It's all a gamble with teaching - high pay/high hours/high expectations. High pay/high qualifications/high expectations. Low hours...you can fill in the rest.

Personal satisfaction is just that. Some people are happy with peanuts, some are never satisfied.

Being realistic and reasonable as well as properly informed is the key to surviving teaching here.

You weren't one of the lucky ones, just one of those who had a positive experience and posted the positive online - not many people do.

Public Schools in China are much better than Training (private) mills, IMO.

This is the reason, you didn't encounter many private mills problems.

At Public Schools in China main goal is to give Chinese students opportunity to encounter 'laowai' from English speaking country. You weren't required to make them pass the English exam test, so in short 'whatever your lesson was, students weren't required to listen or follow you'.

Public schools are less problematic it seems, yes. They provide a public service, they don't sell a product... Same experience as your for me (I was teaching IT engineering): the schools genuinely cared about the students and I was encouraged to try my own ideas for teaching.

However, China being China, things have to be taken with a massive grain of salt:

* The school cared about the students, wanting them to actually learn something rather than just passing a token exam. In practice, it mostly failed because not rocking the boat and saving everyone faces was too strong against candid and feeble attempts to reform.

* The school encouraged me to give real exams to the students, and push them out of their comfort zone. But when the students started to groan ("what, I've to actually work to get a grade ? I don't get points just to attend half of the classes ?"), the school direction was rather pusillanimous in its support. I had to go all alone but thermonuclear on the students to eventually enforce the school will.

9 posts...hmmmm..

I've done the private training center thing for years now. Ther pay is higher than public school positions, but the main reason I could never change jobs is because my in-laws don't want to leave their hometown. I have 2 young kids now, so the higher salary from training schools is a necessity, not greed.

The impression I've got from public schools is that they're exam mills, with plenty of time wasted on indoctrination and group exercises. They are heavy on the Confucian style of learning, i.e. learn-by-rote memorization. People here haven't got a clue how to learn and teach, IMO. I often curse public schools, because the older kids (~8-14) who come to the training center are already exhausted from a 10-hour school day. Not to mention they don't learn independent, critical thinking skills.

So, expectations in training schools are different. There are no exams, so younger students mainly want to play, and expect to be entertained. Older students experience some beginning pressure from school and parents to achieve, so *some* want to learn, others still want to play like 4-year-olds, so it's an awkward balance to maintain. Usually classes get split into a dum-dum class and a "to be no. 1" class.

I improve the kids overall language skills (pronunciation, listening, conversation), but since Confucian-style tests in public school still evaluate language as a discrete set of words and grammar constructs, complaints are inevitable because test scores are not getting higher. Training centers sometimes accommodate to the memorization demands of the public school tests by basically continuing with more of the same memorization in the training center.

There was a pdf about a study done in Shanghai named "The foreign teacher is an idiot." It descriobes the issues in detail, though a bit longwinded and hard to follow. One aspect that persists even into university, is the disregard for oral practice. If you can believe it, Chinese students scoff at oral practice, because they think they're just rehashing words they "learned already".

Long story short: English teaching is a world cultural expectations rather than learning. You will be evaluated by your ability to adhere to stereotypes and provide entertainment. Chinese are becoming increasingly superficial since commercialism was introduced, and your appearance and skincolour are passive traits that Chinese value far too highly as bragging/shame points in their own culture od facesaving.

You can read a story about a black uni teacher who got ousted from his 10+ year job in a Beijing university, because students started disliking him for his skincolour: http://www.tealeafnation.com/2013/07/chinese-raciality-and-black-reality...

If you teach, make sure your goals are practical rather than idealistic. Stick to your contract, and leave if the school doesn't. I do the work to feed my family, and I don't care about the horrendously idiotic stuff that revolves around it anymore. I make students and parents happy, but I realize that it's mostly my light-skinned, blue eyed, bark blonde appearance that ensures satisfaction, and I should just switch off my brain when I go to work, to prevent headaches. I care about those who demonstrate awareness, willingness to learn and other signs of independent thought. I let management and marketing worry about the rest.

Be aware that when you get involved in education, it will become increasingly difficult to objectify behaviour as cultural differences you don't understand. You will be privy to the thought processes or lack thereof that are ingrained in Mainlanders' psyches, and it will lower your regard for locals. Unless you are a sociopath, it will trouble you how you are surrounded by amoral herd animals, and you will realize your vulnerability for looking different on the street. You may occasionally start to feel threatened by locals singling you out, and your reactions to people taking photos and shouting an awkward "hello" at you will get worse.

Public schools are better in that they will expect you to teach and not to entertain students, public schools infrastructure and materials can range from so so to awful due to the cuts in local governements subsidies. Public universities can also have outdated materials, but if you are a caring teacher it will be an honor to work at a university, even located in a third tier city.

Training centers and private schools are selling a product "foreigners whose mothertongue is English", they are companies expecting to make profits and for that they need to retain students, thus it's not in their personal interest if students achieve English fluency after one semester, because then those students will leave.

The absolute best places to teach at in China are local branches of Hong Kong or Macau institutions, but they are scarce and always require teaching qualifications, however if you land a job with one of them it will be few teaching hours and very high salary, but they expect a lot from you. Also watch out, 99% of the self proclaimed "from HK" school are not.

I have had good and bad experiences. I would say... overall... the best experiences would be in international schools or universities. Training centers REALLY depend on the center director as they can screw things up.

I really like teaching Chinese that are around 20+. Just more to talk about and feels more respectable. 

I understand the problems in the education system in China, but that wasn't really what I was asking in my question. My question is are people who do the dancing bear act employed legally and in public schools? I know it happens all the time in the training centers to people who are not legally employed. I'm not asking for people to admit their working illegally, I'm just curious to know if this is common in the public schools who hire their teachers legally.

I really did not like teaching english. It's very repetitive and I think there is no other option than to play lots of games to break up drilling. It is bloody hard to come up with games that are educational all the time. By the end of the year I was sick of coming up with games. Outside of the big cities the standard of parenting is even worse and a lot of the kids were dicks. I think if you discover you re really into teaching then you might like this job better but it is a really weird form of teaching due to all the circumstances. Also could not be assed planning lessons on my free time and thinking about my classes constantly but no other option. Teaching a subject such as maths or biology might be better. I suppose jobs that anyone can get usually suck.

At this point I've given up on meaningful ESL work in the mainland. I'm simply going though the motions do get a finance visa and go back to America with the wife. I've doubled my salary in 4 years, but I'm at the top of my  game or hours worked....There is nothing left in dongbei that pays better....

--Once I have a kid in the US high school system I may return to China, ater I have an IB/AP certification,

I teach at a middle school.  Legally.  The overall level of the students is very low, primarily as the students tend to be children of poor migrant workers who are chasing the big oil bucks.  However, some students are quite good.  Motivated.  These are the ones to whom I teach.  I don't play games; I teach them English, if they want to learn.  Because of my personality and lighthearted nature, combined with a desire to succeed, I find that the better students enjoy the class and can come along with me.  And they do.  I'm usually happy the see them engaged in what we're doing.  I give them a written and spoken test at end of each semester and have found that results are tending to improve, year on year.  I put this down to me getting better as I go along.  I've taken to posting test results up (top 50%, 25%, 10%) around the school and this has a positive, knock-on effect.  

I enjoy teaching but it can become repetitive.  However, it keeps me in beer money.

From my experience, no it hasn't been that bad but it certainly can be. My first job was at a training center where there were a lot of dancing bears but there were also teachers with other styles. Basically, as long as students were satisfied, the center was satisfied. It wasn't the best job but there are way worse places out there. And it was fully legal, paid on time and no bullshit. 

I have now moved on to a more serious job where I work a lot harder and more hours and the students have more specific goals (learning how to write specific kinds of essay, get x score on TOEFL etc.) and I find the work more stimulating, significantly higher paying and more meaningful in terms of the impact on student lives. It's rewarding to see the difference I've made when one of my students successfully transitions to life America for example. I've had to deal with a ton of bullshit along the way but overall I'm pretty satisfied with my job on most days. 

i've been working in both public and training school.. Bad and good experiences!! 2 training school., 1st in Shandong province: very bad experience because i didn't have anything to do except on saturday 2 classes and sunday 2 classes and the whole week  just sit in the office.!! The second training school in shanghai, my current job,  i have classes everyday and a lot of work to do.There is real teaching!!! One public in Rugao school they asked me to let the kids watch Tom and Jerry everyday... so no teaching!! the second one in xuyi was to teach them but only things in the book ( Reading) I think it all depends which province you are working!!! what the parents expect and how the school deals with the parents. 

It blows harder than an elephant on a prune juice diet, but it pays the bills.

Depends how much you enjoy teaching and whether or not you have a student loan to repay back home. Teachers are the lowest-paid expats in China.

Depends how much you enjoy teaching and whether or not you have a student loan to repay back home. Teachers are the lowest-paid expats in China.

I have no real problem with teaching.  It can be a respectable job, pays the bills and gives you have a chance to make a difference in some young people's lives. The biggest problem is doing this in China can get you trapped career wise, especially if and when you return home.   

teaching  in  china    is  very  rewarding.  However  there  are  also  some  bad  experiences. The  training  centres  are  mostly  complicated  because  proffessional  lesson  plan  is   needed,  but  public  schools  are  so  relaxing. Teaching is  fun  and  a  way  of  making  money,  i  enjoy  the  process,  and i  think  teaching  in  china  is  a  good  carrear, I  hope  things  go  well  for  you  guys.