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Old 12-20-2006, 06:55 PM
imitation imitation is offline
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Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 3,734
Default Re: Ask Imitation about 2years in China

[ QUOTE ]
Wait a second. Explain the economics of this teaching thing for a bit.
You make US$3000/mon to teach english in Guangzhou? And a rockstar party lifestyle costs US$2000?
Do I have to have any qualifications other than "native english speaker"?
Do I have to know any Chinese?

WTF am I still doing in America?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok heres the thing, making $2k is pretty easy with enough shopping around, $3k actually is probably doing weekend tutoring and stuff at night, I know people who do it but you may get burnt out though remember you will have about 3mths of holidays a year when there is no class or weeks when there are exams etc.

Rockstar lifestyle isn't exactly right but you can party and if you are good at partying you can save alot of money just by making friends with the rich chinese guys who will buy you drinks. But this may bite you in the ass if you go out with them for breakfast after and stuck with a $USD100 bill because they assumed you are baller as them.

Qualifications I think it helps to have TEFL or TEOFL piece of paper or if you have a degree, but again if you play your cards right you can get the same work without any of this just by speaking English.

You do not need to know Chinese, you will never have to use it in the classroom.

I must say that I often tell me teaching friends that this must be the hayday for teaching there is many unskilled basically life drop outs in China now making approx $USD15-20 a 40minute class while the average wage in this big city we live is $USD250/month. Unlike Thailand where once you decide to stay and teach english the companies know they have you by the balls here in China the companies still think they need to pay you big wages semester after semester or you'll run away. This is simply not true for most of the long term teachers who are usually well adjusted to there lifestyle here already.

I think that they will probably wake up to this in the next few years and wages will drop down some.

All this said there are some people who come here from overseas already signing a contract getting paid not much more than Chinese people, so they do rip a few people off as well.
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