Job Discussion Forums

lebsam11 · Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Posts: 4 Location: Washington, DC

I was wondering if anyone could explain something to me. I keep seeing all these posts for jobs in China on this site and other places that are in perfect english. Thinking that these schools or organizations might be run by english educators who actually speak english, I often send email inquiries and much to my surprise, get responses in TERRIBLE, broken and grammatically incorrect attempts at english. So what I don't get is: Who is writing the original job posts if not the people I am emailing. Are these schools hiring agencies with good english speakers to make ads for them? I'm just kind of confused because I really don't feel comfortable dealing with schools where I can't even comprehend the initial response I get.

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

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

the school often asks a laowai at the school to write their advert

Teatime of Soul · Joined: 12 Apr 2007 Posts: 905

I would agree with the above poster.

The staff likely does not have a native English speaker, but they have one proof their ads; but not daily routine correspondence.

I can entirely understand how this situation exists.

If your biggest concern about a prospective employer turns out to be only the level of English used in correspondence, then you have a rare find indeed.

I have found problems regarding the meaning of words. I was told an apartment would be "fully furnished", upon inspection, every room was absolutely bare. I was then told that "fully furnished" meant "cleaned, painted and empty" when translated into Chinese. Wink

The devil is in the details.

Good luck.

stillnosheep · Joined: 01 Mar 2004 Posts: 2068 Location: eslcafe

bradley · Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 235 Location: China

If I'm in the office doing some paperwork and some correspondence is necessary the staff will ask me for help. If I'm not around I have no idea what or how they reply.........

xiong20 · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 3:10 pm Post subject:

I accepted my first job in China after receiving good "sounding" e-mails from the female owner of a small school in Shunde,Guangdong province.In
conversations with a male Brit teacher who taught at the same small school sometime after arrival, it came to light that he was she of the e-mails.No matter as all worked out fine except I had to share an apartment and I had specifically asked not to.Oh, and guess who I had to share with.....
The owner later explained her English vocabulary was limited and thought it better if a native English speaker "talks" to a native speaker. She was married, a great boss, and ran a great small school but didn't qualify to get us Z visas so I had to leave......got worried teaching on an L.