Job Discussion Forums

[bradley]

Quite a few teachers live off campus at Shenzhen University but I live on campus and they are not so strict.

[7969]

[Hoop]

I'd rather filter my results through people who have more experience with what sites can throw up dodgier adverts that others first if possible.

[7969]

there's plenty of stuff in the archives here. have a look around.

for google, "china" + "tefl" are good search criteria for finding jobs.

[El Macho]

Pick some cities you might like to live in. Google for universities in the city, then look on their websites for either an "employment" section or just an email address.

Many of the jobs you'll find advertised online will be from language mills, or uni jobs through a recruiter. Go direct.

You can also go on chinabloglist.org to look for blogs of people teaching in areas you're interested in & get in touch with them.

[Basilm87]

How hard is it to teach at a random uni compared to a random lang mill would you say?
As in, what is 'needed' from the teacher compared to babysit some whiny kids?

[bradley]

At a language school you probably won't need to prepare much. They will have a lot of materials for you to use. I'm not commenting on whether they are good or not. However, at a university you will probably have to spend a lot more time preparing. You may not even have to use a book.

[Hoop]

[TapRed]

There is no reason for anyone to be teaching in China with valid certifications while so many other nations value education and are willing to pay for it while treatign their teachers like human beings.

China video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkMcj4vQtRU

[Hoop]

TapRed, you need to go to a hypnotist or something and get your China memories erased. You're going to go insane otherwise.

[evaforsure]

this is what put him over the edge...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHwLQRpk6r8

[Tainan]

Hoop,

I don't know whether you've made a decision--it's been almost two months since the last post here--but as I lived in Dalian for two years I thought I would put my two cents in. All Chinese people when you mention Dalian will say it is a beautiful city. It is, to some extent: it has a number of squares with grass, it has a beach, it has clean skies. People are relaxed and pretty polite. Having said that it is an extremely boring place to live. There is almost no culture at all, and architecturally it is one of the least traditional cities in China. I loved my job, which is why I stayed, but I often find myself wishing I had lived in some more "Chinese" place. Also, they have good dumplings but beyond that it is not the cuisine capital of the country at all.

It is ten hours overnight to Peking, so you can leave Friday night, wake up in the capital on Saturday morning, then have your weekend there before heading back to Dalian for work Monday morning (the train arrives in the station at around six so unless you start work very early that should be possible.)

One more thing about Dalian--do not take anything in the development zone. You'll be in the middle of nowhere.

I very strongly agree with everything El Macho says. I remember when I arrived in Taiwan I met a really irritating foreigner who, when I told him I had worked at a univ in China, looked incredulous and said "why would you do that? I heard they pay crap"--those were his exact words. Why are you going to China? If you want to devote most of your time and energy to a job, and see little more than your apartment and your workplace, why not stay home? The point of travelling is to travel, isn't it? A university job in China gives the vacations in which for you actually to see the country, which is the point of going, I think. I remember reading an ad for a language school job that actually said something like "We know that you are eager to travel and we encourage you to do so--after you complete your contract year with us." It turned out that the contract year included all of one week vacation. Now what's the point? And if (as with that job) it involves working six days a week and working various hours throughout the day, you're not going to be seeing or experiencing very much of the country at all, so why even go? And then these places wonder why teachers abandon them mid-contract......

Let us know what's new!

[Tainan]

I forgot to say something about certification. I taught for ten years before going through a four-week certification course. It was an extremely expensive one, which I was able to take for free because it was run by the school where I taught. I liked it and got a few good teaching ideas from it, but the idea that it does anything substantial to make someone a "qualified" teacher is absurd--I could not imagine myself paying lots of money for something like that. And yes, it would be totally superfluous in China.

One more thing about university teaching in China. At my univ. I had about 30 or more students in a class, and I taught each class only once a week, 90 minutes each time, for about ten weeks. Obviously, under these circumstances you are not the main one from whom they are going to get the bulk of their formal English training. Your role is to help them practice talking with a native speaker--bring in interesting (non-controversial!) topics of conversation, role-playing or other activities, articles to read and discuss; every now and then review grammar or pronunciation points that are needed (by the end of your year in China you'll be able to make in your sleep the speech about why it's not correct to say "I very like...")

Personally I think the whole certification thing is a) a way of reducing the pile of resumes in countries where there is an excess of would-be teachers and b) a convenient way for schools offering such certification to make money. (you can't work here with a cert, but you can get the cert from us for only five thousand....)