Job Discussion Forums

[Rt]

I'm an Indian with a degree in Mass Media & four years' experience as a journalist. I'm considering doing CELTA soon. But will a good CELTA grade help me get a good job in China?

[Non Sequitur]

From my experience having watched Indian teachers being knocked back because of accent is that you should have TOTALLY unaccented or neutrally accented English.
Only then will your other credentials be looked at.
Most ads do not identify India as a native-speaker source country.
Not impossible but you have a few more hurdles that most.
It's absurd when you think about it as the bigger variety of national groups which use English surely underlines its usefulness.

[vikeologist]

It's unlikely that you'd get a good job in China; not impossible of course, China's a big place.

The CELTA doesn't count for much. Lesser qualifications suffice for getting a work visa, and a big percentage of jobs are with children). A lot of employers don't know what a CELTA is, so your grade would be irrelevant.

Other forum members, would it be fair to say the vast majority of employers (and customers) want a white face?

Maybe if you have lots of prefessional business experience, or you do get the highest grade in your CELTA, and you have your heart set on China then you may well get a job somewhere, but the odds are heavily against you. But hey; there's bound to be a call for a Journalism English teacher somewhere, and at least you can write in short concise sentences which seems to be more than I'm capable of today.

[Non Sequitur]

vikeologist is right.
One further thought I had was that there are increasing numbers of Indian students studying in China. Dalian Medical U had a group of Indian students when I was in that city.
We used to meet them in the local McDonalds and talk cricket.
Maybe OP can find out where Indian students are going in China and pitch something in that direction.

[rottenflesh]

Depends...

1) Where did you complete your degree? Was it India or from a Native English speaking country such as UK, USA, Canada, etc?

2) Are you a Citizen or Permanent Resident of a native English speaking country?

3) How is your accent?

I'm from Pakistan, but completed my university education in Canada, am a permanent resident here, and my accent is like any Canadian! I had some issues as I have a Pakistani Passport - but it wasn't too hard to get a decent job. Getting the basic run of the mill (5k a month with housing/flights) was really easy - getting the better jobs was slightly more difficult, but not troublesome.

You can look into other countries as well such as Japan. Countries such as Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, etc pretty much requires you to have a passport from Canada/USA/UK/SA/AUS/NZ.

[Rt]

I'm a citizen of India and have grown up here, so I'm a non-native speaker all the way. Sigh!
This looks bleak. I haven't got a response on the Japan forum as yet, so lets see.

[Non Sequitur]

From China to Japan is moving from little tolerance to zero tolerance of a brown face teaching English.
Maybe Vietnam or Cambodia would be better.

[MisterButtkins]

I met a guy from Portugal who was teaching Kindergarten in Beijing supposedly making like 11k/month. He had a very thick accent. Probably helped that he was like 1.93m tall and good-looking though.

Also knew a guy from Egypt who worked here. He made 3.5k/month teaching primary school. Not such a good deal. His English was extremely good but he had a bit of an accent.

[AussieAtLarge]

Many Indians get a bad deal in China from what I have seen even if their degrees are from the UK and they have no accent. Discrimination burns like wildfire in China. That is a real shame because China needs teachers, but they seem to want white teachers. I have seen many racist situations in China with regard to hiring practices and they, the employers, are quite brazen about it.

[brsmith15]

A lot of employers will ask for a photo and the reason is skin color. As others have said, sad but true. The places that would take you in aren't really the ones you'd want to work for, anyway.

[sharpe88]

A CELTA may or may not help you get job interviews, but it WILL make you a better teacher - giving you the confidence and skills to actually be good at this.

[darkcity]