Job Discussion Forums

Bud Powell · Joined: 11 Jul 2013 Posts: 1736

I don't quite understand the meaning of your response. Could you elucidate?

ESL104 · Joined: 27 Sep 2014 Posts: 108

asiannationmc · Joined: 13 Aug 2014 Posts: 1342

True Blue · Joined: 12 Nov 2014 Posts: 71

All things are relative right? OP could be making at least 20,000 at WS, EF, or the New Oriental Visions project with his certification. But he seems content to have five free meals a week and "no stress". So for him it seems to be a trade-off he's happy to live with, or so it seems. If this OP was motivated, he might make even 30,000 doing private tutoring just 4 days a week.

ESL104 · Joined: 27 Sep 2014 Posts: 108

mysterytrain · Joined: 23 Mar 2014 Posts: 366

Voyeur · Joined: 03 Jul 2012 Posts: 431

The market for teaching salaries in China is pretty nebulous and hard to figure out. I too feel the frustration of not knowing whether I can be doing better. I don't care if I could be doing a bit better, and salary is not the only consideration. But it is frustrating to wonder if one could be doing a lot better and is failing to do so simply because they lack information.

I imagine that over time things will slowly standardize, but for now there seems to be no easy fix. No one can provide an easy answer here. One has to just muddle through as best they can.

True International School work is, from what I have been led to believe, typically quite different from the kind of ESL work the OP is doing. While it isn't usually as demanding as teaching work back home with respect to outside the classroom tasks (report cards, preparation, lesson plans, etc.), it's still a lot closer to that than ESL work.

That being said, a licensed teacher who is likeable and good at what they do should be able to do better than the OP is doing, even while teaching more relaxed, ESL-style jobs--especially in big cities like Shenzhen.

asiannationmc · Joined: 13 Aug 2014 Posts: 1342

ESL104 · Joined: 27 Sep 2014 Posts: 108

direshark · Joined: 12 Apr 2014 Posts: 90 Location: Qingdao, China

buravirgil · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 9:47 am Post subject:

ESL104 · Joined: 27 Sep 2014 Posts: 108

buravirgil · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 11:04 am Post subject:

Low ratios are, of course, preferred and a perfectly reasonable advantage to tout. But asserting "smarter" kids are "easier" to teach with the conjecture of "anyone who has actually been in a classroom" is the sort of nonsense to which I first responded.

I suppose you might cast a poll, or whatever, but no educational theory you would fail to correctly summarize would so conclude. Doubling down on your assertion only provokes a conclusion that a lack of training might explain your perception and that not a lot of learning is taking place in either of the classes you cite.

ESL104 · Joined: 27 Sep 2014 Posts: 108

buravirgil · Posted: Wed Dec 10, 2014 12:46 pm Post subject:

Unlike many vocations, teachers tend to use words precisely. But I'll try to indulge ya'.

Had you responded to the OP in terms of X(school) = Y ¥ and 86'd commenting to job satisfaction or a waste of credentials, I would have scanned the posts as informative. But as you can read, a few experienced posters took issue with how casually you dismissed actual choices made by actual people. Your responses were as ungenerous, tone-deaf and logically specious.

Your posts read like a recruiter's attempt to "place" a teacher new to China's market with a "good fit". Nothing wrong with that, except you began to show a degree of ignorance that was, as I wrote, woeful and mildly offensive to educators not so, shall I say, mercenary in their analyses.

Oops..I drifted into a syntax less comprehensible than a text message, but I'll make no apology.