Job Discussion Forums

[carleenmarie]

I'm planning on coming over around February. What is the dress code at most language schools? Business casual? Are there casual Fridays? Or can I just roll in there in jeans and flip flops?

[TaoyuanSteve]

Who are you going to be teaching? Adult schools more often enforce dress codes. Children's schools usually do not. With children's schools, you are usually only asked to dress in clean clothes with closed toed shoes (no sandals or flip-flops). Shorts are often allowed in the summer here. Jeans are often ok, too, as long as they're clean and not ripped. A plus to children's schools is you can pretty much dress normally and don't need a special wardrobe for work.

[BigWally]

i get to wear flip-flops in my classroom!!! (but they are for in the class room only)

[forest1979]

It's hard to generalize dress codes as company rules differ. However, if you're smart casual, with an emphasis on smart rather than casual, you shouldn't have too many problems.

As previous posters have said, it depends too on whether you want to teach kids or not. I've even known people at some private universities coming to teach in shorts and trainers. However if in doubt play safe. It's always better on the first day to go too smart as then you could loosen the appearance in later days. Looking scruffy on the first day certainly wouldn't be helpful.

[carleenmarie]

Still haven't figured out exactly what type of job I'm going to take, but I'm thinking kids because they're a lot more fun (a lot more challenging as well I bet). The thing is, I'm a 6 foot tall female, and I have extremely large feet, so I'm going into it with the assumption that I will not be able to buy ANYTHING while I'm over there.

[MomCat]