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Jeff19
Joined: 23 Jun 2015
Posts: 24
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 Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:19 pm Post subject: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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Hello, I'm Italian, I hold a degree in English from the UK and a CELTA. My girlfriend is Croatian, she holds a Master Degree in English from her own country and a CELTA. We both have 1 year of experience teaching in Russia(all ages and levels) and we are currently doing our second year in Vietnam(university position, Academic English).
What are our chances to land a good job in Shenzhen or Zhuhai?
By which I mean:
12000 RMB minimum
accommodation provided
around 25 hours per week
flights
summer holidays(too much? I have heard about jobs with up to 4 months of paid vacation)
and most importantly, a Z visa
Ideally we would like to start in August.
Thanks for your honest answers. |
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baki
Joined: 29 Dec 2010
Posts: 72
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| Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 11:38 pm Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Jeff19 wrote: |
Hello, I'm Italian, I hold a degree in English from the UK and a CELTA. My girlfriend is Croatian, she holds a Master Degree in English from her own country and a CELTA. We both have 1 year of experience teaching in Russia(all ages and levels) and we are currently doing our second year in Vietnam(university position, Academic English).
What are our chances to land a good job in Shenzhen or Zhuhai?
By which I mean:
12000 RMB minimum
accommodation provided
around 25 hours per week
flights
summer holidays(too much? I have heard about jobs with up to 4 months of paid vacation)
and most importantly, a Z visa
Ideally we would like to start in August.
Thanks for your honest answers. |
Law in China says native speakers only, so it will be tough. You could make some videos to demonstrate your ability as a teacher and use that to support your job application.
Is there no reason why you can't teach English in Italy or Croatia given your qualifications? You have the advantage of translating between languages there. |
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JB140767
Joined: 09 Aug 2015
Posts: 135
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:53 am Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Honest is best - sorry, but zero chance. The package you describe would be a pretty good starter for a native speaker, and China does really want the natives. The qualifications are, sad to say, of secondary importance to the passport. You might find a gig in a training centre teaching English, but they do not provide long holidays / flights / accom (generally). There are gigs with 4 months or more holidays you describe (I currently have 6) but, pretty much only open to qualified, experienced English native passport country holders |
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jimpellow
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 913
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:05 am Post subject: |
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Hmm...I would agree with the previous posters that new regulations have dictated to only approve of teachers from native speaking countries. There are certainly teachers in China who are not from this list, usually illegally and not a recommended path to take.
However, in the ever changing landscape, there has been official talk of lightening the native speaking requirement in certain provinces to help fill demand. The teachers need to be able to prove a high level of proficiency which you should be able to meet. I would bet Zhuhai would be a better bet than Shenzhen on this exception.
I may be wrong, but I would think it would limit you to areas and positions that would not satisfy either of you. It's an area right now that is rather grey, and I don't think I would personally want to wade through it all. |
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Jeff19
Joined: 23 Jun 2015
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 6:36 am Post subject: |
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Thanks for your answers. Could you please provide a link where I can find a clear, straightforward statement about the legal requirements needed to obtain a Z visa?
According to this recent article: ...Having said that, many firms and public organizations (universities, for instance) are accredited to employ foreigners and can help you get a work VISA as long as you qualify as a “foreign expert.”
Depending on the field, you may need to prove you have English as first language and hold a Bachelor’s Degree (if you want to teach English) or provide a Ph.D. degree (if, for instance, you want to become a university professor).
http://www.saporedicina.com/english/chinese-visa-application/#chinese-visa-5
So, as I understand, as long as you prove your native-like level of English you should be able to qualify as a foreign expert and therefore obtain a Z visa. |
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jimpellow
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 913
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Jeff19 wrote: |
Thanks for your answers. Could you please provide a link where I can find a clear, straightforward statement about the legal requirements needed to obtain a Z visa?
According to this recent article: [i]...Having said that, many firms and public organizations (universities, for instance) are accredited to employ foreigners and can help you get a work VISA as long as you qualify as a “foreign expert.”
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I really don't think a clear. straightforward statement exists.
China does not share the majority of its laws and regulations with the public. Further, their implementation concerning work visas is handled by different departments which interpret vague wording such as "should" differently and can have conflicting agendas. As the rules and regulations slowly work their way outwards from Beijing in haphazard fashion they are further interpreted differently at provincial and local levels.
China did a major overhaul in 2013-2014 and that has still not been fully implemented everywhere. Now they are attempting to streamline the process on a national level. Mid last year they rolled out the visa-on-arrival pilot program. More recently. this pilot program has been merged or is being replaced with the A-B-C pilot program.
It is at present a very confusing and cumbersome process for the Z-visa applicant. I personally do not feel it is worth the time, frustration and monetary expense to obtain one.
Probably the best sites to find accurate and timely information about these matters revolves around immigration law such as Law and Border and China Briefing. I would also google the subject with a time frame of the last few months and see if you can get some kind of consensus.
Best of luck! |
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Non Sequitur
Joined: 23 May 2010
Posts: 4724
Location: China
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| Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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I think staying with the tried and true is the best way through the current morass.
Check that offering school has right to employ.
Get offer letter from school and complete home country medical.
Send Z visa application, passport and supporting docs to Embassy or Consulate.
Get Z visa in passport and then arrange travel.
I know some of the 'relaxed' procedures sound attractive but months on we don't see any definitive process.
My China motto' 'look for the least-downside option in all things'.
Best |
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Markness
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 738
Location: Chengdu
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 10:52 am Post subject: |
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Your chances of getting a job are probably good, but, I don't want to sound like a dick, but it will not be desirable employment. Loads of non-natives though working at training schools on business visas and all of that jazz, the school doesn't mind because they never need to increase the RMB/hour that they pay teachers, even though the cost of tuition always seems to, and same goes for the cost of living. The effect of the Mexicans working for cheap/illegally is very similar here in China. I don't care though, as long as they stay away from where I work because I always end up working with non-natives who have an axe to grind in the sense they need to prove that they are just as capable as native teachers which they end up narcing out/throwing native teachers under the bus (which I've seen numerous times) so that they can justify their existence. My best buddy is from Holland, but there are tons of people who are not from the Big 5.. or is it 6? Native speaking countries who are really insecure.
"I've lived in England for 3+ years, everyone understand me perfectly fine" - Yuri, also known as Douglas the American teacher at Happy English training school.
I've stopped working extra because the 100-150/HR has been the same forever in Chengdu for training schools. Privates have tons of these sorts of shenanigans as well, plus you need to deal with the parents. Just stay working in Vietnam (if I read your post correctly), China will take you, make you enjoy life here in some very strange/mysterious way, and give very little to offer you back and the effect of this is stagnant wages. They take advantage of non-natives and it is crippling the market honestly. If there was still that bounty where you could report people like how they had it in Beijing who were working here illegally i'd be all over it. |
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Jeff19
Joined: 23 Jun 2015
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:27 pm Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| JB140767 wrote: |
| There are gigs with 4 months or more holidays you describe (I currently have 6) but, pretty much only open to qualified, experienced English native passport country holders |
What kind of gigs? Is it international schools only or public schools as well?
Just to clarify, for everyone who posted: I have no intention to end up in a shitty job and work illegaly, so either I'll manage to find what I want or I will not move there. |
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plumpy nut
Joined: 12 Mar 2011
Posts: 1652
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 1:15 am Post subject: |
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| 12000 Ringit is a lot of money for a non-native speaker. I doubt very seriously if you would make anything close to that. I'm a native speaker with a Master's degree and I don't make that much. |
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plumpy nut
Joined: 12 Mar 2011
Posts: 1652
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 1:16 am Post subject: |
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| 12000 Ringit is a lot of money for a non-native speaker. I doubt very seriously if you would make anything close to that. I'm a native speaker with a Master's degree and I don't make that much. |
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Markness
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 738
Location: Chengdu
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:49 am Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Jeff19 wrote: |
| JB140767 wrote: |
| There are gigs with 4 months or more holidays you describe (I currently have 6) but, pretty much only open to qualified, experienced English native passport country holders |
What kind of gigs? Is it international schools only or public schools as well?
Just to clarify, for everyone who posted: I have no intention to end up in a shitty job and work illegaly, so either I'll manage to find what I want or I will not move there. |
They will hire you anywhere, the thing is is that you will not be paid as much as a native-speaker. Training schools pay probably nearly the same for native and non-native, but the better places like public schools and "international" ones do all contract negotiations privately. I work with a dude who is a native English speaker from the UK who is on an old contract and has been with my school for 12+ years, and I make the same amount of money as him because I negotiated well. The non-native girl at my school with the axe to grind makes less money than me, teaches harder courses than me, and works more than I do.. that is what you are going to get. They will give you an offer a little lower than a native speaker but your responsibilities may be greater, and the power of the employer to boot you is much greater as they know your worth. You can definitely easily find employment, but instead of getting the full 100 percent of a native speaker's salary, you'll be getting 80 percent or so.
Remember, all the good places advertise 15-25k RMB per month lets say, but you don't know how much the native teacher will be getting, and they will say something like "well.. since you aren't a native English speaking teacher your contract salary range is from 10-20k RMB per month...". Lots of non-natives are cool with this though, but to be quite honest if you don't really care and are just interested in hustling/doing privates then you will be fine. My friend from Holland probably does 20-25 hours of privates a week and I still make a little more than him just coming in 3.5 mornings a week at my school.
Final note: tier 1 cities will be much more competitive/strict, tier 2 is less competitive/less strict, and I am guessing you can see a pattern here. You can definitely live fine here, as many non-natives do, but the Chinese employer will always try to take advantage of your non-native status. If you don't like that then there is always some desperate dude from the eastern block or the African continent who will take your place.
So, what can we gather from this? You can work anywhere, it is just a question of whether or not you'll feel it is worth it. If you got certain skills such as being able to do IB/VCE/AP/TOEFL/IELTS etc. then you'll be way ahead of most folk, even native speakers. If you can do any of those then sell that and look for places that are in desperate need of people who can do this. I am not going to even put my kid in an International school here as it is quite well known that the teachers at International schools here in Chengdu hire loads of Indians/Filipinos/Greeks to save quite a bit of RMB, and that is the thing that plagues the Chinese education system. If they told me "Hey, your English literature degree makes you no longer qualified to work in China", I'd tell them "Okay", and go back to school for a year and get my teaching licence, if you have certain skills that others do not possess then you'll be way ahead with 90+ percent of the teachers here (and will lead you to be able to find an actual good job). |
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Jmbf
Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 663
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 10:05 am Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Markness wrote: |
| My friend from Holland probably does 20-25 hours of privates a week and I still make a little more than him just coming in 3.5 mornings a week at my school. |
Ouch! That's not good. How much is your Dutch friend charging per hour? |
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Jeff19
Joined: 23 Jun 2015
Posts: 24
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 1:34 pm Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Markness wrote: |
| Jeff19 wrote: |
| JB140767 wrote: |
| There are gigs with 4 months or more holidays you describe (I currently have 6) but, pretty much only open to qualified, experienced English native passport country holders |
What kind of gigs? Is it international schools only or public schools as well?
Just to clarify, for everyone who posted: I have no intention to end up in a shitty job and work illegaly, so either I'll manage to find what I want or I will not move there. |
They will hire you anywhere, the thing is is that you will not be paid as much as a native-speaker. Training schools pay probably nearly the same for native and non-native, but the better places like public schools and "international" ones do all contract negotiations privately. I work with a dude who is a native English speaker from the UK who is on an old contract and has been with my school for 12+ years, and I make the same amount of money as him because I negotiated well. The non-native girl at my school with the axe to grind makes less money than me, teaches harder courses than me, and works more than I do.. that is what you are going to get. They will give you an offer a little lower than a native speaker but your responsibilities may be greater, and the power of the employer to boot you is much greater as they know your worth. You can definitely easily find employment, but instead of getting the full 100 percent of a native speaker's salary, you'll be getting 80 percent or so.
Remember, all the good places advertise 15-25k RMB per month lets say, but you don't know how much the native teacher will be getting, and they will say something like "well.. since you aren't a native English speaking teacher your contract salary range is from 10-20k RMB per month...". Lots of non-natives are cool with this though, but to be quite honest if you don't really care and are just interested in hustling/doing privates then you will be fine. My friend from Holland probably does 20-25 hours of privates a week and I still make a little more than him just coming in 3.5 mornings a week at my school.
Final note: tier 1 cities will be much more competitive/strict, tier 2 is less competitive/less strict, and I am guessing you can see a pattern here. You can definitely live fine here, as many non-natives do, but the Chinese employer will always try to take advantage of your non-native status. If you don't like that then there is always some desperate dude from the eastern block or the African continent who will take your place.
So, what can we gather from this? You can work anywhere, it is just a question of whether or not you'll feel it is worth it. If you got certain skills such as being able to do IB/VCE/AP/TOEFL/IELTS etc. then you'll be way ahead of most folk, even native speakers. If you can do any of those then sell that and look for places that are in desperate need of people who can do this. I am not going to even put my kid in an International school here as it is quite well known that the teachers at International schools here in Chengdu hire loads of Indians/Filipinos/Greeks to save quite a bit of RMB, and that is the thing that plagues the Chinese education system. If they told me "Hey, your English literature degree makes you no longer qualified to work in China", I'd tell them "Okay", and go back to school for a year and get my teaching licence, if you have certain skills that others do not possess then you'll be way ahead with 90+ percent of the teachers here (and will lead you to be able to find an actual good job). |
Thank you for this detailed answer, I appreciate it.
Would EAP and Business English be considered as special skills?
Also, is teaching English Literature a possibility? I would love that. |
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Markness
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 738
Location: Chengdu
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| Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:32 pm Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Jmbf wrote: |
| Markness wrote: |
| My friend from Holland probably does 20-25 hours of privates a week and I still make a little more than him just coming in 3.5 mornings a week at my school. |
Ouch! That's not good. How much is your Dutch friend charging per hour? |
It depends, sometimes he will roll up to a place like EF, teach 3 hours in a row and come out 400RMB richer, so about 133RMB/hr there, and then the odd other training school at like 150 an hour, but his hours are all over the place. Also, he has a couple of decent classes that will have like two or three students and he'll get 400 RMB for that class, but it may only be like twice a month.
I had come so close to having two classes that would pay 1000 an hour, 200 rmb a kid x 5 kids per class. What had caused the fallout was that there was one kid in each class that all of the sudden went abroad, and then the others decided that they want their kids to focus more on math or piano or some other crap so it didn't go through, I am guessing though that were are some people who can really rake it in with the privates, but if one wanted consistent private money they'd work at training schools (bad pay) or tutor (inconsistent students/cancelations). There is an American dude I know who is doing that right now but he works pretty much everyday and does it all the time, and all of that just to get like 25,000RMB a month is not that worth it IMO. He works 12 hour days doing that. If people come to me I charge 300/HR for 1 on 1s, but I prefer group classes. TBH I hate tutoring because of all the shenanigans you deal with. I've become Chinese in the sense that I am just investing with the money I have. It is much easier than dealing with little runts. |
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