Job Discussion Forums

[askiptochina]

I got an offer to do curriculum writing instead of teaching. Does anyone have experience with these kind of jobs? Any reasons to stay away from them?

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

This post is now irrelevant, as the post I was responding to no longer exists.

[The Ever-changing Cleric]

I agree. Everywhere else is cheeper than China. Cheeper than China.

Copyright: Paul Hardcastle.

[askiptochina]

Pay is the only reason to stay away?

[latefordinner]

I'm currently contributing to a series of textbooks, so I imagine that my experience is somewhat applicable.
It's a little more complicated than that. You have to respect the input of well-meaning but misinformed leaders at various levels, all of whom are intent upon pursuing a political and or profit motive first and education second. You have to work with non-native writers who may or not have relevant teaching experience. Whose ill-formed grasp of English grammar overrides not only yours, but every grammar text you have used the past 10 years. Who just happen to have the ear of your employer, who trusts them and not you. (when I was in uni, one standard exercise in statistics class was to determine how many monkeys and typewriters you need to produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. I forget what the answer was then, but when it comes to writing a textbook, the answer is four, if they have google) You have to live with the fact that what you think a curriculum should (and shouldn't) be, what every expert in the field of language teaching has to say about the subject has nothing to do with what you employer wants to produce. And that is something that "looks foreign".

[TexasHighway]

In my current university, we are tasked to use a textbook written by a Chinese professor and edited by a westerner. The professor spent several years in the US so I suppose that makes him an authority on the English language. And the editor is probably just a run-of-the-mill FT whose name is put on the book to give it some additonal legitimacy. The book is riddled with grammatical errors, mispellings, and Chinglish. Yet I am supposed to teach from it to English majors. I am always skeptical when an FT is asked to do some textbook editing or help with curriculum writing.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

OP:

No....pay of course is important to consider (if you are one of those rare individuals who actually tries to keep the wages in China artificially low, which somehow I doubt you are).

My first post on this thread was responding to a comment made which has now been removed (and rightly so) by one of the moderators, so it now appears out of context.

No need to flame me for it.

My very first full-time gig in Asia was in South Korea editing textbooks and writing new ones for dozens of schools. The task was daunting, to say the least. And when came the time when there was little to do, 'voilla!' I was suddenly a teacher to office staff and clients' schools s a substitute.

To answer the OP, if you are interested in doing such work, go for it. But don't be surprised to be called up to do sub work or playing as the 'foreign pet' during lunches, business meetings, parties... etc.