Job Discussion Forums

[miles davis]

Hey all,

I am currently working at a small art school in NH and will be going to grad school in the Fall for an MA in International Education. I would like more int'l experiance, and thought that it might be nice to check out a few quick options for the summer. I would like to learn Chinese and so, teaching English in China seems like a great idea. I've been doing a fair amount of research online and found only a little information on these programs:

UCE China $690 + 50 visa
ACT www.americachinateaching.org $540 visa incl
iEnglish www.i-english.us $150 app fee, $480 extra if you would like to tour after.

All include roundtrip airfare, room and board. 5 weeks.

I am trying to find the least "sketchiest" one.. I am a little skittish about send a relatively unknown company money and trust them with my time there. I DO need to get back for grad school!

Any help would be great, I've also checked out www.journeyeast.com, they are a little more expensive.

Thanks,
-Matt

[kev7161]

If you are paying them and they are providing RT airfare, basically you are paying for some/all of your airfare. Coming to China for a summer program is basically going to cost you some money. Whether you pay a recruiter or pick up the tab for your own airfare, you will be out of money. Some summer camps will pay you more than enough to cover that airfare, they will give you a place to stay, feed you in their school's canteen (or give you a modest meal stipend), and some even provide local tours. You'll work your butt off while here, but summer camps can be either GREAT experiences or VERY POOR experiences.

Basically, your time in China will be so brief that, even if you get stuck in a bad situation, you'll be going home soon. Signing a year's contract would be another story. Without knowing about any of the companies you listed, I'd say go with the least expensive one. Good luck and have fun!

[miles davis]

I was thinking kind of the same way. While I would love to have a wonderful experiance and not a poor one, I realize that I am just going down for a month or so. My chief concerns are safety and that I would get a flight home! Without much of a reputation, it makes a harder decision...

[struelle]

I'm a bit confused - are you getting paid to do the summer camp or are you paying them?

I've run across countless types of programs where applicants pay a *fee* to teach English in the summers! It's a quasi-volunteer arrangement and it does have its advantages. Heck, that's what kick-started my EFL career in China. At the same time, I have serious issues with these 'pay and teach' arrangements, not unlike what I'm going through right now with my student teacher practicum

Two things bug me about these 'pay and teach' programs. One is that employers can take advantage of a free labor source that competes with paid summer camp labor. But what really gets me is that the whole arrangement is based in the home country of whichever sponsor company is doing it. This is fine to get a taste of teaching overseas, but such dependencies don't work in the long-term.

People who go into these things tend to be idealistic and/or over-eager. It's not just working overseas, but in domestic student teacher programs as well. I've got colleagues who bend over backwards to do extra work and please their faculty advisors and sponsor teachers. This makes no sense, because they are paying money to work! If the sponsor teacher is away and a paid sub comes in, that sub will often chill out in the staff room and let the student teacher run the class. In some cases, they don't even call a sub!

But I digress. Hope the summer program works out well, and you get paid decent cash for it

Steve