Job Discussion Forums

[Rooster_2006]

How hard is it to get contracts where you work a ridiculously small amount, like 15 hours a week or less?

I'd like to stay in China and earn my degree online. So I don't want to teach 25 or 30 hours a week like most of the job ads I've seen require.

I'm willing to put up with a lower salary since I'd not be working as much. How many employers are willing to hire a teacher (and sponsor a visa for that teacher) who only wants to teach 15 hours a week?

Is there a specific type of school I should look for? Are public schools more likely to offer lower hours? When is the best time to look for a job in China, especially one with as limited hours as possible? Thanks.

[7969]

[GeminiTiger]

I also work 3 days on 4 days off at my public University job,
it is a pretty enjoyable lifestyle that I have no intention of
giving up any time soon.

[Rooster_2006]

Public university -- this doesn't sound like something I have the credentials to get. All I have is CELTA and a little bit of experience in Korea. I will have my associate's degree around the time I start teaching, but unfortunately the diploma itself won't arrive until a couple months later -- and I need a job before then. Any other suggestions on finding schools that require 12 to 18 hours a week? I'm willing to put up with crap wages for this, like 4,000 yuan a month.

[7969]

[Rooster_2006]

[beck's]

You definately are looking for a public university job. I am teaching 6 90 minute classes a week this semester. Last term I taught 7.

You could use the job to pursue you educational goals. Don't worry about your lack of academic certs. There are French, Serbs, Russians and Poles teaching English in Chinese public unis who speak English with very heavy accents. The unis will be overjoyed to have someone like you. Your situation is tailor made for their needs.

One piece of advice. Don't rely on the computer that the uni will supply you with. Bring your own dependable laptop fully loaded with all of the programmes in English.

[fitzgud]

Rooster,

Do not be deterred by what you may feel to be a lack of accreditation or indeed experience. Even at university level many of the students you encounter will never have seen a foreigner in the pink. Many of them have never spoken a word of English that they were not reading from a set text. The most important thing you can offer them is the opportunity and also the confidence to raise their eyes, make eye contact with you and feel that is OK to speak.

I would suggest you have two choices, a university, or a middle school. The location of which is of course a personal preference, do you need a large city with foreign company, or are you ok being the only foreigner for miles around.

The reason I suggest a middle school is that the students have not yet become obsessed with the college entrance exam. In high schools most students feel that what you wish them to do is an irrelevance, it is not part of the lead up to the all-important exam.

The most important thing you can offer is not your qualifications, but a personality that will encourage and cajole them into using our language.

Good luck.

[Moon Over Parma]

University work indeed. I teach 7 classes a week (14 periods. The class "hours" are really 45 minutes each, so the actual lesson times are 10 and a half hours and I do not have to take part in English corners nor do I have to keep office hours) and only have four days of actual "work" a week and I make a nice salary for this. It is hardly uncommon (though the good salary bit depends on where you work). The only negative to this is that I have to wait around ninety minutes, two days a week, in between a morning class and an afternoon class. Lucky for me it's lunch hours and I can grab a bite to eat at a reasonable pace rather than the paltry, pitiful 30 minute rush-fests I used to have in America. I do not consider that a real negative, but I'm trying to do a point-counterpoint for this to offer up some objectivity, but there really isn't a negative to my hours.

[7969]

[Moon Over Parma]

[Kram]

Yeah, if you�re not too worried about the cash, a uni or middle school is your best bet. �Officially� all unis I�ve dealt with require a degree, however, unofficially a lot of things are possible. It depends on who and where...

Another option is a �mill�, I�d avoid the chains and their ludicrous hours and look for a smaller place that does that the right thing for its staff (not an easy task in itself). I�d then sign on for a six-month contract with an option to extend and negotiate for fewer hours after you have built a relationship and proved to be a �good teacher�. You�d probably have to start on around 20+ hours, but if the students like you and you don�t complain, the school should be more than willing to negotiate.

[HunanForeignGuy]

7969 is on the mark.

There are many unis that will accept a teacher with your background.

Sure, it is carved in stone that a uni teacher should have a BA at least or something like that and two years experience BUT

there is something around here called an "exclusionary order and request" that a school can make to the FEB and the Provincial Education Department requesting that "X" or "Y" be hired. It's all paperwork and it all depends upon what the French call the "bienveillance" of the school.

I know of one uni in Guangdong where the salaries reach over RMB 8,000 per month for about 16 hours per week plus one outside activity. There are the usual staff meetings and the like but still that is only four hours per week and the schedulers at that university are very, very accommodating in terms of working with the FTs.

Two FTs I know of crammed all of the 16 hours into two and one-half days; they worked on Monday and Tuesdays a full day and then only four hours on Wednesday morning and were free again until next Monday.

It's China, and a lot of things are possible here.