ESL Jobs Forum

[Johnnyone]

I saw an advertisement in the paper for TESOL and i went to a seminar, should be doing the course soon, and was looking to work in China. I am a 19 year old australian male with no degree, but i am well spoken, and soon to get the TESOL certificate.

I chose China because it has such a diverse culture, and because the offers i have seen online are very enticing. There would be a great amount of things i would enjoy doing over there as a tourist in my spare time, and i would also like to learn the Chinese language. I do not get homesick, i am very adaptable to different climates/conditions (i have travelled to different parts of my own country for extended periods of time), i enjoy working with children and teenagers.

This industry looks very exciting, and the offers that are on the chinese EFL websites are pretty good.. accommodation, airfare provided, pretty good money, everything i have read about this industry seems too good to be true, i mean, i have never been overseas, to find that out there somewhere there is someone offering to pay me to travel to their country and talk to them, its just very overwhelming.

When i showed my intrest in this my mother gave me some very good advice: 'Talk to everyone who knows anything about this industry, anyone who has ever been to China, and anyone who has ever dealth with the Chinese people for a long time.' So here i am, in a forum.

Want to know what advice you guys could give me, and anything that you wished someone had told you before you went overseas to teach english, just, you know, wondering.

If you read this, please give a reply, im very open to suggestions and warnings, this is going to be a big investment as far as what has happened in my life so far, so being cautious about it should prove to be very vital.

[Johnnyone]

Please dont post a vote without taking the time to explain it. You may as well nto have voted at all

[Lee Hobbs]

[Johnnyone]

Yeah, thats for the response, i understand everything you are saying and appreciate your comments. From the jobs that i have searched, mainly the ones in China, a lot of them ask for TESL certificate, passport, recent photo, and some have 'university degree preffered', i just really want to go do something totally different for a year, not make a lifetime career in this field.

One thing i dont understand, WHY do they want a university degree? As an australian i really can't see the point.. our universities have probably about 70% of students which are from an asian background, most of them bring translating devices with them.. and then a lot of the teachers have heavy indian accents. I just don't understand the logic in it, i also dont understand how these students pass, but the point is that i don't understand how they could possibly be better qualified to teach non-english speaking people.

Whatever, i'm really in this for the travel and the experience, i'm not looking to lie about my credentials, i just want to go to a country where the culture is very different to here, and teach them the language i have been brought up to speak, i was told by the course operators that i should have no problem finding a relatively good job in China, if anyone knows that i have no chance and im going to waste my time, effort and money chasing for this dream without a degree, please speak up.

PS: Would a TAFE (americans call it junior college i think) Diploma in Digital Media be worth anything? And would it be worth mentioning.

Once again, thank you for the reply man.

[unionjack]

Johnnyone,

Picked this up from another forum and thought it might answer some of your questions.

UJ

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ASSUMPTION: All native English speakers with a college degree are qualified to teach ESL.

China recruits approximately 100,000 native English teachers each year source: http://www.chinatefl.com “According to a certain statistics about 100 thousand teachers will be needed every year in China.”). English teachers from Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States of America are heavily recruited through the Internet http://www.chinatefl.com http://www.tefl.com http://www.eslcafe.com/jobinfo

Generally speaking, in America, a University Bachelors, Masters or Doctorate Degree, in any discipline, merely qualifies a native speaker to enroll in a teacher training program where they will then receive a teaching certificate or Masters Degree, which amounts to a license to teach.

Unfortunately, there is no universal recruitment standard for ESL teachers in China other than the requirement that they are native speakers and have a college degree, in some recognized discipline. There is no teacher training requirement or even any teaching experience requirement to become an English teacher in China.

xinpai@china.com Xin Pai Foreign Language School Date: Monday, 20 January 2003, at 10:08 a.m. More Job Vacancies Four more teaching positions are now available at Xin Pai Foreign Language School … but even those with no experience, who would like to try their hand at teaching, are welcome, as we can provide on-the-job training and assistance.

http://www.chinatefl.com/abroad.html Frequently Asked Questions: 1. What qualifications should one have in teaching in China? The basic qualifications are: being a native speaker of English, having a minimum BA degree and commitment to teaching, loving China and its people. Clear, well-spoken English and a good knowledge of the fundamentals of English grammar. Teaching experience/certificate is preferred but not a must.

Most ESL teachers are recruited to China with very attractive bait (Travel/Teach English: The Global TESOL Institute, http://www.eslcafe.com/jobinfo/asia/sefer.cgi? China;
Looking for a well-paid job to explore China? Come to TDM! Posted By: TDM Language College woody@tdmlanguage.com Date: Thursday, 16 January 2003, at 10:04 a.m. But you are very well paid. Your salary will be more than enough for you to live comfortably, to explore the exciting China, its history, its nature, its people, its culture, its language and its food).

The recruit is usually very young with no prior teaching experience, away from home for the first time, in their first cross-cultural experience, and under the belief that they are about to embark upon a China vacation, which of necessity, must be interrupted occasionally for a little work.

There is little or no advance training, preparation or indoctrination for teaching ESL in China. Far too many recruits never finish their one-year contract, some leaving within the first week, month or first several months. The reasons for disillusionment are almost as many and varied as the number of disillusioned http://www.eslcafe.com/jobinfo/asia/sefer.cgi? In a two year period 113 FE’s published over 400 complaints, mostly about Chinese owned and operated primary schools.

“Too many people with no real interest in the job come here (China) for a good time (very easy to do) and leave the real teachers trying to clean up the mess and repair their image. A white face and a degree, even a fake one, land a job.” (Tamblyn, Andrew, 1/15/03,

“The tragedy is that some folks come here not to teach, but to travel, so they get all romantic and misty eyed. They can’t teach, don’t want to teach, and want to party like in the good old USA. This devil-may-care, happy camper attitude unfortunately leads them to make immature decisions and to be placed in schools that can not wait to capitalize on these “Rage Against the Machine” look-a-likes. They also give serious teachers a bad reputation.” (H. Jones, (2/25/01)

There is no evidence that the native English teacher produces students any better equipped to speak English than their Chinese English teacher counterparts. This is partly due to poorly designed curriculum and partly due to the fact that too many native English speaking teachers are simply not trained to teach anything, let alone ESL.

Middle school and high school students of Chinese English teachers are subject to objective evaluation through the college entrance examination process. University students of Chinese English teachers are subject to objective evaluation through the Band 4 and Band 6 testing program. However, private college or business institute students taught by native English speakers are not subject to any objective evaluation testing process. The effectiveness of these private educational programs is an unknown factor and hence their contribution to the Chinese society is also an unknown factor. The only thing really known for certain about these private English schools is that they are draining an appreciable amount of yuan from the local economy (China Daily, HK Edition, 10/9/02).

This situation cries out for and demands an empirical study of the real benefit of private English colleges and business institutes in relation to their economic profiteering. The 16th Communist Party Congress discussed the advisability and merits of allowing private educational institutions to begin engaging in business for profit, as if it was not a current reality. Acknowledgement that private educational enterprises are making a financial killing in China already is a prerequisite to developing appropriate Governmental regulation and quality control standards for the private educational

[Johnnyone]

Although i may have sounded like i wanted to go over there for the adventure and forget that i am there to teach, i am really looking forward to the actual teaching aspects of the job. It's something i have always wanted to do, i have been told that i am great with people, and that i would be a great teacher, also i understand the requirements of teaching, and that it will require an extreme amount of patience and responsibility.

Thanks for those links, i am still reading some of the forum discussions, i cant find the right links on my bookmarks because they are all filling up with 'ESL this' and 'ESL that' as i am eager to get as much information about something that i have been becoming increasingly passionate about, which is teaching english in china (yeah i think i have pretty much decided on china because of the fact that they seem more 'new teacher friendly' than other countries in thsi field, and the fact that their expectations for credentials are lower. Also not forgetting the fact that i have always wanted to go to China).

I honestly dont want to be a 'white face' who comes and goes, leaving people to clean up because of me not getting what i wanted. To aid this i am trying to become aware of chinese customs through thorough research, also to avoid 'culture shock'.

[Lee Hobbs]

[unionjack]

Johnnyone

Just to add to Lee's post on Z visas

The following is an extract from a letter by Ruth Gammons, International Consultant 847- 733- 3508 USA, which was sent on 27th September 2005 to our ESL Lesson Plan section at
http://www.esl-lesson-plan.com/archives/2005/09/october_2005_es.php#comments
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Extract from Ruth Gammons' letter

The majority of schools in China today require experienced teachers with ESL training and a proven teaching background. And more and more provinces will not allow individual schools and English teaching organizations to convert a tourist visa into a Z visa. It is in fact illegal to do so, as the Z visas are “bought” instead of applied for properly. The schools that do operate that way are the very ones you warn about as potentially preying on unsuspecting foreigners.

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UJ

[Lee Hobbs]

[Johnnyone]

Sorry for not replying sooner, i'm a bit sick.

But yeah, thanks for the helpful posts once again, not getting screwed is my main objective.

Also wondering something, many jobs out there say they dont need a degree, yet they want teaching experience!? I don't understand this, since you need experience to teach yet you need to teach to get experience. And i was thinking since China seems to have the loosest policies for teachers in the world, it would be a good place to GET experience without having to cough up a sexy resume.

[Lee Hobbs]