Do a Google search on “Teaching English in China” and you will find more than 54 million results listing websites mainly of Chinese job recruiters, TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification schools, English forums such as foreign language and “cultural exchange programs,” that is, glorified recruitment agencies, all of which can gain a lot by convincing Westerners that moving to China to teach spoken English is an opportunity and adventure of a lifetime. While it is generally true that an English as a Foreign Language teacher position can be a good way to subsidize travel expenses to exotic locations around the world, it is completely untrue for someone to suggest that doing so makes sense as a new career. and permanent mid-career. move.
This article will debunk some of the more common myths you will read about teaching English in China and argue that doing so should only be considered by a very limited number of people who meet the criteria outlined below. It is written by an American psychoanalyst who has worked in China since 2003 as a mental health consultant and professor of psychology.
Myth # 1: All Chinese desperately want to learn English and will use it in their daily lives.
China’s educational system was completely reformed in 1979 to realize the goals of the 1978 Chinese Communist Party reform movement, adopted at the Third Plenum of the XI Central Committee, in what is commonly known as the Four Modernizations. These four modernizations were made in the fields of 1) agriculture, 2) industry, 3) technology, and 4) defense and were specifically intended to make China a self-sufficient economic great power in the early 21st century (Wertz, 1998).
Nowhere in these four broad fields will you find English as a foreign language or any of the humanities for that matter. The truth is that English as a foreign language has a very low status as an academic discipline in China. Essentially, it is assigned as a required course of study to freshmen who entered and scored too low on the national college admissions test (Gao Kao) to receive the requested specialization in a more lucrative field.
Unless students have definite plans, as well as considerable funding, to study abroad one day, wish to work for an international company, or intend to marry a foreigner, they will never use a word of English for the rest of their lives. graduate from college. In fact, in a land of 1.3 billion people, Chinese, not English, is the most widely spoken language in the world today. Many of us who have lived and worked in China for years have realized that what the Chinese really want is for the rest of the world to learn Chinese, and that wish could one day come true as the Middle Kingdom continues its rampant. emerge as a world economic power.
Foreign English teachers are hired as competitively as they are to meet a highly resented and hard-disputed national requirement promulgated by the Ministry of Education that requires exposure to a native speaker for all foreign language students. Aside from public schools and universities, the proliferation of private language schools, where the most abuse and exploitation of foreigners occurs, has created an insatiable demand for white faces in the classroom to attract new students and demand much higher tuition rates. on top of what can be charged. only for classes with your Chinese English teachers.
What you need to keep in mind is that because the teaching and learning of English in China is devalued by China’s academic leaders and administrators, the role of the foreign English teacher is de-professionalized: it is limited to facilitating speaking and listening. of the students. skills, with very few exceptions. Whether a foreign professor has a Ph.D. in linguistics with a specialty in second language acquisition methodology or is a recent college graduate with little or no relevant work experience, in the vast majority of cases, each will be assigned to teach precisely the same classes with a salary differential of no more than 700 yuan ($ 102.00) per month.
Myth No. 2: a foreign teacher can live very comfortably on the salary provided and can even save money
The average salary for a foreign English teacher in China, outside of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, is in the range of 4,000 to 6,000 yuan per month ($ 584 to $ 876, respectively) for 14 to 20 hours of face-to-face classes. face-to-face teaching per week (Mavrides, 2009). While it’s true that this salary is up to 70 percent more than the current per capita national income of 1,800 yuan (Economy Watch, 2009), that doesn’t mean much unless you’re willing to live like you’re Chinese.
While it is possible to save up to a third of your typical 5,000 yuan per month salary, you will have to live quite sparingly to do so, which means giving up all Western food and conveniences entirely, and carefully restricting your use of utilities. especially air conditioning. For example, a single can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken sells for $ 3.21 (22 yuan) at a local western grocery store in Guangzhou and that 2-to-1 comparative price ratio is fairly constant across all imported products in China, if you’re even lucky enough to find them (and you won’t outside of the above-mentioned three international Chinese cities). Also, Western brand appliances and personal electronic devices will generally cost as much in China as at home, sometimes a little more, and you will often buy very fancy clones, that is, counterfeit goods that won’t last as long as the genuine items do. .
The reality is that any Westerner who has lived a middle-class existence in his country will barely survive on the typical salary that most foreign oral English teachers receive in China. Even if you deprive yourself enough to save some money, those savings will quickly disappear if you decide to travel or if you become seriously ill (no real health insurance is provided, just accidental injury insurance). Most foreign English teachers in China don’t do it because they don’t have enough of it.
Aside from salary concerns, you should also keep in mind that the “free” accommodation provided to foreign English teachers varies considerably in size and quality, and is more common nowadays where the Chinese working poor live, it is that is, small (580 to 900 square feet), old and dilapidated units in eight-story buildings with no elevators and with hot water available only for showering. You will have to get used to washing your hands, as well as dishes, in cold water, unless you decide to buy water heating units for bathroom and kitchen sinks on your own, and you can plan to get plenty of exercise especially if your apartment is on the eighth floor.
Myth # 3: Teaching English in China is fun, easy, and personally rewarding.
The reality is that teaching English in China is an extremely exhausting and challenging job and, for the most part, it is a thankless job. While students who believe that they will one day use English will have already acquired reasonable speaking and listening skills, most of your students will not be able to understand it at all unless you speak very slowly and use simple vocabulary. Unfortunately, this is not only true for your students, but it will also be the case when you are trying to communicate with your colleagues, administrators, and just about anyone else you come in contact with in China, unless of course that other person is also foreign. .
It is highly unlikely that anyone other than a career EFL / ESL teacher will find the job personally or professionally rewarding, nor will anyone other than an educator with a master’s degree and state teaching certification be able to make a real living from he. and only then teaching at an international school, joint venture program, or western university with a branch in China.
Myth # 4: Every native speaker can and should teach English in China
There are four groups of Westerners for whom teaching English in China may make sense: 1) recent college graduates who wish to study Chinese or gain some travel experience before returning home to resume their real careers; 2) active older people in very good health looking for a short-term adventure (four to six months); 3) retired people looking to stretch their western pensions in an Asian country and, as mentioned above; 4) career teachers of English as a foreign language who will work as directors of schools and programs, or in locations only available to educators with full credentials and licenses.
For anyone else, especially middle-aged and middle-aged people without considerable means, moving to China to teach English is likely to make you an economic prisoner of the Asian system of English as a foreign language – you will be stuck spending the rest of your life teaching. English as a foreign language with no savings, moving from one position to another, perhaps from one country to another, hoping to find greener pastures and forever cursing the day he decided to teach English in China.
Notes
Observatory of the economy (2009). China Income, China National Income. EconomyWatch.com. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.economywatch.com/world_economy/china/income.html.
Mavrides, Gregory (2009). Guide for foreign teachers on life and teaching in China. Middle Kingdom life. ISBN 978-0-578-02423-3
Wertz, Richard R. (2009). Chinese history. China and the four modernizations, 1979-82. Retrieved July 3, 2009, from http://www.ibiblio.org/chinesehistory/contents/01his/c05s03.html.
