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| Hola to all China Expats, I am an American who has lived in China for 4 years, before that in the Republic of Korea. My strong recommendation is to skip the so called "private schools". EF is the largest employer, Shane's English is another employer. These schools are an international business and they sell franchises to local people, much like McDonalds. The result for you? EF pays 5500 RMB a month for up to 25 hours of work a week, and you the teacher are required to be there 40 hours a week for lesson planning, promotions, parent evaluations and what not. The bosses at this school care about the bottom line and tries to keep the parents happy, usually at the determent of the teacher. Saturday classes are usually literally an all day affair, and in my experience at Shane's (Cherry school) in Hangzhou, our holidays were cut back and extra work was piled on us before a holiday. We were also not paid for the holiday. The housing they provide is usually shared housing, or a place that is more or less a dump (usually). In Shanghai, the school does not pay for your housing, and housing is expensive in Shanghai. The worse part of the whole deal is that there is usually a foreign DOS (Director of Studies). He is more or less your supervisor and creates the courses. This person is a foreigner and a teacher, but they act in concert with the company (franchiser) and the owners (franchisee) against the teacher. If there were no DOS people, then teachers can command better salaries, there would be more academic freedom in the classroom, and there would be a lot more leeway in how teaching is done within the system. If you want to quit, you have to get a "letter of release" from your employer to work for someone else. But you cannot really ask a favor of a boss you just ran away from, can you? I left one private school (when they wanted to cut me from full time work to part time work), and worked at a University. When the visa expired, they would not issue me a new one until I presented them with that "letter of release". My poor Chinese wife went and did it, and had to beg and grovel to the boss, a privileged woman. This woman more or less owned me. I am not saying anything negative about her and she has made a lot of money off the backs of her foreign and domestic staff. It's just difficult to leave a private school if the conditions are less than favorable and they're other jobs in the horizon. This is worse in Korea than in China by the way. If you want to come to China do this............ 1.) Get a position at a University. I work for a University in Hangzhou. At first glance, a University position is a poor deal, Universities pay much less than private schools. I receive 4,000 RMB a month for 12 hours worth of teaching. I work for the college two days per week. I have a nicely furnished, clean efficiency apartment with a TV, DVD player, a kitchen with rice cooker, microwave, and a new refrigerator, a washing machine and a nice computer with internet. I have a telephone where I am allowed 100 RMB a month charges. Any less then I receive a refund at the end of the month. I do not pay rent, utilities, internet charges, nothing. At the end of the year's contract, I get a 8,000 RMB bonus (more or less the air ticket, but I live here, married here and have roots in the community). I will also receive 2,000 RMB for summer holiday. This is not to say that a University position is the greatest experience either. There are too many students in the classroom, many are bored with English, many are lazy, and there is a lot of absenteeism. Sometimes the staff is very apathetic, and scheduling can be a nightmare. However, the work is light, I do have good students, so I do not mind. 2.) If you want to make more money, then go to the private schools and get a PART TIME job with them. Part time pays at least 100 RMB if not 120 RMB an hour. The bosses of the school wants to open a class but his regular teachers are already overworked, they call you. You get to work for these schools, but there is no pressure on you, because you are not under contract with them. If they are jerks to you, you can just say "F.U., I'm gone." A full timer cannot do this. 3.) In Hangzhou, it is easy to make 8-10,000 RMB or more doing it this way. I work 21 hours a week and make 8,200 RMB a month. Before I accepted a position here in the college, a school called NOVA wanted to pay me 6,000 for 23 hours of classes. They have foreign teachers. I make 2,000 more a month and work one hour less. Hangzhou is a great Chinese town! You can make some money here, but you have to do it right. Senor Send Message to Author |