Employment & Prof. Development

I am preparing my application packet that I will use in attempt to find work at various public universities in China. What specific qualities do schools look for in references and based on that, which reference options would be the most helpful if I used them or a combination of them:

Option 1: My main experience has been in tutoring (though none of it ESL). Currently, I am debating which of them to use as references. Many of my students have seen two letter grade increases in a relatively short periods of time, and I would normally ask them and will ask them for at least one of my two references.

Yet I have two other options that might be better - and which one I use depends on what they are looking for?

Option 2: My Chinese history professor from when I was in college (at a university that is very highly regarded in China - top 20 by their rankings), he thinks I basically hang the moon, and, after I graduated, invited me back to give a (very successful) presentation on Chinese foreign policy for his class. So he could praise my lecturing skills especially as he is someone who lived in China for many years.

Option 3: A client with whom I have worked for almost six months, is a young Chinese immigrant, who has been here for about five years. I am hesitant because he has not shown the sort of improvement most of my other students do and considering I know his parents expect A's from him I am actually surprised I am still working there even though he continues to get B's. His parents are very nice to me, but we cannot communicate much as they know about as much English as I do Mandarin (very littler) so we communicate through a relative of his. She seems happy with me and told me that it's not my fault he has not been doing better, he just does not want to do the work. That said, if I get a letter of recommendation from them and like what it says (can have a friend translate it) should I submit it? Will they contact the parents - fearful if they ask enough probing questions they might find out that I haven't improved his grades that much - or is it just important that I worked with a Chinese student and had a good relationship.

Thank you so much for all of your help.

Foreign affairs officers (FAOs) when considering applications for foreign oral English teachers check the following attributes and qualifications in this order:

1. Is the applicant a native speaker of English? This will be ascertained by checking your place of birth on the attached digital copy of your passport’s cover page.
2. Does the applicant have the proper appearance? Do you look like a "typical" White person of European descent?
3. Does the applicant have a college degree? This will primarily be considered for university positions and highly competitive private school positions. All other things equal, applicants with advanced degrees will be given preference.
4. Does the applicant have any China or other Asian EFL teaching experience? The Chinese believe that past performance is the best predictor of future performance.

You will notice that letters of recommendation are not on this list because, for the most part, Chinese employers regard them as meaningless unless they are written by a former Chinese employer in Chinese. For example, unlike American high school students, Chinese college applicants are not required to provide letters of recommendation from their high school teachers. Everyone knows that, in China, if such letters were required and taken seriously, the parents would simply “buy” these letters of recommendation by offering their child’s teachers an envelope filled with money (referred to in Chinese as a hóngbāo, red envelope).

Feel free to obtain and submit reference letters from all three sources you mentioned. Ask your references to write their letters in Putonghua if they can: they are more likely to be read. Still, I don’t suspect these letters will carry much weight with prospective employers, if any.

By the way, does your reference above to an “application packet” mean that you are using a recruitment agency or “nonprofit” service? If so, that is entirely unnecessary in your case.

No, I was only using the phrase "application packet" because there were so many materials to include (resume, cover letter, scanned copies of diploma and passport, photo, official transcripts, if needed).

That said, I did look at some of the services that go through universities only because they seemed to have postings for public universities in China but am guessing I would not like that option as you probably have to go with whatever post they give you. One temptation of those services is that I am having so much trouble finding listings for public universities in Beijing.

Do my two years of non-ESL tutoring count as two years of teaching experience by Beijing standards and, if so, where should I be looking to find university positions?

Thank you so much for your help.

Each prospective Chinese employer is free to individually assess the relevancy of any and all claimed experience. For example, if one is applying for a position as a business English teacher with an MBA degree and five years of management experience, that would more than meet the 2-year relevant work experience guideline even though the applicant had no teaching experience per se. Your two years of tutoring experience more than meets the SAFEA guideline I believe.

If you haven’t already done so, check out our page on China EFL Teacher Resources for the best sites to look for work. Also, as you have access to students who can read Chinese, I would recommend that you conduct a Google search on public universities in Beijing and then make an appointment with one of your students so you can visit the university websites together. Most Chinese university websites do not offer an English version and, if they do, it is almost entirely geared towards recruiting students, not offering employment information to prospective teachers. You will need a Chinese native speaker to comb through these sites for you to track down employment contact information.