100,000,000 dollars!

get more detailed information from the school first, it sounds very vague what they are offering in terms of teaching hours.

are they offering the correct visa?

what salary are they offering?

you say that you are new to ESL, so does that mean you have no prior teaching experience?

there are so many variables to take into account if you are a newbie, salary not the least.

What Sorrel said. Try again. 

One - Million  - Dollars...mwhahahahaha!

You also haven't stated: your L1, your passport, your ancestry, your looks, your other qualifications, who/what you'll be teaching.

All of these are important factors when negotiating pay!!

It's not how much per month that matters but per class. Make sure your contract states the exact number of classes and that you will get 200 or more per extra class.

Double post, admin delete.

The China Foreign Teacher's Union (CFTU) & The Leader state that you should always ask the salary ahead of time.

When they say 16,000 RMB you tell them to cut it in half

When they say 8,000 RMB you tell them to cut it in half again.

4,000 RMB is the MOST ANY HALFWAY DECENT person should be making.

Studies show that teachers making more than such are liable to speak out of turn, have impure thoughts and even become the victims of SCAMS.

Don't believe the hype!

4,000 RMB/mth and NO MORE!

www.chinaforeignteachersonion.com/

Make sure that the following points are in the contract.
* You work under a Z visa (no work experience in the field ? Your employer better have some networking to get you a Z visa, then)
* You get paid based on much classes you give, not per month.
* Clarify the situation about office hours. They should explicitly whether there is office hours or not.

* How much : which city ? what students ? to teach them what precisely ?

The idea is that any potential loophole and grey zone will be exploited. Overtime ? Yeah, so many things will be filled under "overtime work". Don't even bother coming to China on tourist visa, under the premise "we will get you a Z visa later". It's a red flag.

For Qingdao I'd ask for Y12,000 or Y15,000. ( Just judging from the cost of living there. )

as noted above, obviously the supply of a 'Z' visa is the first obvious factor: if the correct documents are not sent to you in your home country, decline the offer

other questions to be asked:

• Accommodation - who pays for utilities/maintenance issues etc (you have this one sorted)

   

  1) Salary - amount, date and method of payment
  2) Classroom hours - is a 'teaching hour' 45 or 60 minutes?
  3) Location of classes with respect to accommodation: how far are you expected to travel.
  4) Discipline within the classroom and staff support
  5) An outline of proposed curriculum - I have had universities tell me 'make them love English'  LOL

  This also helps in preparing materials to bring from your home country.
  6) Responsibilities outside the classroom. 

• 7) Training supplied?
  8) Vacation – Paid / unpaid?
  9) Insurance
  10) Allowances - travel, meals, living, etc.
  11) End of year bonus
  12) Other benefits
  13) Payment of medical insurance 

  14) the names of other teachers for testimonials

   

  most of these things should be included CLEARLY in the contract 

  avoid fuzziness

Its an atypical job offer. that should be a warning in itself. only offering 48 base hours per month = extremely fishy. is the school struggling? if so you don t want to be there. more likely they are just trying to find somebody gullible to do more work for less money. 25 hours teaching hours per week, no office hours, 12000 rmb without apartemnt or 10000 rmb plus apartment. this is minimum. personally id want more, qingdao is a richer city. unlike other jobs experience counts for less in the esl world. u dont need to go for a low offer just because you have no experience. demand exceeds supply. find a good offer not this one. unless you want to teach part time and learn chinese might be alright.

Another BS question. You state no important details and they would not ask you what salary you're expecting without offering a number. Who waits until after they get a job offer to research salary expectations? 

Try again

I agree with Engteachted. This is a silly question. Go and look in the jobs section and you can figure this question out for yourself. If you have no qualifications, no experience, aren't white, aren't a native speaker then you can expect as low as 6,000 RMB a month. If you are white, a native speaker, have experience and have a degree then you can expect anywhere between 12,000 to 20,000 RMB a month. The bigger cities will pay more but have a higher cost of living. You want a free apartment as well - and a good one at that.

I might be able to help you.  PM me.

48 hours per month... Sounds ok for 5-6 at university or public school deep in mainland, but they say you'll work only at the weekends that shows they are training school, and as all of us know training schools always change schedules, call you in the morning and say you'll have class in 1 hour...  Be ready to work at least 80 hours per month, and they'll try to bargain about salary.

English first in Heibei province offers 6,5k for natives as well as for "whites"

Qingdao is pretty big, so you should be able to get 12-15k for fulltime in a private training center. Unis and other public institutions offer less, though the hours are less too. although FT's are a vital part of their school, most schools will not increase your salary accordingly (so, if your demand exceeds their limit, they won't hire you no matter how dire their need). Schools collectively keep the FT expenses down this way but if you're good, you might get a higher offer from another school. Aim for high base salary, and don't be swayed by promised bonuses. Schools will offer 7k base salary, but advertise it as 25k/month, due to alleged overtime and demo class bonuses. Bonuses are not all myth, but employers and recruiters will both exaggerate.

Be mindful of your contract. Everything must be assumed to be NOT in order until you have read it carefully.
1. Think of home-work travel time, public & western holidays and your/their ability to alter the schedule, take days off, how heavily they penalize your salary for being sick or late (NEVER accept a contract that reduces salary based on performance, as it is a subjective criterion that will be exploited. don't let them sneak it in later on, either. if you perform poorly they can always fire you, but never let them dock your pay)
2. classes (they may try to confuse by mixing up teaching hours with clock hours; 45 & 60 min, respectively),
3. class locations (all in one place, or all over the place?), excursions and whether they think it's fine to release you in the middle of nowhere at the end of a workday,
4. multiple clock-in and clock-out per day (can be exhausting in combo with long travel times),
5. the duties of teaching assistant in class (don't teach youngsters with no assistant unless you want to get assaulted by a gang of minors), sometimes even uni students need an L1 assistant to discipline them or they will revert to touchy-feely disruptive children in the presence of the "fun" foreigner.
6. office hours (you may be expected to teach on the spot, but better institutions provide materials to form a lesson curriculum and the time to do so).
7. read the termination clause in detail,
8. check their ability to provide a visa (school will outright lie to you; you suffer the most if caught teaching illegal, and police check more in big cities) by talking with other FT staff if any,
9. be very clear about payment times and don't accept more than 'payment on 15th' for previous month's salary and no more than a week's delay before threatening to resign or you will be taken advantage of.
10. keep in mind that if they offer to pay your plane ticket expenses upon completion of a year, you might get screwed when you leave. insurances provided by schools are rare. opt for a living allowance and housing outside school campus if possible, to preserve your privacy.

Things go very differently from what you might have expected from your own school experience back home. You are more entertainer than teacher, and will be judged by appearance and entertainment value, and may feel de-invested as an educator. Sitting on a chair behind a desk will mark you as lazy, and you'll soon receive instructions to "Stand up, more exciting, closer to the students, high five them." No amount of outrage or persuasiveness will change any of this, since Chinese culture is all about appearances and impressions, not about substance. But staff should be willing to do the minimum to make your job bearable (like having to say something about kids who hit and grope you, instead of joining the parents in passively looking on with a happy smile). Threaten to leave if certain minimum standards are not met. This will be later on after you're starting their routine. Don't demand too much, and you will be disliked but not hated. Over time, appreciation of your reliability, patience and experience should mitigate most of the dislike. Befriending Chinese is difficult enough due to different interests, so don't expect to be close with any of the staff.