Hello everyone, I am currently doing a master's program in adolescence education in math. I will have my teaching certificate by summer 2014, and I am very interested becoming a international teacher (preferably in China) afterwards. My questions are:
1. I don't have any prior teaching experience other than a semester of student teaching and teaching assistant for a summer. What are the odds that I get hired right out of school? I am willing to go to any school as long as it's in China.
2. I am a native Chinese, I came to US when I was 16 and had my education here afterwards. Would the fact that I am not a native English speaker impact negatively on my international teaching career? Although I will be teaching middle school/high school math, and my English is very fluent, I'm still a little bit concerned after I see some schools prefer teachers to be native English speakers in subjects other than English.
Hope you can answer my questions, thank you in advance!
Help Needed for A Newbie! Possibilty of Teaching in China
Help Needed for A Newbie! Possibilty of Teaching in China
Last edited by Mr.Tang on Tue May 21, 2013 2:59 pm, edited 3 times in total.
You should get some experience in the US before going international. Not only would it be very hard for you to find a job in any halfway decent international school, once there you would not have the level of professional support that is so crucial for new teachers.
After two or three years in the US, try your luck overseas.
After two or three years in the US, try your luck overseas.
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eion_padraig
- Posts: 408
- Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:18 pm
Mr. Tang,
I agree with Sid that you'd do better in the long run if you started teaching in the US for 2 - 3 years. After that amount of time, you would have an easier time finding work at better schools. In this case, by better I mean higher paying jobs with better professional development and better management/organization.
Generally speaking, the foreign-run schools are preferred by the bulk of foreign teachers going to China, but there is a big demand for foreign teachers from Chinese schools running foreign curriculum also. The foreign-run schools are not allowed to teach Chinese nationals. You may know all this given your background, but I think it matters to distinguish between the two for your 2nd question.
1.) I think your chances would be okay to be hired by a Chinese high school using an international curriculum. You might even be able to be hired by an foreign-run international school, but it wouldn't be one of the better ones because they want at least 2 - 3 years of experience before hiring people. You'll see a lot of the IB programs also want people with IB teaching experience.
2.) I think the majority of foreign run international schools won't care about your country of birth as long as you can be understood by your students. I'd expect you have some accent since you moved at a relatively late age, but strength of accent can vary a lot and often people make assumptions about a person's fluency based on their accent.
I think the bigger issue is that if you work at a Chinese run high school with an international curriculum. I think a number of them do like to hire "foreign looking" teachers for PR reasons (their students' and parents' expectations), not unlike issues relating to Chinese schools hiring ESL teachers. They may not see much difference between hiring you and a locally trained math teacher if they could hire someone with decent English. I think a lot of that will depend on the thinking of the folks doing the hiring.
Two, even if you are hired, I bet they're very likely to treat you as a Chinese employee. I could imagine situations where they try to pay you less than other foreign hires. You'd probably be better equipped to know depending on how well you have maintained your Chinese language skills. I'm sure if you were willing to go different places in China, that one of these schools would hire you, but I think they're generally not great places to work. The pay tends to be lower, professional development is scarce, and the schools is generally far less organized.
Of course, there may be things that you would prefer working in a Chinese-run school since it sounds like you spent much of your early education in one. My question for you would be how much have you acculturated to the US and the US educational system?
So, I agree with Sid, but I'd thought I'd lay it out in a more developed way.
Good luck.
I agree with Sid that you'd do better in the long run if you started teaching in the US for 2 - 3 years. After that amount of time, you would have an easier time finding work at better schools. In this case, by better I mean higher paying jobs with better professional development and better management/organization.
Generally speaking, the foreign-run schools are preferred by the bulk of foreign teachers going to China, but there is a big demand for foreign teachers from Chinese schools running foreign curriculum also. The foreign-run schools are not allowed to teach Chinese nationals. You may know all this given your background, but I think it matters to distinguish between the two for your 2nd question.
1.) I think your chances would be okay to be hired by a Chinese high school using an international curriculum. You might even be able to be hired by an foreign-run international school, but it wouldn't be one of the better ones because they want at least 2 - 3 years of experience before hiring people. You'll see a lot of the IB programs also want people with IB teaching experience.
2.) I think the majority of foreign run international schools won't care about your country of birth as long as you can be understood by your students. I'd expect you have some accent since you moved at a relatively late age, but strength of accent can vary a lot and often people make assumptions about a person's fluency based on their accent.
I think the bigger issue is that if you work at a Chinese run high school with an international curriculum. I think a number of them do like to hire "foreign looking" teachers for PR reasons (their students' and parents' expectations), not unlike issues relating to Chinese schools hiring ESL teachers. They may not see much difference between hiring you and a locally trained math teacher if they could hire someone with decent English. I think a lot of that will depend on the thinking of the folks doing the hiring.
Two, even if you are hired, I bet they're very likely to treat you as a Chinese employee. I could imagine situations where they try to pay you less than other foreign hires. You'd probably be better equipped to know depending on how well you have maintained your Chinese language skills. I'm sure if you were willing to go different places in China, that one of these schools would hire you, but I think they're generally not great places to work. The pay tends to be lower, professional development is scarce, and the schools is generally far less organized.
Of course, there may be things that you would prefer working in a Chinese-run school since it sounds like you spent much of your early education in one. My question for you would be how much have you acculturated to the US and the US educational system?
So, I agree with Sid, but I'd thought I'd lay it out in a more developed way.
Good luck.
Thanks a lot guys!
eion-padraig: I'm fairly acculturated to the US but my root is in China, that's why I want to go back work and live there. Yes I don't really have any preferences of the school, as long as it offers IB program that I can get some experience from, it will be fine. Do you know any Chinese schools in particular that I can have a chance getting in?
eion-padraig: I'm fairly acculturated to the US but my root is in China, that's why I want to go back work and live there. Yes I don't really have any preferences of the school, as long as it offers IB program that I can get some experience from, it will be fine. Do you know any Chinese schools in particular that I can have a chance getting in?
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eion_padraig
- Posts: 408
- Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2010 8:18 pm
One of the problems is that you're not going to finish your credential at a great time to find overseas jobs. The prime hiring season is from December to April for jobs starting in August of the following year. First, you have the schools reluctant to hire people without 2 years of experience, but even those schools that will are probably not excited about hiring someone who hasn't finished their program.
I don't know that I'm knowledgeable enough to direct you towards specific schools that would likely hire you. Frankly, these are the type of schools I've avoided because I've put in my time. Certainly, private Chinese high schools that use international curriculum (AP, IB) could be a starting point. Also public Chinese high schools that use international curriculums (AP, IB). Looking at 3rd tier international schools (foreign run) is another good strategy.
IBO has a search function on their association website which will give you the names of all the schools that use IB in China. That would be a good starting point. Monitoring their websites for job advertisements is a good idea.
Dipont is a company that hires people to work in Chinese schools (my understanding is they are public Chinese schools). The schools they place people in may be famous schools in China, but the treatment of staff still isn't great. Dipont is rather disorganized from what I hear. The advantage is they hire for schools throughout China, and they have a hard time filling all their slots. Be aware that people have accused them of bait and switch with positions. What is good is that organizations like them are still hiring this time of the year.
I'm sure there are other companies like Dipont that you may be able to find out there that do the same thing.
Join TIEonline for access to their database. My subscription just ran out, but there were still job postings at 3rd tier international schools in China and Chinese high schools with international curriculum recently.
If you join the pay site of ISR, you can go looking for the schools with consistently bad reviews, and these places generally have a hard time keeping staff. They're more likely to offer a newbie thinking you won't give them much trouble.
This kind of thing is where guanxi really comes in handy. Do you know anyone who runs one of these Chinese schools that uses an international curriculum? Maybe your uncle's old boss' sister runs a school Suzhou that is looking for people.
Again, by spending a few years teaching in the US, you'll avoid a lot of the crap you'll have to deal with by trying to dive right in. I've also known teachers who started at bottom feeder schools and slowly worked their way up over time.
Good luck.
I don't know that I'm knowledgeable enough to direct you towards specific schools that would likely hire you. Frankly, these are the type of schools I've avoided because I've put in my time. Certainly, private Chinese high schools that use international curriculum (AP, IB) could be a starting point. Also public Chinese high schools that use international curriculums (AP, IB). Looking at 3rd tier international schools (foreign run) is another good strategy.
IBO has a search function on their association website which will give you the names of all the schools that use IB in China. That would be a good starting point. Monitoring their websites for job advertisements is a good idea.
Dipont is a company that hires people to work in Chinese schools (my understanding is they are public Chinese schools). The schools they place people in may be famous schools in China, but the treatment of staff still isn't great. Dipont is rather disorganized from what I hear. The advantage is they hire for schools throughout China, and they have a hard time filling all their slots. Be aware that people have accused them of bait and switch with positions. What is good is that organizations like them are still hiring this time of the year.
I'm sure there are other companies like Dipont that you may be able to find out there that do the same thing.
Join TIEonline for access to their database. My subscription just ran out, but there were still job postings at 3rd tier international schools in China and Chinese high schools with international curriculum recently.
If you join the pay site of ISR, you can go looking for the schools with consistently bad reviews, and these places generally have a hard time keeping staff. They're more likely to offer a newbie thinking you won't give them much trouble.
This kind of thing is where guanxi really comes in handy. Do you know anyone who runs one of these Chinese schools that uses an international curriculum? Maybe your uncle's old boss' sister runs a school Suzhou that is looking for people.
Again, by spending a few years teaching in the US, you'll avoid a lot of the crap you'll have to deal with by trying to dive right in. I've also known teachers who started at bottom feeder schools and slowly worked their way up over time.
Good luck.
If you are willing to go anywhere in China (China is huge and with tons of schools of all tiers) id bet you would be able to find a job without experience if you use all your job searching avenues. Will it be a good job / tier 1 school, prob not but that is irrelevant. You gotta take the best job you can get, what ever / where ever that might be.