Job Discussion Forums

[dstaats1]

Dear all,

Thank you to any of you who took the time to complete the survey for the research with my thesis. I would like to pass on my findings to the community. If you would like to read the entire thesis, please feel free to send me an email at [email protected]

I ended up having a couple struggles when it came to collecting data, and limitation in my research. Those are outlined at the end of the thesis. However, I did find some useful discoveries worth noting. I have included some key points below:

Final Discussion of Findings:

We must first understand the roles of foreign teachers in China to understand the roles of agencies. If the role of the foreign teacher is what Stanley (2013) points out, than the data from the interviews conclude that teachers are contributing to the role of English education in China through communicative based instruction. However, as Qiang and Wolff (2009) claim, that is not enough. Therefore, the role of the agency becomes very clear, it must find a balance between meeting the demand of foreign teachers and placing effective foreign teachers. However, as significant data suggest in this study the main reason teachers come to China to teach is not to teach, but to travel, experience the culture, or because of the lack of an adequate job back home. Finally, this research shows that agencies must help teachers who come to China with an unrelated motive, so that teachers can do their job effectively and contribute to the goal of English education in China.


Significant Data Points:

Out of the 100 respondents, 68 (68%) claimed the main reason they came to China to teach was not for teaching experience or degree requirements. Only (14) 14% of the respondents claimed they came to China with teaching as their main goal. (SEE DATA SECTION FOR FURTHER DETAILS).

The respondents were first asked if they have used an agency. Out of the 100 respondents surveyed, 44% (n = 44) have used an agency to some extent. They were then asked to assess how well they believe the agency had fulfilled their obligations. Out of those 44 teachers who have used an agency, only 30% (n = 13) of them claimed the agency completely fulfilled their obligations (see table 7).

Foreign teachers in China are not confident with their understanding of the Chinese educational System. According to Tan (2009), there are not enough qualified teachers to meet the demand of English education in China. The result of this is filling the demand with unqualified and unprepared teachers, which can lead to lack of confidence in understanding the system. According to the survey data, 39% of the teachers surveyed are not confident they understand the Chinese educational system.

Teachers also lack confidence when negotiating a contract with schools. The data show that 45% of the teachers interviewed lack confidence when negotiating a contract with a school. The 45% chose a range between one and five on a Likert scale. This is why agencies are so important in the industry, and why teachers rely on agencies to place them within the Chinese educational system. As one interviewee suggests there is no loss for the teacher, using an agency is only beneficial to them (Agency 4, personal communication, February 24, 2014).

Limitations:

Some concerns arise from this data collection method. One issue is the way the surveys were distributed and collected. Surveys were collected by means of convenient sampling, meaning that data may be skewed based on the networks used to find teachers to complete the questionnaire. Also, a few more relevant questions could have been asked that would have created more profound conclusions. These include: educational history of the respondents, salary range, teaching credentials, teaching experience prior to coming to China, and the specific field of teaching. Also, the survey data presented could be seen as skewed because of how the data was collected. Convenient sampling meant the data was collected through networks most easily accessible. A main network that was used was through classmates of the researcher, which most used their graduate school program to find their initial teaching position in China.
Another concern is the lack of the agencies that followed through with an interview. Thirty-one agencies were contacted, but in the end only nine followed through with a full interview. This skews the data of the interviews because an agency that is not doing a good service may be more inclined to deny an interview with the researcher. This may be what accounts for some parts of the data that does not pair with the current literature in the field.

Best,

Dustin

[Bud Powell]

Thanks for the report.

[Scrabble King]

Hey Dustin, great work guy. Your survey pretty much jives with this one here which had a larger sampling:

http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.com/2015/01/2014-was-year-of-progress-according-to.html

I think both surveys confirm that the majority of expats who came to China never really intended to be teachers here. I think it would have been interesting to survey the pay scales of veteran China teachers (who cherry pick their own teaching gigs) versus the newbies who usually go wherever their recruiters send them. I'd bet the pay differential is over 10,000 yuan a month!