New comers need more help from agencies
Teaching is becoming a popular trend for those who want to find work in China. Some foreigners start exploring a new country like China at their 20s, some at their 50s, and to have a better understanding of a whole new country, most choose to work specifically teach in the country. Quite a few of them are new to teach in China or even abroad. At this situation, they need more instructions from the agencies that help them find ESL teaching jobs. Our agency is always happy to offer any help if we can, of course we hope you trust us and sign with one of our schools. I gaurantee we will do our best to answer any question you may have about teaching in China and try to help with visa things.
For those who have come to teach english in China, there won’t be any big problem during their stay in China. They know most basic rules from their previous experience in China. That helps a lot with their future employment. For those who never came to China, there may be many problems while they are teaching in China.
This may be the biggest problem, because if one can not adapt to a new environment, he or she will not have a smooth working experience or good relatioship with cooworkers. Then he or she will feel unhappy and lonely teaching in China. Chinese people are shyer than western people. They actually like to make friends with foreigners, but they are usually passive. Most Chinese behave indifferent to foreigners, they are not as enthusiastic as foreigners especialy when they meet strange foreigners. If you ask them for help, they will be happy to offer. Chinese are also indirect and more torelant, so Chinese schools prefer their teachers to behave like this way. They don’t like to express their real feelings when they think they should not. When you could not understand why it is, you may contact your agent and they will give you some feedback from the school, which will help you become better at your position. Agencies could help explain something when necessary, could help balance the relationship between a school and a foreign teacher. We always hope our foreign teachers enjoy their working life here in China, so we could build long-term cooperation with them.
- Language barrier
When a foreigner goes to teach in a different country, she or he will have to face the language barrier. Of course, studying Mandarin is the best way, so one will be able to solve any problem on their own. When a foreigner comes to teach in China, they need to consider how to rent an apartment if her or his employer doesn’t provide. At this moment, you could ask your agency to communicate with the school to help you find an apartment. We also helped a few foreign teachers get the housing allowance in advance, and arrange everything well before the teacher arrives. About the airport pickup, agencies also need to talk with the employer. Our agency provides Mandarin lessons, which could help you have a better life here in China.
- Visa issue
Visa is a very complicated thing in some foreigners’ eyes. Some even give up teaching in China just because of the long Z visa process. Agencies are always patient to explain everything. Agents have extensive experience with visa things, they deal with visa every day for different foreign teachers or schools indirectly. They know the different visa policies in different provinces, sometimes they could remid schools of the policy when schools are not clear. Our agency always prefer to confirm about visa things before we schedule an interview, so we don’t have to waste a lot of time on visa when some troubles can be avoided. Our agency will tell the foreign teachers the whole process of getting a work visa, and how long it roughly takes, and provide some sample documents done by other teachers, so they know what kind of documents they will get, mainly authentications of the documents from a Chinese Embassy. Our agency also provide business and student visa service. We can help apply for both visas if one pays.
In conclusion, those who come to teach in China for the first time should have better connection with agencies. They could get a lot of useful information for the agencies. There is one more important thing to mention. When you leave a school, please remember to ask for all the documents you should get, like recommendation letter, release letter and the cancellation of the work permit. These will make a big difference on your future employment.