Job Discussion Forums

NorthofAmerica · Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 187 Location: Recovering Expat

Of course since you are applying for an ENGLISH TEACHING JOB you'd think you wanna write to the best of your abilities BUT what about when applying to a contact whose name is clearly that of a local? My cover letter uses some pretty tough English in describing things and tricky sentence structure to accomodate all the info I want in there. It would be nothing of a concern if I was sending it to a native English speaker but what about a Chinese HR person?

Is it possible that a cover letter could be TOO well written? Or at least too difficult to understand? Anybody have any ideas or experiences with this?

GoPies · Joined: 19 Sep 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Melbourne

Tough question - it depends if the school authorities wanna employ a teacher who employs the word wanna.

Hansen · Joined: 13 Oct 2008 Posts: 737 Location: central China

If you must use tricky sentence constructs and "tough English," you might want to take some English writing classes yourself.

Try short sentences with a single idea in each sentence. You are not applying to a security agency.

Sonnibarger · Joined: 15 May 2007 Posts: 320 Location: Wuhan

simple and direct is always the best... unless there is a new pulitzer prize for cover letters i am unaware of...

vikuk · Joined: 23 May 2007 Posts: 1842

Some places seem to be impressed if you can cover a piece of paper with letters Idea

Whatever you write - you often get the impression that nobody reads it (or at least what you wrote never fully sinks in) - all they're after is - your Email, telephone number - and evidence you're white and not too ugly.

mgafunnell · Joined: 29 Jun 2007 Posts: 89

the cover letter is merely a bonus. native speaker plus tesol and no experience is enough here

Itsme · Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 624 Location: Houston, TX

on one extreme, don't try and come across as the head of the federal reserve. It takes 10 translators to find the meaning in that.
on the other end of the extreme, try not to come across as a good percentage of the drive-by posters on here with their "hi Im coming to china any tips?"

daveups · Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:32 pm Post subject:

Perhaps its' a good idea to write up something that makes absolutely no sense and is highly offensive. Then if you get called for an interview, you can write that school off as they obviously haven't read what you've written.

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

I agree that the cover letter is just a bonus. The first thing they will check is if you have earned a degree and then will check teaching experience.

therock · Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 1266 Location: China

I don't think it is actually necessary to write a cover letter. Just send your resume with an email and that's it.

Ariadne · Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Posts: 960

therock..
Wouldn't your email actually be the cover letter? Short and sweet, I'm applying for such and such job and it would be an honor to work for your
fine institution.

.

AlexB · Joined: 06 Jan 2008 Posts: 28

Well having just sent off a few resumes, the ones that responded have all asked me if I can send them the information that was in my cover letter. I think I can safely assume that it wasn't read.

NorthofAmerica · Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 187 Location: Recovering Expat

haha, well my cover letter was my email. I just wanted to talk about things that I've done that aren't readily apparent in my resume and worried about them getting confused.

But I like my cover email/letter Crying or Very sad

i hope someone reads it

NorthofAmerica · Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 187 Location: Recovering Expat

Just got my first response.... with questions that clearly suggest that my email was not read at all. And English syntax that suggests it wouldn't have mattered either way.

So my lesson from this is have a nice cover email/letter just in case, but don't stress. thanx