined Serious Teachers, hopefully I will be able to find something good there.
I would like to go to Shanghai, or the two provinces that surround Shanghai (Maybe; Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Hangzhou, Shaozing). Nothing too hot and humid, like in Southern China, but neither will it get too cold (I wouldn't like to have a winter of -20 for several weeks!)

I've been thinking about it, and a university job teaching no more than 15 hours per week would be good. I'm thinking flight allowance, apartment and 5000RMB+ per month. Plus, then I could probably pick up a few hours here and there to bump up my salary. Does this sound like a good plan? I'd definitely want a university near a city centre also, any recommendations.
Also (Sorry for all the questions!), hen would be the best time to apply? When do most university jobs come up for offer?

Thanks

[Non Sequitur]

That plan gets my tick.
'Least risk' is the way to go as as first time teacher in PRC.
The standard contract states max 20 contact hours. but most of us do around 16 with maybe 1xEnglish Corner pm of say 2 hours.
The trick I've found is to work near the coast as that tends to modify the extremes of temp.
Dalian, Yantai and Qingdao are not too rigorous and could be worth a look, although they do get snow.