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btsmrtfan
Joined: 01 Jul 2010
Posts: 193
Location: GPS Not Working
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 Posted: Thu May 05, 2011 11:48 pm Post subject: Hays China |
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| I'm considering an offer to teach at an international school through Hays China. Does anyone have any recent experience with teaching positions at international schools obtained through Hays? If so, I would appreciate hearing about them. Thanks. |
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mickeyd302
Joined: 08 Sep 2009
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 11:30 pm Post subject: Re: Hays China |
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| btsmrtfan wrote: |
| I'm considering an offer to teach at an international school through Hays China. Does anyone have any recent experience with teaching positions at international schools obtained through Hays? If so, I would appreciate hearing about them. Thanks. |
I am assuming that you mean Ft. Hays State University and their programs at SIAS and Shenyang Normal University. I worked for FHSU at SNU as a composition teacher. While I personally had many problems with the program, it did have some advantages.
The main advantage is the pay. For teaching in China, the pay is pretty decent. There are some decent benefits too. But it should be noted that the medical insurance that FHSU provides is not accepted by any hospital in Shenyang. So if you do get sick, everything will be out of pocket. SNU tries to give you a day off a week, which is very nice. Also, most of the foreign teachers are very good people.
On the other hand, to really understand some of my issues with the program you need to understand how it is structured. The FHSU program allows students to get an American degree. There are two types of students--"planned" students have passed the college entrance exam and are getting both a Chinese and American degree, while "unplanned" students have not passed the entrance exam and are only getting an American degree. While I did have some very exceptional unplanned students in my time there, the mass majority were rude and lazy individuals. If the mass majority of my students were planned students then that would not have been a problem but that was never the case.
My first issue was that most of the unplanned students did not have language abilities that were at a level adequate for taking university-level courses where the mode of instruction is English. This led to rampant cheating. If students were not copying essays off of the internet, they were paying someone else to write them. I still remember the student who copied a Roger Ebert movie review from 1967 and claimed it was not copied! When I asked if he thought Roger Ebert traveled to the future and stole his essay and then traveled back in time, the student said yes. Another student once paid a different student to write an essay which turned out to be copied. These incidents are common.
The second issue is if you are a teacher who gives students chances to improve their grades through extra credit or second chances, the host university will reward you by giving you big classes of unplanned students. Being such a teacher, I was rewarded with 90 students one term, while another teacher was given 60 of mostly planned students. Consider that the requirement was that each student writes 6 essays and I had an additional 180 essays to grade during the term and the majority from students who did not have even a weak grasp of English
The third issue is that the upper administration of FHSU seems to be run by accountants more than educators. The bottom line is always money with them. When I was there, we were asked to sign contracts for less money after arriving in China. We were told that FHSU was going to lose money if we did not. Yet, the President of FHSU and his entourage flew first class from Kansas to China and stayed at five-star hotels whenever they were there. (Btw, no one signed the revised contracts.) The attitude by the administration is that they can always hire another teacher. The quality of education does not seem to matter as much as a warm body. In my time there, I saw several "teachers" who had no business in the classroom. But I should mention that there were some great teachers too.
I do not have any personal experiences with SIAS, but those who have worked there generally do not have too many positive things to say about it.
Ultimately, it is up to you. While the pay is good, there are many things that make it not worth it. |
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adorabilly
Joined: 20 May 2006
Posts: 430
Location: Ras Al Khaimah
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| Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2011 4:37 pm Post subject: |
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SIAS and FHSU are discussed in this thread.
http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=27535&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=sias&start=0
With all of that said, it is a nice soft landing. You have paid for accomodations, food and a pretty decent salary... just be ready for the religious side to come out.
If you go as an FHSU english teacher, you will make a US salary (which is 4 to 5x larger than the oral english teachers) and will have a very nice comfortable life.
Just be ready for very low english scholastic levels, rampant cheating and the belief that they should all pass.
To be fair, I miss SIAS. |
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whitehouse
Joined: 06 Mar 2008
Posts: 31
Location: CHINA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:55 am Post subject: |
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| Hayes China is also a British employment agency which offers well paid posts for British related organisations. I think is sometimes is an agency for Dipont which offers Chinese students the opportunity to study A level etc at about 10 cities in China.The agency is reputable but it is the school which is important as you will be working for them if you take the post |
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