Employment & Prof. Development

Hello Dr. Greg, and Headmaster Ken,

I’m hoping you can help shed some light on my current situation. I’ve done a LOT of reading & thinking, and am at a decision point.

Please pardon the lengthy post.

Background:

I am a 39 yr old male with an AAS (associate's in applied science) in IT from a vocational college.

Born, raised in the USA, and lived in seven different states over the years. I never quite made the leap overseas (unless you want to count Hawaii) though.

After obtaining an AAS some years ago, I found a ‘temporary’ job in a state radiation protection program. This later gave me the opportunity to take some courses offered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which I did.

After passing several of these intense NRC courses, I qualified for a higher level position with another state as a radioactive materials license writer, which I recently left due to miserable pay.

My initial goal after leaving the job was to go back to my former college and do another 18 months in order to upgrade my AAS to a bachelor of science degree in IT, then apply in other states that actually pay a living wage for a similar position.

Much like teaching overseas, most states don't care what your degree is in, as long as it's a BA/BS.

After getting a BS, I would earn ~$45k USD. Not a bad wage, but not much of a standard of living either.

Bottom line, I shudder at the thought of working in a cubicle for another 20 years. Why go this route when it would result in a career I know I don't really enjoy, and saddle myself with additional debt (student loans)?

This is what led me to think upgrading my AAS to a BS in order to teach overseas would be the best idea, and 18 months from now isn't bad.

After talking to the admissions officer, I found that the college I previously attended has raised their rates considerably, and the needed 18 months of schooling would cost me nearly $30k USD! Ouch…

The other colleges I’ve talked to--who accept transfer credits from my school--informed me that technology credits over five years old won’t transfer, but the few general education credits will. In short, either pay the $30k to my former college, or start pursuing a BA/BS from square one. Not appealing at age 39.

This got me thinking about alternatives and is why I started looking again at the idea of earning a TEFL certificate and heading overseas.

For the record, I was ‘this’ close to doing it ten years ago before I decided to get an AAS in IT. I digress…

Without a BA/BS, China appears to be my best bet. Years ago my heart was really set on Thailand, but while not yet old, I also don’t feel like I can muck around aimlessly for a few more years either. That outcome seems likely should I choose Thailand.

If I went to China and earned a TEFL certificate, would I always be stuck at the lowest rung teaching positions, or would I be able to progress into better positions as I gain experience?

What would my possibilities (either in education or other fields in China) down the road be with an AAS, a TEFL, and say 5 years teaching experience?

It would be my desire to attend a University in China to earn a BA/BS, but am finding very little information on the topic.

Would I be able to do so (money and time-wise) while teaching with what I earn? Are there any online universities in Asia that teach in English?

Lastly, I found the following program which is essentially a BA/TESOL program in Thailand. It sounds great in theory, but there are lots of alarm bells going off as I dig into it.

In a nutshell, you attend classes in person for a couple of months, and then teach nine months (while also doing some online classes) for $30k baht per month. Repeat 4x. At the end of four years, you have a BA in TESOL or Business + a TESOL cert., you choose in advance which route.

Any thoughts are appreciated, and thank you both ever so much for what is clearly the most helpful information on the internet for this topic!

Sincerely,

David

Hi David,

I don’t know how much of the Guide you have had a chance to read thus far but I think, when you have the time, you need to read through each page of it carefully and deliberately because there is a lot you may not be considering. For example, your implied contrast in TEFL professionalism between China and Thailand is unfounded, such that you suggest that one can have a serious career in the former but would just be “mucking around” in the later. Generally speaking, EFL teaching is de-professionalized in Thailand, Korea, and China as the only credential that is truly required is the ability to speak English natively: a nice physical appearance and a good singing voice are also very helpful.

I fully appreciate that when people are struggling vocationally and financially back home, teaching English in China looks very inviting and promising. School owners, especially large franchises like EF English First, recruiters (both Western and Chinese), and these “nonprofit cultural exchange” programs spend a great deal of time and money trying to convince Western people that their lives in mainland China will be more comfortable and satisfying than they are now. These shameless hucksters and their lackeys write of the “low cost of living in China,” “free housing,” and how most of your income will be entirely discretionary because “everything is so cheap” in China. If all this sounds too good to be true, that's because it is.

If you read the international news, you know that China is experiencing record-breaking economic inflation: The price of milk, eggs, bread, and other stables cost more now in China than they do in any major city throughout the United States—and I’m referring to the net purchase price, not relative purchasing power.

With an associate’s degree, you might be able to find a teaching position at a private language mill for 6,000 to 8,000 per month, teaching 18 to 22 periods per week (exhausting) and if you can find the energy to work a second or third job, you might be able to push your monthly income up to as much as 15,000 yuan over time.

Assuming a salary of 8,000 per month (about $1,200) in a second- or third-tier city, you might be able to save up to half of that if you make no improvements to the substandard cold-water flat you will be provided with and live very cheaply. If you decide to travel or, God forbid, become seriously ill (such that you will only be provided with accidental injury insurance, not medical insurance), you will see an entire year’s savings disappear in a blink of an eye. Far worse, for each year that you spend as an indentured servant teaching oral English to the spoiled, bored, and disinterested children of China’s nouveau riche, your chances of ever being able to make it back home diminish exponentially. You will very likely become an economic prisoner of the Asian EFL Industry (for an outside source, please see the Slavery of Teaching English).

David, my best advice is to do whatever you can to avoid having to move to China to teach oral English for Coolie wages. This is fine for recent college graduates and old folk who are seeking subsidized Chinese language study or travel experience (for a year or two) but this is not a viable career path for an early middle-aged Western man who is obviously very bright and just terribly frustrated right now.

As you already have an AAS in Information Technology, have you thought about pursuing computer industry certification such as MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA and the like? Wouldn’t computer technology certifications broaden your options back home? A bachelor’s degree conferred by an unaccredited school (or one accredited in Thailand only) is not going to be of much use to you, either pedagogically or financially.

Do whatever you need to do to make life work for you back home. Teaching oral English in China is not a viable career path for anyone and unless you speak fluent Chinese, you can expect your day-to-day stress levels to skyrocket (according to over 600 survey responses that I have received).

I'd just like to chime in and point out that IT skills are perishable. If you take time off, your skills will degrade and make you less desirable to a potential employer.

I'd suggest you finish the B.A.

I'd like to profoundly thank both of you for your well put thoughts on my predicament.

In response to a few of your comments:

When I originally wrote, I had not discovered the full guide. Since then I have read it all, and it has proven invaluable. At the risk of sounding overly ingratiating, I don't see how anyone considering a move to China could do so without it.

My impression of Thailand vs. China was based on other sources of information which were clearly not as well researched as your Guide. The implication from the other sources was that the standard of living for an oral English teacher in Thailand was below that of those in China. Unless you had a BA/BS and obtained employment at a University.

You hit the nail on the head when you said I'm 'frustrated'. I am.

The slavery of Teaching English article is perhaps the most sobering portrayal I've yet read. Thank you for the link.

I have little interest in pursuing a degree or credentials in IT when it would still mean I'd be starting life over again at $14-$18 an hour. Plus be indebted another $30k in student loans.

The bottom line is, I wouldn't mind 'paying my dues' in China (or elsewhere) if it would lead to sustainable employment alternatives down the road. Either in teaching, another field all together, or an entrepreneurial pursuit.

From what you have said, that outlook is not favorable (to put it mildly).

You have to some extent answered my question about the chances of pursuing alternative employment after teaching a few years, but if I were to make that move, what other opportunities would be possible? Is it truly an absolute dead-end?

Perhaps I'm being dense and overlooking the obvious as it's what I really wish to do.

Sincerely,

David

Hi David,

Based on all the years that I’ve been in China and after reviewing hundreds of survey responses regarding salaries, work hours, and job satisfaction, I can accurately say with certainty that teaching English in China is a vocational dead end. The only thing teaching English in China prepares you for is yet another job teaching English in China (or some other part of Asia where English teaching is unregulated).

The tremendous “savings” that some foreign teachers write of as English teachers in China fail to control for the relative impoverishment of their current lifestyle and the fact they would probably have more discretionary income (as a result of higher income) if they were to live in a similar fashion in their countries of origin. For example, consider how much more discretionary income you would have if you: 1) sold your car and eliminated all automobile-related expenses, e.g., car payments, auto insurance; 2) moved to a cold-water, walk-up flat (a small apartment on the 4th to 8th floor of an old building with no elevator, limited hot water for showering only, no central A/C or heat, cheap old wooden business furniture, an old 27” CRT-type TV), and; 3) ate nothing more than a steamed bun for breakfast and a bowl of beef noodles for lunch, etc.

The vast majority of foreign English teachers in China maintain a quality of life that is comparable to how America’s AFDC (welfare) recipients live EXCEPT without the benefit of health insurance. Somehow the fact that they are living this way in mainland China instead of back home effectively distracts them from reality of their situation because it all miraculously becomes a part of the “China adventure.” Westerners who would never live this way in Quebec, Cambridge, Miami, or Melbourne somehow manage to never give it a second thought after arriving here because it’s all part of the “China experience”: you know, living like one of the locals. That argument might have some validity if not for the fact that no middle-class Chinese would allow himself to be caught dead in the type of substandard housing provided to and lived in by Canadian, British, American, and Australian English teachers in China. In fact, foreign English teachers in mainland China today are correctly and disparagingly viewed by the Chinese as poor immigrants, particularly as starting salaries in China’s first-tier cities approach what foreign teachers are being paid at public universities.

The other aspect to English teaching jobs in China you should be aware of is that the better the package you are brought in with, the more difficult it will be for you to hold onto that package during subsequent annual contract renewals: You will be forced to either take a cut in pay or work harder for the same salary.

From my perspective, a middle-aged American man who was unemployed and unemployable back home (for whatever reason) would be better off signing himself into a Salvation Army Rehabilitation Facility, claiming to be a recovering alcoholic (whether he was or not), and driving a donation pickup truck for $300 per week (with free housing and food) than moving to China to teach oral English. Not only would he eat better but he would be eligible for a variety of government services such as SSI, Medicare, and vocational rehabilitation testing and training. He will also live longer as the air he will breathe and the water he will drink will be considerably healthier and safer than what he would be exposed to in most major cities throughout China.