Job Discussion Forums

[Gamari19]

Hi there,

It's my first post on the forums here on Dave's, but I've perused them quite a bit without an account. I'm a college second semester sophomore dual majoring in history and education and my goal has been to graduate and begin teaching English in China, as I'm deeply interested in Chinese history and culture.

It has been a great worry on my mind, though, that the outlook for native English speakers demand in China is beginning to lessen, and that upon graduation I won't have as many opportunities as there are now. I'm most definitely looking for long term-stay, as well. I know it isn't the most well paying of professions by any means, but I'm looking to do this for the experience more than the pay, and I'm quite frugal so I should be able to save some if not a good portion of my pay.

TL;DR: how do you think the market for native English teachers will progress/regress in the coming years(5,10,20, etc.)? Will there be a greater or lesser demand as time goes on? (In your opinion, of course. No one can predict the future for certain.)

Thanks!

[currentaffairs]

I wouldn't worry too much about the future which is uncertain. Focus on getting a good degree and follow that up with a Trinity TESOL/CELTA/good TEFL cert and doors will open. You will already have a degree that has education modules so you will be in a good position to make your way up the ladder wherever you end up!

[vikeologist]

I'm going to state some opinions on the matter.

I have no statistics or facts to back up my opinions. I'm not sure where one could get such evidence. it's based on hearsay, guesswork, things I've observed and other near worthless stuff.

-There's still a shortage of foreign teachers in China. However the places where there are the biggest shortages are not the places where foreigners would necessarily want to work (isolated etc).

-The opportunities for foreign teachers are declining, especially in tier 1 cities (though there are of course a huge number of jobs there. It's just that the ratio of teachers to vacancies is increasing.

This is because there are two reasons why Chinese people need to learn English.

All children need to learn English, but this need is lessening slightly. I think that English is going to a much smaller part of the gaokao, which is the University entrance Exam. There's a good chance that this move was reversed, or more likely never implemented, but if so, I haven't read about it. Still, there's a lot of money to be made for schools which can successfully market their language mills to parents.

However, in the big cities there was also a lot of demand to learn English because of the number of foreign companies based in China. My impression is that this trend is slowing down and possibly even reversing because of foreigners and foreign companies' reluctance to come to China because of pollution, lack of internet access etc.

Whatever the truth, it seems that at least one big school in a tier 1 city has decided to lay off a lot of their staff, so they certainly feel that there is less of a demand for teaching / learning English to / amongst adults.

(I'm basing this assertion on ' something I read on the internet' which is just about the highest level of reliability that you can get. My source here http://www.chinalawblog.com/2015/06/breaking-news-leading-china-international-school-lays-off-employees.html
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2015/06/breaking-news-leading-china-international-school-lays-off-employees-part-2.html)

I feel that the demand for foreign teachers is constantly shifting sand, and without any reliable market data, I'm just guessing where things are heading. But that's my view; still lots of jobs, but comparatively fewer in tier 1 cities or with adults. University demand for teachers seems unaffected, and indeed many Universities find it difficult to get teachers; chiefly because foreign teachers don't know they exist. There's a danger that more Universities will resort to recruiters which will be bad for both teachers and Universities, but recruiting teachers is difficult and many unis simply don't know how to do it on their own.

There's also a possibility that Chinese language teaching is improving. They're about 30 years behind the rest of the world, but they're not actually incapable of competency, and once they are better than foreign teachers (and most foreign teachers are really dire, so it's likely to happen) then the whole demand for foreign teachers could die out. Once there's a sufficient impetus to give these jobs to the Chinese, they will. That philosophy shift hasn't happened yet though.

[Simon in Suzhou]

The ESL market is certainly uncertain in the long term. Maybe it will be going strong for 50 years and maybe the political/economic tides will shift in the next 5 years. Who knows?

I recommend that you become a certified teacher before you finish your education and come to China. Do all the education courses and practicum necessary. Even if you come to China and work for a few years and your certification runs out, you can renew it later. It's good to have a fall-back. A B.A. in history is next to useless in the west without certification requirements.

[Markness]

It is easy as heck to get a job. I don't see this slowing down any time soon. Chinese like new shiny things, that school mentioned above is just suffering the consequences of that. People here have more money than ever. They still want their kids to study abroad, and love to travel/do business with westerners. The world functions at a global trade level. People aren't going out of their way to learn Chinese so the Chinese need to do so in order to stay rich. The need for English will be here for a long time. The middle-aged folk and above have no skills whatsoever with English. The younger people still have horrible English I am guessing since they went through the first-wave of English teaching from the Chinese teachers. Now that they can afford foreign teachers, the skill will definitely improve of the students, so we'll see what happens after that. Heck, go to any training school and you'll see half of the teachers are from the eastern block, because they can't get enough native teachers to work there. The demand still outweighs the supply, and I don't see this slowing down anytime soon. China is too big, it will not be the same as Japan/Korea.

[Laurence]

[Old Surrender]

There will be jobs. I've been here five years and the market hasn't changed much. In fact, you will change more than the market will. I changed a lot between sophomore year and graduation.