Job Discussion Forums

[haopengyou]

I live about an hour outside of Shanghai and am teaching in a private university. I want to find a teaching job during the spring festival. Part of the reason is to rack up $$. The other part is to test the waters in other kinds of teaching. Is there much of a need for part time teachers during this time? What schools are likely to pay the most? I know that, as a rule, kindergardens pay the big $$.

I have a teaching credential from the U.S., have taught high school, adult ed and community college, and have taught english in China from all ages from second grade to senior citizens. I have TEFL certification from UCLA and have been in China for 10 years.

[Chris_Crossley]

Many private chain language schools have their boom time during the Spring Festival when they put students, especially young learners, into the classroom by the shovelful.

I worked for EF English First for two years. During both the Spring Festival (3 weeks, usually) and the intensive summer period (6 weeks, usually), EF extends its teaching hours so that one may end up teaching 3 academic hours (ACH, where 1 ACH = 45 minutes) in the morning, 4 ACH in the afternoon and 3 ACH in the evening at least six days a week.

I know from my experience that people seeking summer jobs with EF can (or else used to) sign contracts for this kind of short-term work, although it was never the policy (as far as I remember) to engage people for teaching work during the Spring Festival exclusively, unless, perhaps, they were officially taken on as part-time teachers and given full-time hours, in which case the hourly rate might have been favourable compared to the terms and conditions printed in contracts for full-time, salaried teachers.

You could always approach such a chain language school since the Spring Festival is considered to be a peak period of teaching, yet, though there are adults' classes, the vast majority of students are young learners and they can be quite a drain on the emotional resources, considering how many hours one has to teach them per day. My experience of teaching the older students (aged 11-15) was OK, but, from what I gathered from my then-colleagues, teaching the younger ones (aged 7-10) could be especially draining. I believe that EF now teaches even younger students, though they did not in my day (I stopped working for EF in Wuhan in October 2003).

[LoPresto]

You might consider looking into Li Yang's "Crazy English".

I was offered a short-term job with them a couple of years ago during the Spring Festival/Winter Break via www.asiaxpat.com

Good Luck!

[xiaolongbaolaoxi]

Had a TA from Shanghai who said that the CNY was four weeks of "golden week." Took me a while to figure out he meant that teachers can make serious bank.
But, why should spend you that time teaching when you can spend all of the time eating xiaolongbao ?

[haopengyou]

I want to bank all of that qian so that I can eat xiaolongbao the rest of the year till I pop! ....and what is usually the hourly rate of these jobs? When do the classes usually start? CNY is 2/14 so can I assume it is going to be the 3 weeks before that? or is there a break in the middle of 3 weeks for the holiday?

[Chris_Crossley]