Job Discussion Forums

[brsmith15]

I did something I've only done once before in my 40+ years of teaching -- I walked out on a coming assignment to teach marketing at SISU and their version of the British HIgher National Diploma (HND) system. Here were my reasons:

1. The pay was abysmal: One half of what I made when I came here in 1999 and one-fifth (!) of what my last position paid before I retried.
2. There was no place for teachers to work and I like to get to schools about an hour before class and do some prep work.
3. The classrooms looked like something that was hit by an RPG and there was no a/c.
4. The textbook was not only infantile and merely a copy of several US books, but it left out a very key element of marketing -- marketing reseach. Not even a mention of it.
5. The HND program is a joke; mountains of paperwork and forms requiring hundreds of hours of time to complete and all that's accomplished is to give some guy in the UK a raft of paper to be filed away never to be seen again. Lawyers say of meaningless documents that they're "form over substance." I've said for years that the more you restrict people, the less productive and creative they are.

If anyone would like to see my letter to the school, just PM me with your email address and I'll send it along.

[The Revealer]

I agree BR Smith.

Xianda College/SISU's HND program is a joke. I worked there a few years ago as their sole Oral English "teacher". It wasn't a bad job, but, the admission standards are low. Basically - if you pay the tuition you're accepted.

I had students who didn't understand "How are you?". When I tossed in "today", 90% of the kids had no clue what I just said. Bear in mind, most Chinese kids have "English" classes for a few years before going to college and their English ability plays a large role in their performance on the CEE.

In just a short time, I have "Ni hao ma?" down pretty good. SQA my ass.

Gordon Brown, now David Cameron, should be ashamed of himself. What a wonderful educational system. If you pay, you can play!

I hope the kids do well in the UK though. Some of them were pretty good.

As for the offered salary, I'm not sure. They paid me 13k without an apartment. Specialty subject teachers received at least 18k a month and sat on their asses most of the time. I, on the hand, worked my tail off - 21 actual hours a week.. Hence my resignation.

It was better than the 14k I previously earned in a training center, though. No nights or weekends and longer holidays.

I guess I took another step down, but am content with my 8k and free apartment at a university elsewhere.

In conclusion - "teaching" in China is a joke.

I'd love to read your letter. Feel free to send it via PM. Stella must have been flabbergasted.