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Q: Do Beijing English schools prefer British English or American English?
12 years 26 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - Beijing
American English is typically prefered over British English. However, if you are British (and you can speak without sounding like a pickled football hooligan) it shouldn't hinder your search for a teaching position too badly.
steve0sha:
So where do you get your information that American English is better? If you ever wanted to learn the purest form of the English Language it would be from England.
Xpat.John:
haha. Everyone knows that Americans invented English. After all, we have over 200 years of history!
I'm not sure about Being English specifically, but they generally will prefer whatever accent you don't have, merely as a bargaining tool. I'm north American, and me and a British colleague often laugh about being fed the exact same lines about our respective "inferior" accents by Chinese would can barely be understood in English whatsoever.
That’s a very good question. In my experience, they don’t really care a lot about it, as long as you are a native speaker, you don’t have a strong accent and you have a Caucasian appearance. Of course, their ideal candidates should also posses teaching experience and hold a bachelors degree. Speak Chinese is also a great plus.
well i am from uk, to be honest with you it is not beijing everybody loves to speak american english in china as in British society we emphasis lot over grammar where the usa english is not and secondly chinese also love to roll a word like amercians where britishers are not.
and last but not the least chinese are dam impressed by USA society or let me say like that they are the victims of Americanisation.
There are a few noticeable differences in American English and British English. The post above mine put the word "Americanisation" and in America we say "Americanization". On my computer the british variant of the word Americanization has a red line underneath it which indicates to me that the word is incorrectly spelled.
I've noticed a lot of people in China have a british accent when speaking English, but then again it could be just a show to try to look impressive. If you are teaching somebody that would like to go to the states to continue their education they would prefer American English and vice versa with British English.
Either way if you can learn both you can distinguish between the two and that should help you out if you were to travel either to the UK or to the USA.
