Job Discussion Forums

[Lee_Marrero]

I never understood why I earned so much money while I was in Korea. I (American) earned 2.5 million won per month, the Canadian girl earned 2.0 million won and the guy from New Zealand earned 1.7 million won. We all had BAs in whatever, each of us was 26 yrs old, all of normal weight and attractive. The school owner bought me a cell phone and foot the bill while the other 2 teachers needed to fend for themselves. I was spoiled with breakfast from the owners wife while the other teachers just got a "Anhyung Haseyo" (good morning). I see this as an epidemic in Asia. Where inequality is the way of life. I am sure it has something to do with every asian (Korean, Chinese, Japanese) is dying to send their kids to the US to study and maybe one day emigrate. While there are substantial numbers of Asians living in Canada and even Australia the vast majority with family oveseas is in the US. My bf who is Vietnamese-Australian told me that other than go to America most Vietnamese would prefer not to leave the soometimes poor conditions they live in. Having been to both Canada and Australia and finding them both attractive, livable places I asked why not to Toronto or Sydney, his reply was quick those are second and third choices.

[Glenski]

I'm really confused about your message and the subject line. It seems that you are getting a better deal in your job than the other two people, but how can you state in your subject line that "Americans earn 25% more than others on average"?

Yours is a sample size of one. While I admit you seem to have a better deal, you never even mentioned other Americans and their situations.

[Wolf]

In every job I ever worked in Japan (5 separate companies that come to mind,) and at every place I ever interviewed for (quite a few more) the standard salry was somewhere between 250 000 - 280 000. It didn't matter if you were
Canadian/Austrailian/NewZealander/English/Scottis/Welsh/American, the salry would be the same (other nationalities might have trouble getting hired, but I knew a few that taought EFL and made the same salry.

In China, at the public unis anyway, the rate is pretty standard no matter where you come fromm (they'll discriminate by not hiring you, not by giving you a lower salry.) The big chain schools seem to pay standard rates as well.

These are just from my personal experience. I've heard of Turks, Indians, etc taking jobs in Korea for lower than average pay, but from what I understand many Hogwans are not acceptedly normal places to work, even by EFL standards.

[Capergirl]

@American Supremist Lee...The truth of the matter is that if a school/company in Korea wants you, there is almost always room for bartering on a contract. Some people accept the contract as is...others negotiate a better contract. My ex-bf and I were making more money than other teachers at our company because we asked for more. Some teachers had more vacation time than we had. Why? They asked for it, pure and simple. I don't think nationality enters into the equation at all. As for your gargantuan ego, well...I hope they paid you extra for that.

@Sunaru...I nearly shot juice out my nose while reading your post.

[MonkeyKing]

I saw this when I worked in Korea too, though. There was blatant favouritism towards North Americans at my Hagwan, all the kind of stuff Lee mentioned...paid more, more perks etc. I, as a Brit, was even told I should speak in an American accent in class, because the mothers would complain otherwise (yeah right, like they would notice). Funny thing was, the Americans also had a reputation amongst the Korean staff as the biggest complainers and most difficult to deal with...though it seemed to get them what they wanted!
There is a kind of caste system for foreigners in Korea (in terms of desirability) that goes something like this: American, Canadian, British, Aussie, Kiwi, South African. Haven't noticed it in China so much, though they cant really afford to be fussy there yet...

[Corey]

Ahhhh........

Finally ahead of the Brits. Bliss.

[scot47]

Where I am, they pay Yanks the same as Brits. Even Irish and Canucks get the same !!!!!!

[Cobra]

At my uni they refuse to hire cans, Americans, Puertoricans, Africans.

[Corey]

[ESLteacher]

tt

[Capergirl]

I have to wonder why different places would desire specific nationalities, if we are to believe that this is the case. My Arabic students told me that they had only had Canadian teachers at their school in the UAE...does that mean "Canadian English" is preferred in the UAE? My Chinese students and African students had all studied with British teachers. Is "British English" the preference in some countries? Perhaps it is. I didn't find that they could tell the difference in Korea and Taiwan. I had a friend from South Africa in Taiwan and my students thought she was Canadian until I told them otherwise. Similarly, one of the Taiwanese teachers had lived in Australia and spoke with an Aussie accent, but the students thought she had an "American" accent. Go figure. So what are schools basing their preferences on? It can't be pronunciation because they don't seem to be able to distinguish one accent from another. Terminology? British English and American English have different words for the same things (i.e. "full stop" and "period"), but not enough to make a huge difference in the grand scheme of language learning. I'm sure that if I were to study Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan for a few years and then go to Beijing and speak to someone on the street in my newly-acquired Mandarin, they'd probably have some difficulty understanding my dialect. It wouldn't be exactly the same. Nonetheless, I'd be speaking Chinese and I'd be able to get my point across.

It seems as though Lee's point in making this thread (and I could be wrong, this is just my interpretation) is that Americans are more valued in non-English speaking countries insofar as teaching EFL. However, I personally haven't seen any evidence to that effect.

[Roger]

China's preference for American English is rooted in the fact that this country switched from Russian as a foreign language to English as a foreign language way back at the end of the 1970's.
american universities were allowed to enter into cooperative agreements with Chinese counterparts. Note that this was at the height of the Cold War. A highly political decision.
china probably was trying to get some rewards from its American rival in exchange for allowing American teachers to rub shoulders with their Chinese collegues.
my first employer was a provincial college that had been allowed back in 1979 to hire US teachers. They would be supplied by the american partner university, but over time, expats from other places would be hired too, perhaps with a view of becoming less dependent on one source of teachers. The Chinese side supplied their own teachers for training in the USA, but it can safely be said they did not get "brainwashed" by the American side.
But an unwholesome preference for things American has remained, and you can see that in education goals and policies as well as in the linguistics literature translated from English into Chinese. The idea that English majors need oral practice seems to me to be an US import as are English Corners and the idea that Chinese teach grammar and expats merely train students in oral production.
My first employer also had subscriptions to American magazines not readily available to the rank and file of Chinese; our students were expected to study the CHINA DAILY; when I asked for some more attractive reading stuff fort my own pleasure I was shown into a small locked room and given the permission to help myself to any copy of NATIOnAL GEoGRAPHIC magazines.

To illustrate how deeply-ingrained this pro-American bias can be, let me tell you that i occasionally hear Chinese English speakers lecture me that "American English is the best English...".

to some extent, this naivete is understandable - Chinese hardly know Britain or Europe; all they know is that there are millions of rich Chinese Americans. they have no clue as to how many immigrants Britain has, nor that England is attracting evert more intelligent young learners from all over the world.

[Wolf]

In Japan some prefer British, some prefer USian. None can tell the difference. In three years I never had a student properly identify me by my accent (the often wouldn't even guess USian, which is an understandable answer. I most often got Austrialian. ) I mean, you could take a Klingon with good EFL qualifications and a decent grip of the langauge and a) they'd never know and b) what difference would it make? A good teacher is a good teacher - no one place has a monopoly on that.

In China no one (exept an Austrialian I met one day) has identified me by my accent (one guy did say that I was either Canadian or Austrailian by my accent. So I guess Amercians and New Zealanders must sound alike as well .)

My Chinese students insist that the further one diverges from a USian accent, the "less pure" their English is. But there are a lot of job openings and not enough teachers, so for the time being anyway some areas will have to put their high horses on the back burner, if I may mix metaphors.

[scot47]

In the former Soviet union British English (i.e. "RP") was the standard. the same applied to other countries in the socialist bloc. As for the PRC, the USA had no diplomatic ties with that country until Nixon. Throughout the 1950's and 1960's the Britsish had diplomatic represenattion in Beijing.

And I recollectin the the mid-sixties a campaign to recruit British students and teachers to go and work in the PRC as English teachers.

[Wolf]