Do a Google search on “Teaching English in China” and what to see, is more than 54 million websites listing results primarily from China recruiters, teaching TEFL (English as a Foreign Language) certification forums EFL schools, and ” cultural exchange, “ie, recruitment will be glorified, much to win, to the West traveled to China to teach English is spoken convince an opportunity and the adventure of their lives. While it is usually the case that a job teaching EFL may be a good way to subsidize the cost of his trips to exotic places around the world, it is quite disingenuous to suggest that someone who is good sense as a new and move permanent mid-career.
This article demystify some of the most common myths that you read English teaching in China and will argue that to do so should, by a very limited number of people who meet the established criteria will be considered below. It is an American psychoanalyst who has worked in China since 2003, written as a mental health consultant and professor of psychology.
Myth No. 1: All Chinese are desperate to learn English and they in their daily lives
China’s education system was completely restructured in 1979 to achieve the movement of the Communist Party of China’s reform of 1978, adopted at the third plenum of the 11th CCC, in what is commonly as the “four modernizations”. These four modernizations “were in the areas of 1) Agriculture, 2) industry, 3) technology, and 4) the defense and were designed specifically to China a great economic power and autonomy from the beginning 21st century (Wertz, 1998) .
Nowhere among these four major areas, see English as a foreign language or humanities that question. The truth is that English as a foreign language has a very low status as an academic discipline in China. It is primarily as a compulsory course for new students, who lost badly to the entrance of the National Academies (Gao Kao) their central demand in a lucrative field preserved.
If students have specific projects – and substantial funding – to study abroad one day, hoping for an international company, working or planning to marry a foreigner, they are never a word of English for the rest of their lives after graduation. In fact, in a country with 1.3 billion people, Chinese, not English is the language spoken today in the world. Many of us lived and worked in China for years have become clear that what the Chinese really want is for the rest of the world to learn Chinese – and wished I could happen one day when the Middle Kingdom continues its unbridled growth as a global economic power.
English teachers are recruited as foreign competition, as they fill are a very experienced and highly competitive national regulations promulgated by the Ministry of Education mandates that exposure to native speakers of foreign languages for all students. In addition to public schools and universities, the proliferation of private schools – which produce the greatest abuse and exploitation of foreign – has an insatiable demand for white faces in the classroom in order to attract new students and create orders from higher tuition fees well above what is for the classes with their Chinese teachers in the English language for free.
note what you should do is that because the teaching and learning of English in China devalued by the University authorities of the People’s Republic of China and the directors, the role of foreign English teachers is professionalized is: It is limited to facilitating students speaking and listening, with some exceptions. Whether a foreign teacher with a PhD in linguistics with a focus on language teaching second acquisition or a college graduate with professional experience little or no importance in most cases, each be specifically dedicated to education the same classes with a salary differential of more than 700 yuan ($ 102.00) per month.
Myth No. 2: A foreign teacher can expect to live very comfortably on the salary and can even save money
The average salary of an English teacher abroad in China – outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou – in the range of 4000-6000 yuan per month ($ 584 to $ 876, respectively) for 14-20 hours face-to-face instruction per week (Mavrides, 2009). While this salary is 70 percent more than the current national income per capita of 1,800 yuan (Economy Watch, 2009), this does not mean much if you are willing to live like you were Chinese.
save Although you can have up to one third of your typical salary of 5000 yuan per month, you have to be very modest living to do, a complete waiver of all food and Western comforts, and limiting carefully consider your use of the public services, particularly air conditioning . For example, a single box of cream chicken Campbell sells for $ 3.21 (22 yuan) in a local grocery Western Guangzhou and the ratio of prices compared from February to January is relatively constant in all goods imported into China, if you still lucky enough to find them all (and you are not outside of China, the three aforementioned international cities). In addition, Western-brand appliances and personal electronic devices usually cost in China than they do at home, sometimes a little more, and you will often buy sophisticated clones, ie products fakes that last is not nearly as long as the real Articles do.
The reality is that all Westerners who has lived a bourgeois life, at home, offered little to the typical salary to survive the most foreign oral English teacher in China. Even if you self-denial enough to save a little money, these savings will disappear quickly if you are traveling or if you become seriously ill (real health insurance is not intended to decide only the accidental damage insurance). Most foreign English teachers in China in the moonlight and not because they do not get enough of it.
concerns In addition to the salary, you should also be aware that “free” accommodation for foreign English teachers are provided vary widely in size and quality, and is the most typical today, what the poor live Chinese work, ie, small (580-900 square feet ), old, dilapidated buildings and units in the eight floors without elevator and hot water for the shower. They are used to get washing hands and dishes in cold water, if you decide to water heater for the bathroom sink and the purchase at its own expense, and you can move a lot yourself, especially if your home is located on the eighth floor plan .
Myth No. 3: Teaching English in China is fun, easy and personally rewarding
The reality is that teaching English in China is very tiring and difficult work, and for most it is a thankless task. While students of English they can one day use to believe, already have a reasonable speaking and listening, to understand most of your students not to be in a position that all acquired when you speak slowly and use simple vocabulary. Unfortunately, this is true not only for your students, but also the case if you had with colleagues, administrators are trying to communicate, and just about everyone else you come in contact with China, then, of course, that other person is a foreigner.
It is highly unlikely that someone other than his career EFL / ESL teachers, the work is rewarding personally or professionally, or have to find someone, but a teacher with a master’s degree and state teaching certificate in a position to make a real life to her – and then only by teaching at an international school, a program of joint venture or a university in the west with an office in China.
Myth No. 4: Any native speaker can and must teach English in China
There are four groups of westerners who taught English in China, can sense: a) recent graduates who want to learn Chinese and make collect experience before you go home in order to travel their own career, 2 CV), active seniors in good Health on the lookout for an adventure of short duration (five fifty-six months), three pensioners), which enhance their pensions from the West in an Asian country and, as mentioned earlier, 4) Teachers EFL career is in school and program managers or to work in places is available only fully accredited and licensed trainers.
For someone else, especially middle-aged people in the middle career without significant resources, traveled to China to be to teach English most likely make you a prisoner of the Asian EFL economic system: you put the rest of your life teaching English as a foreign language, spend no savings can be found from position to position, perhaps a country in the hope of greener pastures and decided to never curse day, teach English in China.
