Job Discussion Forums

[Itsme]

I was wondering if anyone knew of a good way of researching different schools in China? A friend shared the following website with me.

www.chinaschoolreview.com

Its a good idea but it looks pretty new and has little info within the site.
There are always people who dislike and others who like a certain organization but I think that if things were a bit more organized, readers would have a better idea of what to watch out for.

[randyj]

It's hard to beat recommendations from current or former teachers. Reputable schools happily provide contacts, and most teachers are glad to share experiences. Subjectivity comes into play, as you said, but often a person can read between the lines.

[NateM]

As the author listed at the top, I'll admit that there needs to be more info. However, the site is growing at a reasonably quick pace. Within a year or so I'm guessing we'll probably have a pretty good resource over at www.ChinaSchoolReview.com, and even now there is a fair amount of content, just not a comprehensive amount.

That said, personally I'd take randyj's advice and contact teachers at the school you're looking at. If the school isn't willing to provide any, that's usually a pretty good sign that you don't want to be there.

There are a couple of other places to check for specific information on schools. TEFLChina.org's mentor list is a pretty good resource, although if emails go dead, then so does any information you may have been able to find out. You can also try looking for information through the Job Information Journal here at Dave's, or through www.EnglishSchoolWatch.org . However, in my experience, trying to find information on specific schools at either of those places is next to impossible, as they're only organized in the order in which they were posted, which is precisely why I started up www.ChinaSchoolReview.com about 3 or 4 months ago.

Right now there's kind of a dearth of specific information on Chinese Schools, which is compounded by the fact that the environment in China changes pretty rapidly. There isn't any end-all-be-all resource out there, yet. Hopefully, people will continue to post at my site and others, and in the future this won't be as big a problem.