Job Discussion Forums

NGP · Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 14 Location: Planet Earth

Hello,

In a previous post i mentioned that I will be coming to China with my girlfriend. We will be in there in March 2005.

What would you recommend to be the best way about applying for jobs? For example should we start applying now for March next year? Apply together or separate? Is that a good time to apply?

She has a degree which I dont, but I have 1 and a half years experience teaching in Japan. She is Japanese also with high level fluency in English. 800 + TOEIC.
We are looking to teach Children in Shanghai, preferably. Am I dreaming?

Cheers

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

March is off season, man, the term ends at the end of June. Your chances are best with training centres. They might take both of you. I wouldn't apply separately if I was you.

Spiderman Too · Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 10:17 am Post subject:

At 'my' university, a government university, the new term begins on February 21; I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of schools will begin a new term on February 21 or February 28.

At the beginning of the current term, that is September 13, there were a handful of schools that continued to advertise for foreign teachers for up to 4 weeks.

The job market in China for non-Caucasian foreign teachers of English is limited; I would guess no greater than 25% of schools will accept an Asian-looking, native speaker of English (as in Asian-American). I would guess that figure would be halved for Asian-looking non-native speakers of English (as in Indians & Filipinos).

On top of that, there is still a lot of strong anti-Japanese sentiment in China (especially this week re; 'The Nanjing Massacre').

Personally (and I'm no expert), I think the chances of your girlfriend securing a job as an English teacher, even in a kindergarten, are pretty slim. Whatever chances she does have are most likely to be in Beijing and Shanghai.

NGP · Joined: 14 May 2004 Posts: 14 Location: Planet Earth

Thanks for that. Back to the drawing board.

7969 · Joined: 26 Mar 2003 Posts: 5782 Location: Coastal Guangdong

make srue to come a bit earlier. i worked in china last winter, and took a summer holiday back home. i delayed in looking for a new job beginning in september, and had a hard time finding something that suited me. in the end, i took a chance at this middle school, and i lucked out. coming in march is a bad idea. if you want to work in china next term plan to arrive in mid february. there are some japanese teachers here in my town, not sure if they're teaching japanese or english, but it is possible for your girlfriend to teach here. don't give up.

best of luck.

NateM · Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 358

I have noticed that while there is a very strong anti-Japanese sentiment here, (at an English corner they played a "Guess this word" game. The word: "Japanese", the girl who was describing the word says "Who do I hate?" to uproarious laughter in the crowd.), quite a few schools do look for people to teach Japanese here, so your girlfriend might be able to secure a job that way, although I'd hazard a guess that she'd be taking a lot of crap in class.