Job Discussion Forums

China.Pete · Joined: 27 Apr 2006 Posts: 547

"I doubt if there's a university in China that would meet all of your criteria." - ESL Studies

Or even, I might add, most of them. OP, if the criteria you listed are really what you are looking for in a teaching job, China may NOT be for you.

"It only takes me a couple of months to sort out a new group of students to work with me a bit in class...I provide all my own material..." - Anda

I think Anda's experience is probably far more the typical of China than anything you might be familiar with in Thailand.

caius celestius · Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 89

william wallace · Joined: 14 May 2003 Posts: 2869 Location: in between

TW, very, very sorry to hear about that job going to that parasite, but it's the old cut off your nose...He/she'll end up loosing( ok, with me), but so will all of us Crying or Very sad

ozziaj · Joined: 23 Mar 2005 Posts: 18

Hi everyone � and many thanks to all!

But, wow! Looks like I opened up a can of worms, here!

For clarification:

No, I didn�t asked anyone to divulge any �secrets� or hand out �addresses, contacts and phone numbers from any personal adress books� � Just a bit of help and proper advice would have been fine.

Further, perhaps I�m mistaken, but somehow I thought boards like this are there for SHARING information � good as well as bad. Certainly, I didn�t think that any knowledge/experiences of �good� teaching faculties are so precious that the "seasoned" China FT�s feel the need to keep their (hopefully great) places of employment a SECRET! Geez, seems like working in China is soooo fraught with hardship that those that have managed to find a half decent place of employment feel the need to hide those facts behind a wall of secrecy.

Someone here mentioned the word "Competition". Now then, competition is all well and good, but sharing - particularly on a board such as this - is just as beneficial. After all, true competition starts at work, and it only takes a couple of weeks to find out if someone CAN do the job well, or CANNOT. And as always, those that are simply incompetent will loose their job rather sooner or later one way or the other - no matter what country they go to. So what's the apparent paranoia?

Having a team of competent teachers is a bonus to us all - since we can only benefit from working with equals.

Anyway, going by some of the replies here, it seems to me that those �seasoned China hands� prefer new FT�s to end up in bad schools � never mind the issues � and then let those FT�s plaster this board with complaints about bad schools/faculties and how bad it might be teaching in China.

Instead, perhaps, wouldn�t it be better by those that "are in the know" to simply state the known obvious? Like: ABC-uni is known to be suspect for this or that reason, or XYZ-uni has been known to be pretty decent because 1, 2, 3, and so on. The rest is there to be found out - but at least one has a starting point!

Certainly that�s how it works on similar boards related to teaching in Thailand, Japan, South Korea or some of the Middle Eastern countries.

No paranoia there!

So, if I�m supposed to go by some of the comments made in this thread, it seems that some of those �seasoned China hands� seem to prefer reading about new China FT�s running into trouble and experience the bad or perhaps even the worst. Wouldn�t it be better to share known issues? Or is that too much to ask? What�s with all this stone walling?

Oh, I see, the more FT�s leave China in disgust and spread nasty rumours, whether true or not, the more is left for said �seasoned China hands� to choose from next time they might feel an inkling to change locals. Is that it?

What are some commentators here afraid of? Competition? Uh-huh, are we so insecure? Or perhaps lacking a bit in the "quality" department?

Lastly:

As I have stated fairly clearly, my questions were loosely based. If I had gone into great detail and length, I certainly would have been guilty to take the easy route, asking for addresses and so on. The obvious reason that I have not been specific, was that I simply asked for directions and unis/schools that are well known to be avoided. And yes, I did search this forum rather extensively. It's actually rather cheap, as some commentators did, to simply accuse an OP not to have done his/her research prior to posting!

And yes, of course, for every complaint there is always someone who claims his/her uni/school is God's gift to a teacher/lecturer (not counting the usually obvious 'plants'). However, equally, most of the time when complaints are received about a certain uni/school (or about a certain teacher/lecturer, for that matter) than that's a good indication of something being rather odd - if not downright suspect - about that particular uni/school (or teacher/lecturer). Hence it might be a sensible idea to let others know about it, rather then let them walk blindly into a possible "house of horrors" - whether in China or anywhere else.

Anyway, thanks again for all comments - this thread has certainly been interesting reading and opened a whole new slant on "teaching in China" - at least for this chappie.

vikuk · Joined: 23 May 2007 Posts: 1842

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

jwbhomer · Joined: 14 Dec 2003 Posts: 876 Location: CANADA

A lot of FTs holding themselves out as ESL/EFL teachers seem to have problems with their spelling.

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

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

caius celestius · Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 89

The OP asked whether there are GOOD employers here (in essence) but the point is that the whole system gfavours mediocrity over meritocracy. Few laowai teachers have risen to more lucrative and prestigious positions. It also should be borne in mind that you are but a temp and you have to fill a losely-defined slot; nobody really takes the teaching of a foreign language seriously.

Ahchoo · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 606 Location: Earth

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

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

. . . and I knew it, thus I made no comment Smile

China.Pete · Joined: 27 Apr 2006 Posts: 547

"(T)hose that are simply incompetent will loose their job rather sooner or later one way or the other - no matter what country they go to." - Ozziaj

And that's where I think you're missing the whole point of many of the posters here, OP. You seem to feel there's some universal cultural rule at work here, but there isn't - at least not in China. I daresay that more teachers have gotten into trouble for trying to do a good job than for being incompetant sacks of s**t. The reason that "competition" is such an issue for TW and other FTs in China is not that you'd come here and beat us out of a job, but that you could come here thinking the criteria you've listed are what really matters to your school and end up losing YOUR job. That's what happened to TW. Do you seriously believe that TW thinks his teaching is inferior to "The Hippie's?" Of course not. But that's just who's going to be doing HIS job next semester. Once that happens, you've no choice but to move on.