About six months ago we made a decision – we were leaving Shenzhen before the end of the year, no excuses. We didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t really know what we would do. I had vague hope that outside of China my M.Ed might mean something. We originally set our sights on Australia for no other reason than it seemed a remarkably pleasant place to live and work. One of the few things we knew was that, for various reasons, the wish not to go home was even stronger than the desire to leave English teaching in Shenzhen. We wanted to leave Shenzhen for one big reason. We felt like we weren’t developing.
Tag Archive: TEFL
We work 8:30 to noon most mornings. Usually I go to my other job from six or seven to nine. There’s a lot of empty time in between. We sleep. A lot. Two to four is not uncommon. You try to get up in between. Your cold. Or just tired. It’s difficult. So you keep sleeping until guilt pries you out of bed. It feels like my life in China overall. A quick break that dragged on hours longer than expected. Only the feeling that I should be doing something else, anything else, is what drags you out.
There’s almost no such thing as a “promotion” in this line of work. Usually we sort our own affairs out after a rough or fun first year. You find the money or the students you’re looking for. I’d always wanted to teach college. So that’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done for two years. At core, it’s almost identical work to what I’ve been doing since I got off the boat here. But I can call myself a college teacher. You should see what I did to call myself a Head Teacher for a year.
It’s the first week of classes. I spend about five minutes introducing myself and another twenty five reviewing what we’ll be doing for the semester. Showing the book I use, my method of teaching, class expectations (a Chinese-English dictionary, notebook, and a pen for every class), and such. I end with this:
“There’s one more thing about this class. If you don’t want to be here, stay home next week. Really. Meishi. It’s no problem. If you don’t want to be here you don’t need to come. Come to a few classes and take the test and you’ll get a C-. Sleep, play computer games, chat online, or come to my class – suibian (it’s up to you). I’d rather have a small class of students who want to be here than a large class who doesn’t.”
It is not impossible to make more than I made as an American high school teacher in China while enjoying the lifestyle that comes from living a developing countries cost of living. It’s the land of $5 massages, $2 meals, and easy-to-find $20/hr part-time work. It usually takes time though. For comparison, Saudi Arabia is usually hailed as having the best salaries for TEFL teachers in the world. An older friend looking to buy a house and retire with his wife in Thailand did the calculations of what it would take to get that house factoring in salary and cost of living expenses. Two years, he said, in Saudi Arabia but just three in China. The bottom line is that you won’t be poor teaching in China, and in fact can have a higher quality of life than teaching in America.
I’ve worked in Mainland China for almost four years now. The first year and a half was as a recruiter for what turned out to be a fairly awful company. I want to share here my experiences working in this field and watching trends since I’ve been here. I really like what EmptyBottle.org did for TEFL in Korea and want to make the same thing for China
Visas are the most common headache for foreign teachers in China. My own wife was “deported” once because of a visa crackdown. Start processing the kind of visa before coming over – it’s much more difficult trying to get things worked out inside of China
Treyopia v3.0 