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| Questions to ask before you commit to a school | ||
| Some of these concerns and issues have been addressed by other contributors. I hope this can and will be a complete list. This post is for people who are NOT in China. (1) Tell the school that they MUST send you an official invitation letter with the school's letterhead. I don't think I got this for my current school as it is not in my files. The second document is a certificate issued by the People's Republic of China State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs authorizing the school to employ you as a foreign expert and thus ordering you lcoal Chinese consulate or embassy to issue you a work visa (type Z visa). This document is a MUST because schools that are not legally allowed to have foreign teachers will either not be able to obtain this, or they will cheat by using ANOTHER school's name on the document. Watch for that! When you get this document check the name of the school closely. If they say anything like "we are sister schools" then you should just stop corresponding with the school because it means the school is using another school's name to hire you. If the Education Ministry ever checks up on you and finds out that you are teaching in another school then you can be in BIG trouble! As a newbie coming to my first school in Qingdao, I wasn't aware of this until I showed my Foreign Experts Certifcate and Foreign Residents Permit to both Chinese and other foreign teachers and they pointed this out to me. This document is a yellow piece of paper with a red government stamp at the bottom right corner of the paper. It may have other stamps and the second line of Chinese characters are in red. A third document is some form describing your employment's location, the term's starting and end date. The embassy will need the second and third document (a photocopy of the second document will suffice). Bring a copy of all the documents (especially originals) to China. You never know when there maybe problems in getting your Foreign Experts Certificate and Foreign Resident Permit. The school may ask for everything back (as in the case of my first school) so do bring make more than one photocopy for yourself. (2) How far is the school from city center by public transit (bus, streetcar, ferry)? This will give you an idea as to how remote the school may be located in. Because bus stops are about a kilometer apart, it takes about 2 minutes between stops pending on traffic volume. How close is the school from the nearest KFC, Mcdonalds, Walmart, Carrefour, Jusco, New Mart, Parkson's, western-style restaurants, etc (if there are any in the city/town)? You can ask about bars and nightclubs (called discos in China), but the school may think you are a party animal and/or have a drinking problem. ;-) Can you go directly from the school to the city center, or do you have to change buses/streetcars? How far is the school from the nearest bus stop (especially of buses that go to city center)? You may find yourself having to walk a long way to catch a bus. A school may say that it is located in a certain city, while in fact it is located in one of the suburban districts or satellite cities. I thought I was going to Qingdao at first, then someone told me (before it was too late) that I was actually going to the developmental zone of Huangdao which requires a 20+ ferry ride and two bus rides to reach the nicer parts of Qingdao. (3) Will you be living on campus or off campus? This is a redundant question if you will be teaching at one of the language schools because often they place you in an apartment since the campus is just some small office building. Will you be sharing it with anyone else? If so, then can you have your own place (by teaching extra classes or having part of your salary deducted). Will you have hot water 24 hours a day? Are local telephone calls free? If you are living off campus, will you have to pay for any water (both drinking and non-drinking), electricity, telephone (long-distance calls will NEVER be free so don't even bother asking), natural gas, centralized heating (turned on in October or November depending on the municipality and turned off in April or May), cable TV, building caretaking (security, cleaning, etc). Private schools may provide you with "free" accomodation but you will be expected to pay for all of the above mentioned expenses and they do eat away your earnings. Some private schools may limit you to spend a certain amount of money on electricity, water, natural gas, and telephone bills. If you go over it then you will have to pay for the extra costs. Will there be a microwave oven, a stove (natural gas or electrical), a fridge, airconditioning (summers are brutally hot in most parts of China), cable TV, telephone, pot/wok/steamer, washing machine, computer with high-speed Internet access, and will you have to pay for the Internet access. Never assume that they will automatically provide all of these things! According to my current school's former teachers, they had to do laundry using the washing machiens that are used for washing beddings on the main floor's laundry room before they complaied and got their own washing machine. Yes, you should also make sure that the bed will have a pillow with CLEAN pillowcase, bedsheet, and blanket. By the way, bring a pair of slippers -- just in case. Also, find out if the building gets locked up (a "curfew") after certain hours. (4) If the school says that it is a "college", ask them if they have any "junior college" students. These students are the ones who could not get into senior middle school because they did poorly on the government final exam. Basically, they are as good as senior middle school students when it comes to both age and English level. If the school says that it is a public school, try to find out if they are administered by governmental education ministry (state, provincial, or municipal). In the case of my first school, Qingdao Harbor Vocational Technology College, it was actually a school run by the Huangdao Port Authority and is as such by definition a private school. (5) Will you be required to teach at multiple campuses? Many public schools have more than one campus, and you may have classes at both campuses A and B. To some people this means having to rush between different campuses between classes and/or having a shorter lunch break even though the school will provide free transportation (though at times late). Many private schools may send you off to public schools and you will have to pay for the bus/taxi fare yourself. (6) How many students per classroom? The drawback of teaching at a public school is having to put up with 30-50 students in a tiny little classroom. (7) Is overtime calculated based on the total number of extra periods you teach WEEKLY, or determined after a full month of lessons? For example, let's say the school tells you that they will pay you 5000 for teaching 20 periods a week and 60 per extra period. For two weeks in February (28 days) you teach 24 classes a week, and for the next two weeks you only teach 16 periods a week because of cancelled classes (quite common when teaching in private schools), will they still pay you for 8 periods of overtime plus the 5000, or will they try to cheat you by telling you that they owe you no O/T since your hours add up to 80 periods for the month? This happened to me in Qingdao at the second school and because I keep track of all my hours, I had to point this out to them to get 3 months' of O/T money from them. (8) How many foreign teachers does the school have now? Unattractive ("bad") schools tend to have a very difficult time getting and keeping foreign teachers. You should be weary if a school asks you to come ASAP and it's late September since the school term has started for about a month. Public schools will often try to have their roster filled by May/June or November/December. (9) Are you required to teach from school-provided textbook (boring, dull and often full of errors) or can you "use them as a guideline" and use your own materials? Public schools often will have no objection over this whereas private schools will not give you too much flexibility. (10) <--- I leave this to anyone who may have something to add! Hope you get a good school! Thomas Wang Dalian city Liaoning province Friday August 13th 2004 tw@canada.com |