The Guide’s content is organized across two main sections: Teaching in China, comprising 39 chapters, and Living in China, consisting of 35 chapters.

A good way to get started is to simply click on the link to the section index you are most interested in (in the preceding paragraph) or you can just as easily browse the main menu to your left (when you roll your cursor over the menu headings, a corresponding cascading sub-menu will appear). For a visual layout of the entire site, including all of our files available for download, you can take a look at the Guide’s site map and topic index.

While the chapters about the various aspects of living in China are oriented to prospective foreign teachers, they can be read and enjoyed by anyone who is thinking about moving to China for any reason.

If you would like to obtain a good idea about how competitive you will be in China's English teaching job market, as well as anticipate how easy or difficult your psychosocial adjustment to China will be, we encourage you to take our China English Teacher Self-Assessment test. If you are pressed for time and just want a brief overview and discussion of the most salient issues you need to be aware of, then the Guide's Comprehensive Summary Checklist is also an excellent place to start.

Also, for those of you who are just beginning your exploration into the possibility of teaching English in China, it is strongly recommended that you read our warning and advice about How to Evaluate the Credibility of China EFL Websites.

If you are completely unfamiliar with China's educational system and Chinese students, it is highly recommended you first read our overview titled China's Education System, Chinese Students, and the Foreign English Teacher. For a detailed description of the occupational, sociodemographic, and personal aspects of teaching English in China, see the chapter titled Is Teaching English in China for Me? For returning visitors, you can easily identify the newest chapters, sections, and updates by simply clicking on the hyperlink located in the sidebar to your right (Guide Revision) or navigating to Notices --> Revision History in the menu bar.

After you've had a chance to read the guide, we ask that you take just a couple of minutes to complete our reader survey so that we can be more responsive to your needs in the future. In addition, if you are or were a foreign teacher in China, we invite you to take our China Foreign Teacher Satisfaction Survey.

While each of the 74 chapters is written to be read as an independent unit, many of the topics are obviously interrelated and, thus, hyperlinks to relevant chapters and their section headings can be found on most pages. These links are usually embedded within a sentence using blue-colored anchor text and as recommended readings at the end of some chapters.

Hyperlinks to pages within the Guide open in the same window, while links to articles in the blog, as well as to other directory locations (reader forum, resource directory), will open in a new window (or tab, depending on your browser settings). Within the Guide, you can easily return to the previous page you were referred from by pressing the Alt and Back (Left) Arrow keys simultaneously.

You can always determine your precise place in the Guide by examining the highlighted blue text on the menu bar to your left. As you roll your mouse cursor over the highlighted text, the submenu will open and your precise location will be revealed in bold, capitalized blue text.

Aside from selecting the desired chapter in the menu bar, you can navigate to the previous or next chapter by simply clicking on the corresponding arrow at the bottom-left or -right of each page, respectively.

Finally, if you are having difficulty finding what you are looking for, we strongly encourage you to use our extremely robust search engine located at the bottom of the menu bar. You can constrain your search to the precise ordering of your search terms by using quotation marks, e.g., "housing problems" (search engine will then only return page results that contain the precise term). If you do not use quotation marks, the search engine will return page results that contain all the words in your search but that were found in any order on the page.

• Listed in the Open Directory Project, the most authoritative and respected human-edited directory on the Internet, as only one of four recommended sources of information on teaching English in China, as well as a resource for Teaching English Abroad.
• Received GoGuides.org's highest rating for Internet guides based on "overall look and feel of the website, total/unique content, and ease of navigation" under Education and Research: Teaching.
• "Excellent overview recommended to me by one who said it was of great use to them. I will be linking to it from our very popular article and resource site on teaching English overseas..." Gregory Hubbs of TransitionsAbroad.com
• "I just wanted to let you know that your work is helpful, detailed, concise, honest, witty, and simply kind of amazing. The fact that you offer it as a free internet resource is astounding to me. I just wish I had found it sooner!... As an educated young American looking to jump-start a teaching career by adventuring in exotic China, I can tell you that your work is greatly appreciated, both for its quality and joy of reading. I can't stop reading! You've done a great and invaluable service to me... and I'm sure many others." Patrick Barco, January 22, 2010.
• "This is the best and most comprehensive site I’ve seen so far on teaching English in China. ... (it) is a gold mine of information for anybody who wants to be an English teacher in China." Matt from An English Teacher in China.
• "This website is awesome. I loved the objective, researched, academic approach to a potentially delicate subject (re: Chinese women and foreign men). I lived in China for 5 years, but I learned so much reading this website." James MacLachlan, May 5, 2009.
• "This is quite simply the best thing I have found online to guide people in my situation. I am a 28 yr old, thinking very seriously about teaching for a year in Shenzhen, and have found this entire guide helpful. I read it start to finish, from the initial reactions, through psychology of the women, to buying a house. Great info, and all in 1 place. This is an incredible resource to glean practical information that answers exactly the sort of questions that I want to ask. Thanks again." (Comment submitted in the Guide Reader's Survey, March 14, 2009.)

Browser Compatibility

Every page in the Guide is W3C XHTML 1.0 compliant and has been optimized for use with Firefox, versions 2.x and 3.x, and Internet Explorer, versions 7.x and 8.x. It has also been successfully tested for use with Chrome 1.0.154 (Google), Safari 4 (Apple) and Opera 9.64. Earlier versions of these browsers or completely different browsers that are not W3C-standards compliant may produce unpredictable results in the Guide's layout.

JavaScript

You must have JavaScript enabled in your browser in order for the cascading menu bar, various tab panels, and animated text boxes and slides throughout the guide to work properly. Although the Guide can be viewed with JavaScript disabled, it will not be as esthetically pleasing or convenient to use.

At least one plugin for Firefox, AdBlock Plus, has been positively identified as interfering with the loading of our style sheets and several other ad-blocking and antiviral programs may interfere with the execution of JavaScript on this website as well.

Screen Resolution

The Guide's layout is designed using fixed column widths and both the cascading menus and main content will display properly at a minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768 on screens as small as 14" to 15" on laptop monitors. However, we recommend viewing the Guide at the highest screen resolution possible—up to and including 1680 x 1050 for the most enjoyable experience.