Job Discussion Forums

[600v]

My wife and I are planning to move to Indonesia within the next year (we are currently living in China) and I am just wondering about the availability of Mandarin Chinese teaching jobs in Jakarta (my wife is Chinese). She speaks English very well and has a teaching degree from a Chinese university (plus a lot of teaching experience in both Chinese as well as Foreign schools). I am wondering if she could get a job teaching the language or not...if not we will have to reconsider a move to Indonesia.

Thanks in advance.

[drgonzo]

The school I worked for, Inlingua, has at least one native Chinese speaker (not sure what he teaches, mandarin, cantonese, hoikien, or other)... but I assume the demand is low.... I could be wrong though.
Many of the chinese I know here, who are not too long ago distant arrivals, still speak some form of chinese with their family, and therefore have very little need for instruction.
One thing I found extremely peculiar, which was the last place I taught, a senior high school called Bunda Hati Kudus subcontracted through Inlingua is 98% Chinese.... they hired a native speaker to teach English (me), but actually had pribumi (local Indonesian) teachers teaching Mandarin... seemed peculiar to me until I questioned the students, and most of them spoke Hokien (sorry, I have no idea how to spell it... its just what the students have told me... and yes, I am brain dead on this subject, I have no idea what the difference is... never been to China).

[TEAM_PAPUA]

[wannaBguru]

i have to agree with TP. the "chinese" languages (yes i know that there isnt such as thing as achinese language, but 8 main dialects) were outlawed in the 60's after the communist revolution, ie, no newspapers or print media, no language classes, in fact they were supposed to speak the language at all. so many of the younger generation have poor chinese skills and pronunciation. also, people realize that the hottest economy is china and that that chinese language skills may become more important than english. even native indos want to learn the langage. therefore, u see a lot of language schools advertising mandarin classes........ quite a few with "native speaker". more people speak mandarian than any other dialect in china and therefore receiving all the attention right now. as with english, more schools use indo or indo/cina people to teach than native speakers. not sure if there is a specific agency that recuits native chinese teachers, or if the schools do it themselves. most of the native speaker teachers that i knew were from taiwan. i'll ask around and if i find out anything i will pm u.

[gugelhupf]

Virtually every Nat Plus school with a sizeable chinese clientele offers Mandarin either as a regular subject or as an extra-curriculur. Salaries are lower than for native English speakers (!) but as a second income quite reasonable. My own school employs 3 at present - 2 are from China and one from Singapore. Singaporean and Malaysian teachers are the most sought after as visa problems are minimal and teaching methods tend to be more up to date, but well-qualified Chinese nationals shouldn't have much trouble finding work.

Do bear in mind, however, that yourself and your wife may end up working in different parts of Jakarta and that here a distance of 2-3km might as well be on the dark side of the moon when traffic is particularly bad.

[600v]

Thanks for all the info. I will search the net for these schools and try to contact them about jobs. We wouldn't really mind working for two different schools (the same one would be better, of course) so that won't really be a big problem. Actually my wife is fluent in Mandarin as well as Cantonese languages so she would be able to teach both.

Anyway, thank you all for the wonderful info. We really want to get away from China a bit and Indonesia has alwyas been on top of our list.

[Chancellor]