Job Discussion Forums

[Trollope16]

My girlfriend and I worked for First Leap English School in Beijing. So I just wanted to share my story for those of you in the situation we had or who may be wanting to head over and teach in China. I am from Canada if that helps anyone by the way and we both worked for First Leap English Schools for 10 months. First of all I went with my girlfriend who did not have a university degree but we both had part of a TEFL certificate (we were currently doing it but they did not really care about it) when we were hired prior to leaving Canada. We had to do 2 online interviews which were weird but gave us a lot of information on the company. We only ever half finished our TEFL certificate as we already had the job and time ran out on our course. Once we got to Beijing the culture shock happened immediately but lucky for us they had someone there to pick us up from the airport and they put us up in shared living apartment(for free) while we got 3 weeks of paid training. We did only have a tourist visa when we arrived (it was a double entry 90 day visa). It was okay for us to work under this tourist visa because the company had paid off the government to let it slide. The reason they do not issue work visas before you get there is because it is very expensive for the company to do without knowing if you will actually come and work for them. However about a month before we got there a couple of English teachers at our school did get arrested for working illegally with a tourist visa but since then they paid off the highest level of government and there was not a problem after that. Anyways we worked for a couple months then flew to Taiwan but we screwed up our flight dates and needed to get a 2 week extension on our tourist visa. Our First Leap Visa lady (Karen if she is still there) helped us get an extension but was unsure if they would let us because it is up to the person working if we get one our not. We luckily did and did not have to cancel our trip to Taiwan. However we screwed up again on our extension and it was for the day before our flight. Therefore we overstayed our visa by one day but they did not say anything when we left the country so we thought we were okay. Once we returned to the country we stayed for another couple months (still working on tourist visa) they paid for us to go to Hong Kong (actually did not pay for my girlfriends flight because she did not have a degree? which was weird but whatever) Once in Hong Kong we went to get our working visas (finally after about 6 months of working illegally) the man said we overstayed our visa when we went to Taiwan and we could not get a working visa until we show him a piece of paper that had a warning on it from when we left for Taiwan. We did not have a piece of paper they just let us through, so once we explained we were good to go.(Just freaked out) We got back to China with no problems luckily but we were working illegally for longer then we were working legally. All in all First Leap was a great company and I would recommend them to first time English teachers going to Beijing(or elsewhere they are pretty big). And no it does not matter if you have a degree (they will make a fake one for you) does not matter if you have TEFL and does not matter your age (supposed to be at least 25 I think?) Anyways they need English teachers and will pay the government off to get you over there working. It was sketchy but literally everyone we knew there was doing the same thing. Oh also they will forge resident permit(can’t remember the name) but you need one every time your visa changes and since we were there illegally they forged ours the whole time until we got our working Z visa. People also wonder what happens if you break your contract, well we originally were supposed to be there for 11 months which was hard to do but we convinced them that’s the longest we could stay, we then decided we wanted to go travelling before we came home so we gave them proper notice (like a month) and we just did not get our flight bonus for completing the contract we still got our last cheques after we were already gone and everything like that. Oh I almost forgot I did have a criminal record in Canada at the time for drinking and driving but that did not matter for the Z visa as long as you do not have one in China you were okay. The only downfall of First Leap is that some of there lessons are shit as most the people developing them have not actually taught before. Also the days off are very limited but they let you know that before hand so its not a surprise. So hope some of that info will help people in the same sketchy situation. Also I wish this information was there for me before I went! P.S shout out to the best AD James Zhang at Huatong centre in Beijing such a helpful guy!

[max71081]

please use PARAGRAPHS!!!!

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

"... We only ever half finished our TEFL certificate as we already had the job and time ran out on our course..."

Interesting.

[murray1978]

You should be kicked out of the country. No legal visa or university degree. It is people like you that make hard for legitimate teachers like me with all of the qualifications and experience.

If you are going to break the rules, be ready to suffer the consequences.

[mysterytrain]

[fpshangzhou]

See, it just goes to see anything is in possible in this wonderful land of possibilities! Gotta love the craziness here!

[CNexpatesl]

How much were they paying you?

Employers usually lowball illegal teachers without degrees pretty badly. E.g. 8000 RMB a month in Beijing.

[wailing_imam]

This is a troll post

[buravirgil]

I'm glad someone is good at identifying troll posts because I suck at it.

[jimpellow]

[kungfuman]

Seems like a post bragging and encouraging people to work illegally for a company that bribes the police.

people like the poster and his friend need to see the inside of a Chinese jail

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]