Job Discussion Forums

[Times30]

Hi guys, I have a lot of Dubai-ish questions if anyone is willing to help. Word on the ESL street is that Dubai is the place to go for higher wages.

Questions

1) I'm a Chinese-American person. Obviously English is my primary language, but will my Asian face be a problem with placement and getting jobs?

2) I have a TESOL 100 hour certificate and 3 years of teaching in Korea under my belt (2 years public school and 1 year private) What wage should I be aiming for? Rumor is $6000 a month. I believe this is insane and incorrect. $2200 would be more accurate?

3) What are the possibilites of finding a suitable wife or marriage partner there? More importantly how is the culture there in general?

Sorry if these have been asked, I did a search and didn't find the answers I seek. And thanks in advance to anyone who can help. Cheers.

[2buckets]

Your "Asian face" may cause a few social problems as the majority of east Asians in the UAE are Philippinoes, who work in middle level management and service jobs, and do their jobs well. Also, they don't smell rank. That being said, you will be lumped into that category by most Emiraties who are rather racist, especially to sub continentals, and east Asians in general. It shouldn't affect your job potential in a quality school.

There is no shortage of unattached women available for marriage partners, unfortunately, the majority of Chinese (PRC) women, if that's what you seek, in Dubai are ladies of the night.

As far as your credentials and experience, I'll leave other regular posters to comment on that, and assess my assessment of the social problems you may encounter.

[veiledsentiments]

$6000 a month... in everyone's dreams. If you had an MA in Applied Linguistics and over ten years of direct experience teaching in university IEP programs... preferably Academic writing... and to Arabic speakers, it would still be... maybe... more likely $4-5,000 for someone with those credentials.

With your limited credentials and experience the job market is pretty limited. You are correct that it would likely be closer to $2-3000 and the work conditions would probably be pretty grim.

The Gulf does have many higher paying jobs for those with good educational credentials (BA... + CERT - preferably CELTA... preferably MA) and 3+ years of related experience. Most jobs are at university level. For the good jobs at the K-12 level, they want to see a teaching cert/license from your home state.

Sorry... all those rumors are an exaggeration. El Dorado isn't there...

VS

[Eisenhorn]

Ah yes... the gulf is a huge ATM with stupid arabs paying outrageous sums of money. Maybe in the 80's and 90's. But they have learned and now want the qualifications to match the salaries they offer.

Getting 6K a month? Not bloodly likely, unless you are an admin with 10 years of experience and even then not very likely.

With an MA in applied linguistics and 3 years of post MA experience, you would be offered about 4K-5K US a month.

Unlike China, Korea and parts of Japan the whole "native speaker" isn't worth much unless you have the MA/DELTA or BA plus CELTA plus experience.

As for your ethnic background, it would cause you difficulties as this is an extremely xenophobic culture and they look down on anyone who isn't white/brit/american/aussie as not having the right background to teach english... That would mean you would be offered worse positions at a LOWER salary than a pale faced westerner.

You would be better off staying in korea or going to china and doing a distance MA for ESL, EFL, ESOL, applied linguistics and THEN coming to the gulf.

As far as marriage prospects... are you talking about marrying a local, or are you just talking about getting married in general? Not that it really matters, but remember that this part of the world is a segregated society, often single men and single women are kept apart, so it makes it kinda difficult to get dates and find out how compatible you are...

[Badar Bin Bada Boom]

Huh? Difficult to get dates in Dubai? I must have been in the Dubai of an alternate universe for five years. It was all I could do to not fool around with lovely Chinese (nice) girls whom I met at the Deira City Centre Mall. I opted for "not" since I was married (to a Malaysian Chinese). BTW she easily found lots of Chinese girlfriends to chat with and get away from crude Western hubby with . No doubt you could meet someone easily and if not, there's always Arabmatch.com which features mainly Filipinas aside from the heavily made-up Arab women. Lots and lots to meet in Dubai as well as the occasional Chinese and Thai.

Yes, many Filipinas are cloistered at dormitories, but many others have more independent jobs. It is perfectly acceptable to date in Dubai especially if you have a western passport. I don't think anybody is going to be checking for marriage certificates as long as you don't make a habit of performing public displays of affection.