Job Discussion Forums

[marui]

Im a UK national currently working as a middle school teacher in Hangzhou, China - 2years experience (Business English, Mid-School, Teacher training -China, Primary School Teaching Assist-UK). My wife is native Chinese with a 4 year teaching degree & IELTS 7.0. Recently we got an offer for us both to teach in Korea (Me to teach English, her to teach Chinese/English) and were assured by the school in question that she would have no problems getting a work visa.

The Korean deal wasn't so bad...she would have her airfare paid for but she would only be paid 600,000 won a month compared to my 2,000,000 for a 25 hour week (twice as much as a normal teacher here in China though!).

This offer although badly timed (We're not free until October) got us both thinking about Korea and other places in Asia we could teach. So if anyone has any more information about teaching Chinese in Korea, Japan, Singapore or is now working in a similar situation with a Chinese spouse i'd be glad to here from you,

Thanks!

[ronin]

Well you should have married a Japanese woman, cause you could have lived and worked in awsome Japan but to late!

[herman]

Hong Kong and Singapore are possibilities.

Hong Kong is lagging behind in Mandarin and although I don't know the situation personally, I bet there is increasing demand (for many years to come) for Mandarin instruction. We're sort of notorious for being bad with languages so the demand is always there. Moreover, Hong Kong prefers English teachers from Commonwealth countries; UK nationals optimal.

As to Singapore I don't know enough, but it's one place where both English and Mandarin are important languages and your wife might be better received there than in, say, Taiwan. But I don't know how high the demand or competition in the Singaporean market is.

You probably know these facts already but there's my two cents about HK as a HK Chinese American who has looked into teaching in HK.