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Markness
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 738
Location: Chengdu
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 Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:39 pm Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Jeff19 wrote: |
| Markness wrote: |
| Jeff19 wrote: |
| JB140767 wrote: |
| There are gigs with 4 months or more holidays you describe (I currently have 6) but, pretty much only open to qualified, experienced English native passport country holders |
What kind of gigs? Is it international schools only or public schools as well?
Just to clarify, for everyone who posted: I have no intention to end up in a shitty job and work illegaly, so either I'll manage to find what I want or I will not move there. |
They will hire you anywhere, the thing is is that you will not be paid as much as a native-speaker. Training schools pay probably nearly the same for native and non-native, but the better places like public schools and "international" ones do all contract negotiations privately. I work with a dude who is a native English speaker from the UK who is on an old contract and has been with my school for 12+ years, and I make the same amount of money as him because I negotiated well. The non-native girl at my school with the axe to grind makes less money than me, teaches harder courses than me, and works more than I do.. that is what you are going to get. They will give you an offer a little lower than a native speaker but your responsibilities may be greater, and the power of the employer to boot you is much greater as they know your worth. You can definitely easily find employment, but instead of getting the full 100 percent of a native speaker's salary, you'll be getting 80 percent or so.
Remember, all the good places advertise 15-25k RMB per month lets say, but you don't know how much the native teacher will be getting, and they will say something like "well.. since you aren't a native English speaking teacher your contract salary range is from 10-20k RMB per month...". Lots of non-natives are cool with this though, but to be quite honest if you don't really care and are just interested in hustling/doing privates then you will be fine. My friend from Holland probably does 20-25 hours of privates a week and I still make a little more than him just coming in 3.5 mornings a week at my school.
Final note: tier 1 cities will be much more competitive/strict, tier 2 is less competitive/less strict, and I am guessing you can see a pattern here. You can definitely live fine here, as many non-natives do, but the Chinese employer will always try to take advantage of your non-native status. If you don't like that then there is always some desperate dude from the eastern block or the African continent who will take your place.
So, what can we gather from this? You can work anywhere, it is just a question of whether or not you'll feel it is worth it. If you got certain skills such as being able to do IB/VCE/AP/TOEFL/IELTS etc. then you'll be way ahead of most folk, even native speakers. If you can do any of those then sell that and look for places that are in desperate need of people who can do this. I am not going to even put my kid in an International school here as it is quite well known that the teachers at International schools here in Chengdu hire loads of Indians/Filipinos/Greeks to save quite a bit of RMB, and that is the thing that plagues the Chinese education system. If they told me "Hey, your English literature degree makes you no longer qualified to work in China", I'd tell them "Okay", and go back to school for a year and get my teaching licence, if you have certain skills that others do not possess then you'll be way ahead with 90+ percent of the teachers here (and will lead you to be able to find an actual good job). |
Thank you for this detailed answer, I appreciate it.
Would EAP and Business English be considered as special skills?
Also, is teaching English Literature a possibility? I would love that. |
Business English = training schools usually. Some of those students are 40+ year olds who can't speak a lick of English and have a dictionary to translate word for word.. wasn't my cup of tea. EAP you might find schools looking for specific teachers for that. English literature could be IB English or VCE English or whatever, which would mean you could work at a public school and make some decent money. Universities are looking for teachers to teach literature but it is a lot of work for questionable pay.
Check out whatever city you're interested in, make it clear where you're from, and if worse comes to worse you can pretend you've taught the course already and then teach yourself whatever you need to know about the classes come interview time (in case they check.. and sometimes they do). For example, "What sort of activities could you do in order to make reading in class more interesting?", "What do you do if students are getting bored with learning IB English?, "Why are you interested in teaching IB/VCE/AP English here?", etc. etc. There was a teacher at my school who didn't know what the scores were for TOEFL or IELTS and stuff. But they sometimes check. |
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jimpellow
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 913
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 12:01 am Post subject: |
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EAP and Business English are in theory special skills, but a lot of teachers are thrown or slither into the positions and wing it to varying degrees of success.
The EAP programs are pretty darn good for pay and time off. They tend to stink for being corrupt programs and having very unmotivated students.
I usually agree with Markness, but I personally love to work for schools that cater to Business English. I still make most of my ESL income from it. I have found most adult students really want to learn and most actually do have the required intermediate level of English or above. They can be quite generous with the nights out on the town and other tokens of gratitude (or rather being seen with their foreign pet to their side in the front of the nightclub).
In China, it seemed the biggest problem with most Business English centric schools is they ended up being filled with kids.
Actually, I also do not know if I agree 100% with Markness about the pay. The point is well taken. Yet one can tell from the poster's writing that his English is at a high level. He also has expressed a willingness to walk away. He also comes with a partner who teaches. Additionally, these are desperate times in China for teachers. I agree they will try to pay him less. Yet I think he could get "full" pay and maybe throw them a bone with saving money on a shared apartment.
The poster might want to start with Wall Street. They are not everybody's cup of tea, but they are above board and will give you a straight out answer on your non-native question. They would likely know what provinces are more accepting of non-native speakers as they have schools about. |
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Jmbf
Joined: 29 Jun 2014
Posts: 663
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 2:31 am Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Markness wrote: |
It depends, sometimes he will roll up to a place like EF, teach 3 hours in a row and come out 400RMB richer, so about 133RMB/hr there, and then the odd other training school at like 150 an hour, but his hours are all over the place. Also, he has a couple of decent classes that will have like two or three students and he'll get 400 RMB for that class, but it may only be like twice a month. |
Yeah it's unfortunate but true that non-natives will struggle to command the same rates as native speakers. I know a very few that have managed it but the majority earn significantly less per hour than their native counterparts.
| Markness wrote: |
I had come so close to having two classes that would pay 1000 an hour, 200 rmb a kid x 5 kids per class. |
That's a shame. You should give it another go. I know a guy who has successfully done this and he has 4 classes of 6 kids each per weekday. It took him about 7-8 months to establish himself and get to this point.
| Markness wrote: |
| I am guessing though that were are some people who can really rake it in with the privates, but if one wanted consistent private money they'd work at training schools (bad pay) or tutor (inconsistent students/cancelations). |
I've mentioned this before but there are tutors who have managed to overcome / minimise the problems associated with private tutoring. There are some very relevant comments over on the private IELTS classes thread. Basically if you treat it as a casual gig, you are going to encounter a lot of problems. If you try to do it professionally, have an overall game plan and take the time to develop your reputation then it takes the whole game to another level.
| Markness wrote: |
| There is an American dude I know who is doing that right now but he works pretty much everyday and does it all the time, and all of that just to get like 25,000RMB a month is not that worth it IMO. He works 12 hour days doing that. |
Yeah I see / hear examples of this all the time. This is a classic example of working HARD but not working SMART. I'd be willing to bet that with a few changes to the way he operates he could either 1. Greatly increase his income without increasing his overall working hours or 2. Maintain his current income and greatly decrease his working hours. |
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IvanaShaanxi
Joined: 18 Jun 2012
Posts: 100
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| Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 12:39 am Post subject: |
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| plumpy nut wrote: |
| 12000 Ringit is a lot of money for a non-native speaker. I doubt very seriously if you would make anything close to that. I'm a native speaker with a Master's degree and I don't make that much. |
OP can make more than that in private kindergartens and private training centers. I doubt he will get the regular work visa though. |
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Foo_Fighters_Dave
Joined: 09 Dec 2016
Posts: 162
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| Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 5:29 am Post subject: |
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This is a touchy subject with me because I knew of some non natives who lied and said they were from Canada but had Russian accents in South Korea. They were terrible teachers and if push comes to shove, I wouldn't hire them.
Unqualified Non Natives flood the market and keep salaries low for qualified native speakers.
I do know that there are some great non native teachers but the vast majority I have met are garbage and it drags the ESL market down. |
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Markness
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 738
Location: Chengdu
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| Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2017 6:06 am Post subject: Re: Qualified non-natives, what are our chances? |
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| Jmbf wrote: |
| Markness wrote: |
It depends, sometimes he will roll up to a place like EF, teach 3 hours in a row and come out 400RMB richer, so about 133RMB/hr there, and then the odd other training school at like 150 an hour, but his hours are all over the place. Also, he has a couple of decent classes that will have like two or three students and he'll get 400 RMB for that class, but it may only be like twice a month. |
Yeah it's unfortunate but true that non-natives will struggle to command the same rates as native speakers. I know a very few that have managed it but the majority earn significantly less per hour than their native counterparts.
| Markness wrote: |
I had come so close to having two classes that would pay 1000 an hour, 200 rmb a kid x 5 kids per class. |
That's a shame. You should give it another go. I know a guy who has successfully done this and he has 4 classes of 6 kids each per weekday. It took him about 7-8 months to establish himself and get to this point.
| Markness wrote: |
| I am guessing though that were are some people who can really rake it in with the privates, but if one wanted consistent private money they'd work at training schools (bad pay) or tutor (inconsistent students/cancelations). |
I've mentioned this before but there are tutors who have managed to overcome / minimise the problems associated with private tutoring. There are some very relevant comments over on the private IELTS classes thread. Basically if you treat it as a casual gig, you are going to encounter a lot of problems. If you try to do it professionally, have an overall game plan and take the time to develop your reputation then it takes the whole game to another level.
| Markness wrote: |
| There is an American dude I know who is doing that right now but he works pretty much everyday and does it all the time, and all of that just to get like 25,000RMB a month is not that worth it IMO. He works 12 hour days doing that. |
Yeah I see / hear examples of this all the time. This is a classic example of working HARD but not working SMART. I'd be willing to bet that with a few changes to the way he operates he could either 1. Greatly increase his income without increasing his overall working hours or 2. Maintain his current income and greatly decrease his working hours. |
Hope this quote goes through, I've been in the sticks for quite a while and just got back. Yeah I agree with pretty much everything you've said there. I am pretty much done with the hustling here though, just aiming for the highest salary I can get. I know in HK you can make an awesome living doing what you're doing, I am not so sure about mainland being the same. Too many students have parents who could have a decent tutor but instead choose the same route because there is some "status" behind it. I suppose if I charged like 500 RMB/hour they could brag about it, but a ton of parents just like talking about how they send their kid to some overpriced training school for VIP classes.
I am doing quite well right now and the missus and I are in the process of acquiring an investment property. We're just going to work on doing that for now because I don't have it in me to deal with the shenanigans here. I know some people can make a good living tutoring but I'll stick to the tactic I am doing. There is a lot of money to be made from real estate here. |
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