Money Money Money, Must be Funny, In a Chinese World – Part 1: Private v Public
It’s said that you reap what you sew. I guess, if you adopt that attitude, this article becomes totally irrelevant, but bear with me. During my two and a half years in China, I worked solely for private institutions. Firstly, a private kindergarten and then a private language school. Like any job, both had their upsides and downsides. Thankfully more ups than downs but the single most annoying factor in both those jobs involved a tiny, little sheet of pink paper – money. Money is everything in China. Those who don’t have it, desperately need more and those who have too much of it, desperately want more. It can be said that this is true of the entire planet but I found almost every single decision that was made, was made because of money. If you have a shop or a bar or a restaurant, it’s obvious that this is going to be your main goal, but when it comes to childrens’ welfare and education, honestly, it’s very hard to stomach. This is something you need to bear in mind, very closely, when thinking about where you might work in China.
In this, the first of a two-part article, I want to set the scene a little and look at the two main types of education available in China and what you can expect from both sectors. The first is one that most of us will be used to as previous students – public education. Teaching in a public elementary, middle, high school or even university has many upsides. Firstly, the holidays are fantastic. You will probably get between, at least, 6-8 weeks paid vacation a year, if not more. This gives you plenty of opportunity to travel or recover, if you’re absolutely knackered from teaching and want to stay indoors. This is particularly relevant in the summer months when most of China is hotter than the devil’s armpit. During your extensive holidays, you can also take on the numerous opportunities for extra work, not necessarily limited to just teaching. When someone such as myself, who is easily 100kg (on a good day) gets offered modelling and photo shoot activities, there’s going to be many more opportunities for you – the average Joe.
It is likely that many of your public school students will have had English vocabulary, grammar and sentence structure hammered into them by their Chinese (English Language) teacher in a way so boring and so repetitive that your students may want to jump out the window. You will usually support their learning, rather than introduce drastically new content, so your classes are a way of making English fun and it’s a good opportunity for you to have some fun, play lots of games and generally help your students relieve of the massive stress that they’ll most definitely be under from their other studies. For Chinese students, unfortunately, most of their young and future lives are impacted by the GaoKao – the university entrance exam – as students are put under huge pressure to prepare for it from as young as three years old and in extreme cases, younger. It’s believed that how successful you are in the GaoKao will be how successful you are in life – the difference between a blue collar or white collar life.
The downsides to teaching in public schools are that firstly, you will get paid considerably less. Maybe even as much as 50% less compared to private education, if not more. As I mentioned previously, however, you will have much more spare time to work extra, for often quite a lucrative hourly rate. With a 9-4/5 schedule this is very easy to do, but if, like me, prefer to have one job, one schedule, one pattern, it’s maybe not the best option for you. Another factor is class size. You’ll most likely be teaching classes of, at least, 30 kids and usually more. This can be difficult, especially for first time teachers and although you’re encouraged to make the classes interesting, there will always be students who are under so much stress or, who, simply don’t like English, that will treat it as a 45-60 minute break time. Due to the sheer size of your classes, it can also be difficult, but not impossible, to make a meaningful impact on the English development of your students. Chinese (English) classes are usually based around repetition and memorisation with no real understanding of actual spoken English, as students are taught to pass reading and writing exams and no more. This is due, in part, to the sheer size of some classes – I have heard of classes of 60 pupils before – and this is something you have to factor into your lesson planning and expectations.
On the other side of the fist, you have private education. Private education is probably the most accessible option to you in terms of TEFL employment, not just in China, but around the world. Simply because, they can afford to pay you. On paper and sometimes in reality, private employment can seem like a pretty sweet deal. Firstly, your salary will be higher. How much higher, depends either on how much experience you have, what country you’re from or simply, how well you can big yourself up in an interview and subsequent negotiations. The latter is something I am god awful at. If companies were to drive a hard bargain, I would probably end up working for a Big Mac and a bag of magic beans every month. However, turnover of teachers can be high, so another advantage is, it will, thus, be easier for you to gain employment, practically at a company of your choosing. If you’re light skinned and a native speaker, you can start booking your holidays now. (Please note: this is not an opinion of mine, just the reality of the situation in certain parts of China) Bonuses are often high for private education, including, sometimes, both an airfare reimbursement and a contract completion payment, not to mention smaller bonuses for extra business you may bring in during the year. Don’t get too excited about those, though. Most language schools will have you working with smaller groups of kids/adults, giving you more opportunity, in theory, to build meaningful relationships with your students and potentially see greater growth in their English development. As well as this, you will often be required to teach students of different ages. This can be very challenging at stages, as all age groups learn differently, never mind the variations within each age group, however, if your long term goal is to become a better teacher, this is probably the way to do it. Throw yourself in at the deep-end and hope that the sharks only nibble at you. At one point, I was teaching from ages 2-33 and while it’s difficult to plan for such a gulf in age, it can give you a rest and a fresh perspective, especially if 80% of your students are under seven years old.
But, with every silver lining, comes a deep, dank cloud and if you wind up in the wrong company for the year that your contract will probably be, you’re in for a tough time. Whilst the pay can be fantastic, the hours and especially the holidays, are not. In my last job, I was lucky to get between 4-5 weeks off but I must stress that I was very lucky. This was nowhere near enough as a teacher, but it could’ve been worse. During my first job, I had about 2-3 weeks of national holidays and that was it. A year of working 7.45-5.30 every day was particularly difficult by the end. Everyone is different, but you should ask yourself, do I really want to make this much money when, realistically, I won’t have the time to spend it? As mentioned, the working hours can be difficult as well, especially on the weekends when you could be lucky to get a lunch break in between nine hours of class. Often, you will be accommodating after-school schedules, so you will probably get lie-ins and tourist free Monday/Tuesday weekends but you should really kiss goodbye to your social life. No-one wants to meet for dinner or coffee at 9.30 after you’ve finished work. It’s the pub or nothing, which we all know, often creates more problems than it solves. With a high salary also comes high expectation and the determination for employers to make as much use of your time as possible. With this in mind, what you consider an appropriate use of your time could be considerably different from your employer. Whereas you might see extra time as a way to develop your lesson plans and make lessons and activities which will further engage your current students, it’s unlikely that your manager will have the same opinion. But, more on that next week.
