Employment & Professional Development

I am wondering if I am a realistic candidate for university employment in China.

This fall, I will begin my senior year of undergraduate work at James Madison University (JMU) in Virginia. After I graduate in the spring, I plan to teach English in China for a year.

I am a history major with minors in Asian Studies and Chinese Business. Additionally, I have six semesters of Chinese language experience.

Ideally, I'd like to seek employment in Chengdu at Sichuan University: JMU has close ties to Sichuan university and it sends a study abroad group there every summer. I was part of this group in 2010 and studied at Sichuan University for over a month, and then at Tsinghua for an equal amount of time. I have a close relationship with the leader of the trip who is a Chinese native employed as a professor at JMU who, in turn, has close relations with faculty at Tsinghua, Shandong University and Sichuan University, so I'm hoping I can use some of this guanxi.

Also of possible importance, I have about a year's worth of experience volunteering as a teacher a few hours a week through a local ESL organization.

Most of these university sites list some comparatively lofty requirements, often requesting masters degrees and 2 or more years of full time teaching experience. In your Guide, however, you mention that no one with a four year degree should bother with private schools. I would greatly appreciate it, then, if you would kindly weigh in on what kind of programs you think I might be competitive for in this early stage of planning for me.

Thanks a lot,

Kevin

When you enter China to teach English in August 2012, you will have your diploma in hand: therefore, you will meet the basic education requirement at that time. As for the required work experience, that is highly negotiable and it's also a matter of interpretation, i.e., each employer is free to determine what type of experience might be applicable.

Work experience doesn’t need to be in the form of teaching. Your brief stint in China will probably be considered more than adequate. Certainly, you have demonstrated the ability to adjust to the developing country's numerous environmental, physical, and emotional demands. The fact that you have spent time in China and want to return will be viewed as an encouraging sign to prospective employers.

All Chinese universities do prefer foreigners with advanced degrees, that’s true enough, and some even state it as a requirement (although they will always take whatever they can get). However, rarely is this preference or requirement a matter of need or added functionality: it's simply a matter of face and "getting a better deal." Hiring an MBA for 4500 yuan is viewed as a much more advantageous arrangement than hiring a recent college graduate for 4200 yuan per month. The difference in salary between BA, MA, and PhD level foreign teachers is negligible so, of course, they are going to try and get as much "bang for their buck" as possible.

Consequently, an applicant with a master’s degree in physics would be more competitive in China for an "English teaching" job than a bachelor’s level applicant with a joint degree in English and education. This only makes sense when you understand that foreigners are not being hired to teach English at all, but to entertain and charm the students while meeting a Ministry of Education requirement.

Your application certainly has merit and you should give it a shot. However be advised that if you just happen to be up against a, for example, Pharm.D (doctor of pharmacy), who is trying to teach English in China because he recently lost his license for misappropriating 30 bottles of opiate-based cough syrup, you will very likely lose the position to him.

It’s also hard to say whether your Chinese faculty contact at JMU will be of any help to you. Guanxi is more valuable than money in China. Nevertheless, you can certainly ask him for a letter of recommendation and, hopefully, the section chief in the Sichuan University foreign affairs office will get around to reading it. (Note: Have your professor write the letter in both English and Chinese.)

Good luck with this.

Thank you so much for your swift and insightful reply, all of the information on this site has been an invaluable source of information.

A clarifying question, if you have a moment: should I be considering anything besides a public school?

It will be easier for you to find employment at a private language school and, consequently, it will also be a lot easier for you to find yourself in a very bad situation.

However, after years of teaching at public universities in China, I now believe that an exceptionally well-run private language school will probably provide a better overall employment experience to foreign teachers than your average public university does.

There is very little variance between the myriad of public universities in how they view and treat foreign English teachers, which is both a good and bad thing. Perhaps the only thing that really differs is the degree of contempt the FAO feels and openly displays towards them. Some do a very good job of concealing it, most don't.

Imagine how you would feel if you had to babysit a bunch of Westerners who were earning as much as twice your monthly salary for working a fraction of the hours? No matter how nice they may be as people, in regard to foreign students and teachers, they are pissed all the time. And when the foreigners start complaining about the accommodations and provided appliances, it takes all they've got to restrain themselves.

This is why it takes your typical FAO an average of five days to answer an e-mail complaint or inquiry, assuming he or she answers at all. The truth is, they are only reflecting the collective attitude of their university administration towards foreigners and the English language in general.

By contrast, imagine a private language school run by a Western career educator who cares almost as much about education as he does about business: Such a school could be a real pleasure to work for. Actually, because I know him personally, I believe Ken's school (Kenneth's English) would be a really good school to work for--if you like and can work with kids.

Unlike most Chinese foreign affair officers, a Western school owner is not going to feel jealously, anger, and resentment towards his foreign English teachers, especially when they are doing a good job.

If you decide to go the private school route, you need to carefully exercise due diligence and follow our checklists word for word. By all means, stay away from the English language mills, i.e., franchises and chains.