Job Discussion Forums

[MESL]

POSITIVE: Most foreign affairs officers are not happy with their job. They aren't important enough to the right people to get a job with more prestige and opportunity. They view foreigners as a necessary evil at best. For the worst, check the message boards or use your imagination.

Our foreign affairs officer has a very good attitude, is friendly toward us, treats us with respect, views us as an asset, and works hard to accommodate us. Her secretary is helpful and efficient. Open door/walk in policy. No visa problems. No contract problems coming out of her office.

We have a lot more foreign teachers than most schools - 25 English teachers. We all live in the same dorm, we all get along, and most of us do things together.

We have two large rooms for watching TV and movies, a gym, a recreation room, a computer room, a caf�, an elevator, and a lobby. The FAO office is in the dorm on the first floor. The dorm has 24/7, year round, on site management.

The dorm is very safe. No one goes into our rooms without our permission. We can request that the management office not keep a spare. The managers don't even like to bring maintenance men into our rooms unless we are present.

We can write our own curriculum and the English department doesn't micromanage. It's a private school, so student discipline is better. There's a variety of reasonably good quality food on and off campus. The campus is clean and beautiful. There's even a large park.



NEGATIVE: The English department secretary has enough longevity and connections that he can refuse to do his job. He has discovered that other people will take up his slack, clean up his messes, and accept the blame.

He makes no effort to distribute schedules evenly. Several teachers have 6 or 8 lessons back to back on the same day. I have 2 days in a row with 8 lessons back to back.

EVERY semester, there are lots of mistakes and changes in the schedules. 2 or 3 foreign teachers will arrive in the same room, then parade down the hall to his office and ask him who's supposed to be where. I've had my schedule changed twice this semester, the second time into the 4th week. One of the foreign teachers has all writing and film classes, which means an enormous amount of time grading papers.

He doesn't make good use of the talent pool. One of the foreign teachers majored in English, enjoys teaching writing, and would prefer all writing classes, but has no writing classes (this in spite of the fact that the chairman harps nonstop about the students' dissatisfaction with writing classes). One of the foreign teachers minored in film, but teaches only one film class. Teachers with business experience aren't assigned to teach business majors or business English majors.

From looking at the schedules, it's easy to see a pattern: If he doesn't take you seriously as a teacher (for example, if you're the spouse of the original teacher hired), if you're not a native speaker, if you get on his bad side, he doesn't let you teach English majors, he gives you a schedule that involves teaching the same lesson 18 times, he gives you overtime.

If you tell him you're not interested in overtime, he tells you the school doesn't have enough foreign teachers and that you therefore have to accept the overtime. He also tells you that the contract specifies a minimum of 18 lessons per week. Of course, the contract doesn't say minimum of 18, it says maximum of 18.

Last year, the teaching affairs department bounced back my exams because they weren't scored according to procedure. He insisted I rescore them. I told him that it was his responsibility to explain the procedure, that I would have been happy to use the procedure had he bothered to train me, that I had time 2 weeks earlier, that I hadn't been home in 3 years, that my mother was on her death bed, that I had many things to accomplish during my short time in America, that I had to plan my trip home, that I didn't have time to rescore all those tests.

On the basis of that controversy, he refuses to this day to sign off on the overtime I worked that semester. Of course, exam scoring and overtime pay have nothing to do with each other. But that hasn't stopped him from STEALING MY MONEY.



CONCLUSION: His attitude: "I'm Chinese and you're a foreigner, I'm in administration and you're a teacher, I'm the host and you're the guest, I'm a permanent employee and you are a temporary employee, I'm a Party member and you aren't even a citizen, I have connections but you don't know anyone important. There's nothing you can do to stop me, so I will always win, even if do something wrong." He knows his superiors will protect him. Clearly he has no motivation to change his behavior.

There's nothing you can do or say to make him any happier. The best you can hope for is to not bother him, intentionally or unintentionally. So there's no sucking up to him. Your faithfulness and hard work mean nothing to him because he doesn't care about academics. Your cleverness won't help you outmaneuver him because he's in control and he knows it. Being right is certainly not a bulletproof vest.

So at Shengda College, you just have to be lucky. If you're lucky, this is one of the best schools in China. If you're not luck, expect longterm, dripdrop mistreatment.

[Songbird]

I've actually heard that the accommodation sucks bigtime- all you get is a 1 bedroom hotel room there! Ewww.....so never really feels like 'home' like at other universities (my current one gives us 2 storey apartments of 140m !

[evolving81]

I've been in contact with the school about working there this fall. In spite of all the mixed reviews found on the forum. Maybe it's because the Shengda College website is so detailed (and in English) and provides a lot of information and photos...I like knowing what I am getting into. Other universities I've applied to don't provide much information about the campus, etc.

Are there any current (or fairly recent) teachers at Shengda that would like to chime in?

[midian3x]

[evolving81]

The college website is very upfront about the apartments. Couples get a two bedroom apartment and single teachers basically get a dorm room. They even show pictures. I've never lived in a dorm room. The college does have tennis courts and there is a gym for teachers (big plus for me). So, bad apartment but awesome amenities....maybe it will come down to PAY.

[Yes, Ma'am]

Shengda College has a nice website, better than most, and sounds like a good place to live and work.

[evolving81]

I was thinking the same thing about the 18 lessons. There have been posts about teachers having to teach 18 different lessons in a week and now we have people complaining about teaching the same lesson all week. It does seem strange that it would be 18 of the exact same lesson but who knows...

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

is the Shengda College in this thread the same that is the subject in the following links?

Chinese college students riot over diploma changes

Positive review of Sheng Da College and of China generally

ShengDa College, Zhengzhan University

What do you know about this uni?

The Zhengzhou University Riot

Just curious, because unless the situation has changed (students being promised one diploma, being given another) then the potential for violence still exists there. It has been a few years now, so who knows? But then there's the FAO described above. Who'd want to work for such a miscreant?

Anyway, some good reading above for anyone considering Shengda as a place to work.

[evolving81]

I believe it is the same school....although that was 4 years ago. I assume the students who were upset would have graduated already.

[MESL]

The single apartments are fine. Just a bit cramped because they have so much furniture. Including a huge bed. Not many maintenance problems. And the dorm manager gets the repairmen out quickly, even on weekends and holidays.

Yes, tennis court and swimming pool. Exceptionally good English Corner room. Tables and chairs. Movie room. 2 small TV/movie rooms. 8 computers. Internet on the computers isn't reliable, though. Only available on 1 or 2 computers at a time. And the computers with Internet change every day, so it's a treasure hunt.

Speaking of computers, lots of problems with the computers in the teachers dorm.

A lot of schools will negotiate pay. Not here. The payscale is set. Even with a Master's, you're making about 5000. Raises are minimal.

Overtime rate is low too. Come for the atmosphere, not the money.

Another thing I forgot to mention is the distance to the nearest large city. An hour through a lot of traffic on a crowded bus. Crowded meaning packed like sardines. Buses designed for 50 passengers have 80. The school operates a shopping bus once every Saturday. Leaves the campus at 9 am, leaves downtown at 3 pm. Again, Saturday is a heavy traffic day.

Highway 107 goes past the campus. Chinese nicknamed it "the national highway" because it's the main route between north and south China. So it's constantly packed.

Product availability in the one intersection town down the street from the campus is OK. Absolutely nothing to do in that town, though. More of a village actually.

For those who like to travel, Zhengzhou is a central train hub, so there are trains going everywhere.

Dry, dusty, polluted, overcast. Can't have everything.

[MESL]

Shengda is still hiring, btw. At least they were a few days ago, when I poked my head in the FAO door. Only a few foreign teachers are returning, so they had a lot of openings.

[evolving81]

Thanks for the information, MESL. Are there many opportunities for making extra money? Either teaching private lessons or teaching more classes?

[Yes, Ma'am]

MESL, do you have Internet access in your apartment and is it reliable? Can you connect wirelessly in your apartment, teacher's computer room or library?

All-- Does China, in general, have free WiFi at cafes, McDonalds, etc?

[nickpellatt]

I can only advise based on my recent experience in Yangshuo, Guanxi Province...where free wifi was widely available in most/many bars/cafes/restaurants and hotels. Yangshuo is set up for tourism though, so it may not be typical in other places.

[nickpellatt]

Just had a quick look at the Shengda website. Link worth reading http://www.shengda.edu.cn/employment/faq.htm

No laundry facilities in apartments....I wouldnt like that too much. In addition ... no photocopying facilties unless you want to pay to get copies. I wouldnt like that either if you had to run some copies of for those classes of up to 60 students!

I know we all have different ideas and needs, but personally...I wouldnt see anything attractive about this job other than the nice website. Poor to average location, slightly above average teaching hours for a very average salary IMO. The OP also says no curriculum, so it might be a nightmare for new teachers too.