Job Discussion Forums

[mrthingy]

So, I'm pretty much set on moving to teach English as a foreign language, but have a few questions that I would like answered before moving forward. Pretty sure I'm going to be heading to Beijing as I want a big city with expat community to ease me in a little.

What is a decent wage for Beijing? To help you judge what I'll need I'd want the school to sort out accommodation, should be alright without too much western food (I cook a lot of Thai now), would like to have a couple of nights out a week. I would also like to be able to save some money and go do a little exploring every now and then. There seems to be a huge variation in pay in adds I've seen. I have no experience teaching and am coming from a completely unrelated job but have worked in environments that involve a lot of contact with non English speakers if that has any bearing on what I should be looking at.

How do you avoid the dodgy employers? Somebody suggested look at the email address but most of them seem to be to a gmail account. I read that you should try to talk to some other teachers at the school, but I have no idea how to contact them. I have no teaching experience so would really like to make sure the first job is somewhere that will give me pointers and help me out at first so I need a decent place, not just one that isn't a rip off. I don't want to pay for any courses incase I get out there and discover that the living in China thing isn't for me, if it goes well for a year or two and I've got a bit of money saved I will consider some kind of TEFL course but for know I would like to find somewhere that will give me a hand with the basics.

Also just so I have it clear in my mind, what will I need to sort out before making the move to China? I know there's the visa and immunisations, what else? I'm trying to work out in my mind what sort of date of jobs I could start applying for by working out how long all this takes, and how much it will cost.


Thanks


Edit: I do have a degree

[tttompatz]

No TEFL cert, no degree and no experience = no chance of legal employment in China as a teacher. (degree or TEFL + 2 years of experience are immigration/visa requirements.)

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[Zero]

Might get a job at a language mill, but in Beijing, based on what you have written, I would expect savings of exactly zero. Going out in Beijing is very expensive. I would steer clear of Beijing, but that's just me.

[denise]

As to how to get in contact with current teachers, ask during the interview. If the interviewers are hesitant to give you any contact information for their teachers, that's a big red flag. And if you do contact their teachers, keep in mind that you may only be getting access to the ones that the interviewers think will give a positive review.

If the school has a website, look at how professional it is as a clue to how professional the school is.

And getting a TEFL certificate after you teach for a couple of years--sure, it's doable and there are people who go that way, but it's kind of backwards. A TEFL certificate is an entry-level qualification. Without it, the jobs that you are eligible for are basically the bottom-of-the-barrel types, so if you are worried about ending up somewhere dodgy, you're only increasing your chances of that happening by not getting the standard entry-level certificate. Yeah, you may find out that living/teaching abroad isn't for you, but if it's because you ended up at a dodgy school,...well, that could be avoided by being more qualified.

Getting through a TEFL course after you've taught for a while will be harder than it would be to take the course first. Those courses are designed for people with absolutely no teaching experience whatsoever. If you go in with a year or two of experience, you will basically have to forget everything you've been doing and re-learn everything. The key to success in a TEFL course is to do exactly what the instructors tell you to do--a task made more difficult if you already think you know what to do.

d

[naturegirl321]

[Glenski]

As much as this is the newbie forum, I would suspect most answers would be found easier in the China forum.

[mrthingy]