Teaching English in China

Every Teacher Soon Becomes a Student
By Smitha Murthy

Landing in China can be either a rewarding, learning experience in this eastern land of adventurous promise or a frustrating, chaotic, experience in an Oriental morass. The choice of this experience lies partly with the teacher and mostly with a bizarre combination of factors that go by various names such as luck, destiny and yes, even karma.

Having just completed a 10-month assignment teaching spoken English in East China to a group that ranged from teeny kindergarten kids to scrawny teenagers to adults in all shapes and sizes, I could sum up my experience here in one word: learning. No matter how lousy the conditions or how fantastic the adulation showered on you, ultimately this is what it boils down to. Teach in China and you end up being a student yourself. An unwilling, grumpy learner or a grateful and eager learner, the choice is yours.

Practical Considerations

The ways to get into China are fairly straightforward, be it through the friendly contacts or through the omnipresent Internet or through placement agencies. The way doesn’t matter really. But investing ten months of your life and your career in a new land is a risk you have to consider, and the success of this investment depends sometimes on just a roll of the dice.

First, you could run the risk of being cheated out of your experience by crooks who run scams in the name of schools. I taught in China’s biggest education group, which runs more than nine boarding schools all over the country and still had to face an initial harrowing time with visas and bogus work permits that the concerned school conveniently chose to pass off as its own. In reality it had no license to hire foreign teachers. Make sure you have armed yourself with facts. Check, check, double-check, and verify the credentials of the school, university or institute that you are considering. The Internet is a wonderful source for such information, a few hours on the Web would always land you with someone who knows someone who knows someone who was teaching there. The shape of your journey would be molded here.

The location of your school is equally important. There is more to China than Beijing and Shanghai. A fair number of cities are quite well-developed and can certainly provide you with a wonderful peek into the heart of China. Looking for a mild winter? Head to South China. Prefer a balanced mix? Consider East China with its beautiful beaches. Avoid as much as possible the Northwest, generally the least developed section of China, unless you are really looking to rough it.

After location and the school comes your contract. This is your lifeline. Make sure you have the original stamped contract with you before you even set foot on these shores. The sign of authenticity in China is the red stamp on the contract. Make sure your contract states the pay, the number of hours to be taught, and the airfare reimbursement…all the little details necessary and needed. Clarify with the school whether weekdays are free and whether you get paid holidays. Clarify anything and everything. Better to sound like a fool than be one. The Z-Visa is a must; landing in China on a tourist visa is fraught with dangers.

Although most schools in China wouldn’t negotiate, there is no reason why you should settle for anything less than RMB 4000. A school or university which offers you less than this is really trying to cut corners and should be avoided. Don’t be persuaded by glib claims that the average salary of the Chinese teacher is only half of yours. Maybe true, but then the average Chinese teacher hasn’t left his country. So state your price, especially if you have a fancy degree. Inquire about your living conditions. Does your apartment have heating or an air conditioner? Small matter, but considering that I nearly froze to death in winter when the school decided to switch off the heating, you would feel cozier if you know these details.

Are there other foreign teachers around? Other Chinese who know reasonable English? When my International Officer suddenly left my school I was in a sorry situation where communication with the school’s Chinese-speaking "leaders" turned out to be virtually impossible! Such a big difference these little details make.

Now comes the easy bit, the teaching. Insist on co-workers or Chinese teaching assistants to be present for your classes at least during the initial period. If you are walking into a classroom full of running, scampering, and screeching kids alone, then good luck! It would be helpful if you could take some books on teaching Conversational English with you, and certainly even more helpful if you are a born linguist who can pick up Chinese faster than your students pick up English.

Most classes are generally unstructured, and as the “foreign expert” you are given a lot of independence in the framing of your lessons. Some schools might provide you with instructional material. Even so be innovative. The Internet is a wonderful storehouse of lessons. It doesn’t matter whether you are here on a lark or with the serious intent of adding pages to your CV, the fact is that your school is paying you to teach.