Questions about teaching in China

[Kim-saru]

When I was at the airport in Guangzhou, I met a man that was just returning home from a 2 year teaching job from Xi'an. I couldn't believe that they would even let him teach, he had a really bad stutter and a lisp.

 

 

The BS/BA is/was a requirement for getting a work (Z-Visa) visa though. But the laws are always changing. When I left, I heard that they were only giving work visa's to teachers with a degree in Education or English. But again, that changes all the time... I was there 3 years and never had a work visa (but I came minutes from getting in trouble... The police came to the school asking for me... The school told me to stay home and told the police they had never heard of me).

 

Actually, in Chengdu, it was my experience that you didn't even need to be an native English speaker. I knew lots of teachers from France, Holland, Israel, India, and other places. I think that if you look western (and the whiter, the better), you can get a job. Many of the European's that were teaching, had terrible English... I heard about this one guy from XinJiang that told a school he was Turkish (they really do look Turkish). He got a job, with a Foreign Teachers salary. After a month, they asked to see his passport. At that point, he had to leave, since he was actually Chinese.